EDITORIAL: The DPJ's old, ugly ways

The Lower House passed the fiscal 2010 budget proposal on Tuesday. Now that the budget is certain to clear the Diet before the current fiscal year ends, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Democratic Party of Japan must move on to the next task of paramount importance: resolving the recurring issue of money in politics.

The DPJ must identify and eliminate the old and ugly parts of its makeup.

On Monday, four people, including senior members of the Hokkaido teachers union, were arrested in connection with suspected illegal campaign donations to DPJ lawmaker Chiyomi Kobayashi before she was elected to the Lower House in August.

The DPJ and labor unions are inseparable. Kobayashi is only one of many DPJ lawmakers and candidates who rely on unions for campaign funds and vote-canvassing.

Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ secretary-general and election campaign director, has attached the greatest importance to the party's ties with the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo).

In that sense, the scandal cast light on what may well be a structurally deep-seated shadowy side of the DPJ.

Compared to Hatoyama and Ozawa, the individuals involved in the scandal are virtual nobodies. But that does not diminish the gravity of the situation in any way.

Although the nation had a historic regime change last summer, money scandals keep surfacing just like under the political system that the Liberal Democratic Party established in 1955.

The DPJ, which promised a new political culture, may in fact be no different from the parties that were steeped in money politics.

Such thoughts have been spreading among disillusioned voters. The continued decline of the Hatoyama Cabinet's approval ratings speaks for itself.

But whatever sense of crisis Hatoyama and DPJ members may be feeling, we have witnessed incredibly little evidence of it.

The way the party conducted itself at the Diet up to the Lower House passage of the budget proposal also showed that the DPJ is stuck in its old ways.

Opposition parties demanded that Ozawa be summoned to testify at the Diet and that the Diet vote on a resolution recommending the resignation of DPJ Lower House member Tomohiro Ishikawa, Ozawa's former aide indicted in a money scandal.

The LDP boycotted Diet deliberations to press for these demands, but the DPJ did not give an inch.

We could understand the DPJ's desire to speed up budget deliberations, but that was no excuse for rejecting all opposition demands.

The DPJ should have known that continuing with the budget deliberations and heeding the opposition demands regarding Ozawa and Ishikawa were not mutually exclusive.

What we saw was an exact re-enactment by both the ruling and opposition parties of a classic Diet scene of the era of LDP-led politics--the ruling party playing hardball and the opposition camp blocking deliberations.

It is one thing for voters' disappointment and anger to be directed at Hatoyama and his DPJ. But those ill feelings could serve to revive voters' sense of futility and cynicism over Diet deliberations--and eventually party politics--in the new political era when a regime change is a real option.

That would be an extremely unfortunate and dangerous development for the nation's democracy.

Hatoyama on Tuesday instructed Ozawa to expedite debate on banning political donations from corporations and organizations, and DPJ executives agreed on creating a nonpartisan council to discuss the issue.

Still, such moves will not be enough for the DPJ to regain voter trust.

Hatoyama must free the DPJ of its old, ugly ways and help it reorganize its constitution. He must get his party moving forward at all costs, even if it means dismissing senior members who stand in his way.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 3