EDITORIAL: Local political strife

A couple of influential local government chiefs have made high-profile political moves after clashing with their assemblies.

Osaka Governor Toru Hashimoto, who has been at loggerheads with the prefectural assembly over issues like the relocation of the prefectural government office, set up a local political party dubbed Osaka Ishin no Kai last month.

Hashimoto is proposing to turn Osaka Prefecture into a metropolitan government like Tokyo's through administrative consolidation involving the cities of Osaka and Sakai. His first goal is to secure a majority for his new party in the two cities' councils in the unified local elections next spring.

In Nagoya, Mayor Takashi Kawamura created a local political party, Genzei Nippon, after the city council rejected his proposal for a permanent municipal tax cut, which he had promised in an election.

In an apparent move to control the city council, Kawamura is calling on Nagoya citizens to exercise their right to have the assembly dissolved for a fresh election.

These battles have their roots in the system in which local government chiefs, who have the power to manage the executive branch, and local assemblies, which have the power to decide on policies, are both elected directly by local residents.

In other words, both the local government heads who are pushing their policy proposals and the local assemblies trying to block them can claim to have public support.

Hashimoto proposed a change to this system at a meeting of the central government's task force to promote regional sovereignty. He called for the creation of a political appointment system that allows governors and mayors to recruit local assembly members to senior positions at the local government.

The idea is to have local assemblies share the responsibility of managing the executive branch.

The advisory council on reform of local administration set up by Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi is also mapping out a new future for local assemblies.

These efforts are aimed at addressing issues related to decentralization. But underlying these moves is distrust of local assemblies.

A surprisingly large number of local assemblies are complacent with their privileged statuses, negligent of reform and divorced from the public. The new parties of the local chiefs are actually attacks against the noxious sump of local politics.

A local assembly is supposed to act like an opposition party in checking the executive branch while serving as the legislature. The rubber-stamp local legislature that was once common is an affront to democracy.

To people who now expect such docility in local legislature, however, confrontation between a local government chief and the assembly may seem to hinder efficient management of the executive branch.

But this is how the checks and balances system works, and dissenting local assemblies should be regarded as signs of the evolution of democracy in this country.

Dispersion of power is an essential principle for strengthening democracy. A local political party led by a governor or a mayor could lead to the emergence of a dictatorial political leader with enormous power.

One way to end a feud between a local government head and the assembly is to hold an election, but only after the two sides make serious efforts to reach an agreement.

Both local government chiefs and local assembly members need to develop skills to hammer out a political compromise. That is the meaning of competition for public support through a democratic process.

In this context, it is outrageous that Akune Mayor Shinichi Takehara in Kagoshima Prefecture refuses to attend municipal assembly meetings, even though citizens do not trust their assembly.

A referendum should be a useful way to resolve a policy dispute.

Some local governments have embarked on expanding and enhancing the referendum system to give citizens a means to override an assembly's rejection of a policy initiative.

This is an approach that promotes local autonomy based on direct democracy, which allows residents to recall local government chiefs, assembly members and other officeholders. We hope this movement will spread among local governments.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 13