EDITORIAL: Party leaders' debate

At long last, five months after the inauguration of the administration of Yukio Hatoyama, the first one-on-one debate between Hatoyama and opposition party leaders was held Wednesday.

All they talked about was the problem of politicians and money. Contrary to the excitement in the Diet, the debate unfortunately was insignificant and lacked substance.

The verbal duel between party leaders is intended to activate Diet debates.

Party leaders squarely engage in a battle of words. Voters watch and listen to them to decide which party to entrust to take the reins of government. The occasion is supposedly the most important forum in an age of changing governments.

From such a standpoint, Wednesday's debate was a failure.

Both Liberal Democratic Party President Sadakazu Tanigaki and New Komeito Chief Representative Natsuo Yamaguchi addressed the anger of taxpayers against the prime minister for failing to pay taxes for a large amount of funds he had received from his mother.

Most of the allotted 45 minutes was spent on the money scandals of Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers, including the land transaction involving Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa and the provision of funds from a labor union to Lower House member Chiyomi Kobayashi.

In Diet battles, it is natural for parties to hit other parties where it hurts and to make counterattacks.

In answering a question regarding Ozawa's scandal, Hatoyama said he might very well advise the secretary-general to give an explanation in the Diet.

New Komeito submitted a bill to revise the Political Fund Control Law to make it easier to suspend the civil rights of lawmakers when their aides or officials in charge of accounting falsify political fund reports.

Hatoyama said the bill was "desirable" and signified his support for the establishment of a consultative body of ruling and opposition parties concerning such problems. We urge him to do so by all means.

However, in Diet deliberations, one-on-one debates between party leaders must focus on a wide range of policy issues, such as budget bills, enabling parties to compete against each other over their future visions.

How can the economy, job security and government finance be rebuilt? How can Japan "deepen" its alliance with the United States and deal with the rise in power of China and other Asian nations?

Such tough but pressing problems were not discussed. We also wanted to hear views on the political philosophy of Hatoyama, who said he "wants to protect lives" and has called for a new concept of "public." But the subject never came up.

Is this how one-on-one debates should be? Both ruling and opposition parties must ponder this point.

The debates remain inactive largely because they are held on very few occasions and only for a short time.

This is because parties have an ax to grind and give too much consideration to political circumstances at each juncture. When the system was introduced, parties agreed to hold the debate once a week, in principle. It is unacceptable that it took five months to hold such a debate.

To activate debate among politicians, the DPJ plans to submit a bill to the current Diet session to ban bureaucrats from answering questions in the Diet. But the party is saying one thing and doing another.

The one-on-one debates should be held every week as much as possible and for an extended time. Most importantly, themes should be decided in advance.

It is time to think seriously about improvements. Otherwise, there will be virtually no difference from the past confrontations between ruling and opposition parties when the LDP was in power.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 18