EDITORIAL: New finance minister

Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii resigned for health reasons, and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama handpicked his deputy, Naoto Kan, as Fujii's successor.

Kan is well versed in the budget bill through his work ironing out differences among Cabinet ministers over a proposed children's allowance and provisional gasoline tax rates during the compilation process of the fiscal 2010 budget last year. He is also known as an expert on policy matters.

With less than two weeks before the start of the ordinary Diet session, the prime minister is counting on Kan to step in and make himself immediately useful.

The responsibility of the finance minister in this administration is extremely grave. Many ambitious policies that require huge amounts of public funds were incorporated in the Democratic Party of Japan's manifesto for last year's Lower House election.

Which policies should be included in the budget and to what extent? How should revenue sources be secured? How can the government cancel or cut down on policies that do not require immediate implementation?

The finance minister will have to make difficult adjustments within the government to answer these questions.

The task was not easy even for Fujii, a veteran minister who was a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat and headed the ministry under the administrations of Morihiro Hosokawa and Tsutomu Hata.

Until the DPJ came to power, the government had been virtually run under the initiative of bureaucrats. Fujii's comment that he was exhausted is understandable given that politicians are now expected to make all the decisions.

Fujii's resignation also underscores the difficulties and pressure on politicians in taking the initiative.

From now, the responsibility weighs heavily on Kan. Although he has been at the center of the Cabinet as deputy prime minister and state minister in charge of national policy, he did not actively give direction to policies or make adjustments within the administration.

That may have to do with his touchy relationship with Hatoyama and DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa, or because Kan is concerned about where he will stand in the post-Hatoyama administration.

But he can no longer remain inactive.

As finance minister, Kan is expected to pass the fiscal 2010 budget bill in the Diet and adopt economic and fiscal policies that can pull the economy out of its doldrums. He will also have to compile a supplementary budget if the need arises.

The Hatoyama administration has faced a number of difficult situations, both in foreign and domestic policies, in which it could not make a decision. One of them is the pending problem of where to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture.

The administration is also under fire for being pushed around by its junior coalition partners, the People's New Party and the Social Democratic Party.

The situation is attributed to the prime minister's lack of leadership and the functional failure of "Team Hatoyama," which supports him. Kan and Hatoyama jointly established the DPJ, and the two men have no other choice but to remember their starting point and join hands to rebuild the administration under "Hato-Kan" cooperation.

Yoshito Sengoku, state minister in charge of government revitalization and civil service reform, will double as state minister in charge of national policy to replace Kan. Sengoku will also have a heavier role as he is expected to play both offense and defense in deciding the framework of the economic and financial systems in addition to cutting wasteful spending.

Unless this team can work effectively, the double-tier structure of the administration to rely on Ozawa to make policy decisions will advance. Moreover, the weakening of the administration's centripetal force will be inevitable.

Can the change of finance minister serve as an opportunity for the administration to rebuild itself? The real worth of the "Hato-Kan Cabinet" will be put to the test.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 7