Only a month remains before the current Diet session ends (June 16). Although the Diet passed the fiscal 2010 budget March 24 in the fifth-fastest time of the postwar era, deliberations on other important bills have stalled.
These bills are related to strengthening the functions of the administration and important policy measures such as postal reform revision. Because the Upper House election is scheduled for July, it is difficult to extend the Diet session. As the Diet session approaches the end, some in the Democratic Party of Japan call for handling Diet affairs in a more forceful manner. But ramming bills through the Diet will deepen people's distrust of the party. A bill to strengthen control of personnel affairs for national servants has already been rammed through the Lower House.
The stalled Diet deliberations are attributable to the DPJ's failure to agree to the opposition's call to redress the money-politics problem. Although DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa is ready to speak in a closed session of the Lower House's Political Ethics Council about his political funds scandal, the DPJ may need to make more concessions to get the Diet moving.