Govt must create recovery blueprint soon
Japan now faces an unprecedented crisis due to the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
The central and local governments must move swiftly to reestablish normal daily life for the hundreds of thousands of people living in disaster-hit areas or staying at evacuation centers. The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. must bring the ongoing chain of crises at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station under control as soon as possible and then smoothly move on to post-disaster work there.
However, responses by the government as well as the ruling and opposition parties to the hydra-headed crisis have been too slow and far from sufficient. The government must compile a recovery plan as soon as possible and establish conditions in which it can speedily enforce necessary laws even under the so-called divided Diet, in which the ruling parties have a majority in the House of Representatives and opposition parties control the House of Councillors.
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Respect local voices
The administration of Prime Minister Naoto Kan plans to install a recovery initiative commission, a panel of experts, by Monday, one month after the March 11 earthquake. The panel will be tasked with drawing up a blueprint for recovery programs for the disaster-hit areas. The government plans to appoint National Defense Academy President Makoto Iokibe as panel chairman.
After the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, the Hanshin-Awaji Restoration Committee was launched. Committee Chairman Atsushi Shimokobe, a former administrative vice minister at the National Land Agency, compiled various proposals with panel members including the Hyogo prefectural governor and Kobe mayor.
The new panel is modeled on the Hanshin-Awaji Restoration Committee. The government's headquarters for the restoration of areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, to be launched this month, will formulate and enforce a concrete recovery plan after it receives proposals to be compiled by the restoration initiative panel.
What is important here is to give the greatest possible respect to what those directly affected by the disaster really want. Heads of local governments and local economic circles should take active leadership roles in restoration and recovery work because they know best how things really are in their areas.
We hope they will proactively provide ideas on how to make "quake and tsunami-resistant towns," while identifying and correcting faults in the existing disaster management programs.
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Utilize bureaucrats fully
It is important for the government to drop its "governance led by politicians" stance, which is little more than a slogan, and fully utilize the power of bureaucrats who are knowledgeable and experienced in practical work.
The government's response so far has always been a few steps late in assisting those hit by the disaster because of a vicious circle: Kan and other Cabinet ministers distrust bureaucrats, and bureaucrats await instructions from Kan or other ministers.
Also, the Prime Minister's Office has not been functioning adequately as a command center as too many panels and various headquarters have been set up, leading to considerable confusion.
Now, the secretariat of the restoration headquarters will serve as the control tower for carrying out restoration programs. The amount of work will likely be far larger than after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.
Despite the size of the job, the headquarters should not be just another bloated organization. Its primary objective should be to make the Cabinet Office and each ministry work efficiently.
The Democratic Party of Japan's special legislation study team has compiled drafts of a basic law on disaster recovery and related special laws. However, the creation of special taxes stipulated in the drafts provoked a great number of objections even within the party. We hope members of the party will discuss the matter thoroughly enough for the party to take a firm, unified stance on the matter.
The cooperation of opposition parties is essential to passing the relevant bills in the divided Diet. It is necessary to establish a forum for talks between the ruling and opposition parties as soon as possible.
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Forget dole-out measures
Some members of the government and the ruling coalition have said the Kan administration should build a grand coalition with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito by appointing their members as ministers in a national salvation Cabinet.
In fact, the prime minister directly asked LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki to join his Cabinet, but Tanigaki refused.
Though Kan is said to be still positive about forming a grand coalition with the LDP and Komeito, a question remains about how serious he is.
We agree with Tanigaki, who said "a grand coalition cannot be built without adjustment of mutual policies."
It is a major premise that parties must agree on basic policies among themselves in advance if they want to form a coalition. The LDP and Komeito are urging the ruling DPJ to give up on child-rearing allowances and other dole-out policies the DPJ promised in the 2009 House of Representatives election. They also said that funds allocated to such programs should instead be used for disaster recovery work. We agree with their opinions.
If the Kan administration demands that the opposition parties share responsibilities in a grand coalition government, it must pay them due consideration in turn. Otherwise, the opposition will only grow more hostile, thinking that a grand coalition is a mere stratagem to help the DPJ-led government survive longer.
Members of the LDP and Komeito strongly distrust the prime minister. Results of The Yomiuri Shimbun's latest poll also showed that a majority of the public considered Kan to lack leadership and supported the formation of a strong administration based on a grand coalition to advance measures to deal with the disaster.
If he asks opposition parties to join his coalition government, the prime minister must develop conditions conducive to that end by showing he is ready to accept most of their positions without hesitation.
The LDP and Komeito should not refuse to join the coalition government if the DPJ develops conditions for policy agreements with them, including the withdrawal of dole-out policies.
The opposition parties should specify a term for the grand coalition, which would be several months, taking into consideration the time likely to be needed until deliberations of emergency measures become unnecessary in the current ordinary Diet session, which could be extended considerably.
An immediate issue is the first extra budget. We hope the LDP and Komeito will join discussions on the budget from its drafting process onward and share their past experience as ruling coalition parties. They should also work together with the DPJ to pass a special public bond bill to allow the government to issue deficit-covering bonds.
This earthquake disaster must be turned into an opportunity to build a new and more stable political system in Japan.
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