Japanese Trade Union Confederation (RENGO)

Dissolution of the House of Representatives and the General Election

1. Prime Minister Koizumi took the reckless action of dissolving the House of Representatives after the postal privatization bills were defeated in the House of Councillors today. The general election will be formally announced on August 30, with voting to take place September 11. The Prime Minister and the LDP executives had pressured the opposition obstinately, including a threat to dissolve the House of Representatives if the postal privatization bills would be defeated. However, despite such attempts, the bills were defeated with the 22 LDP members voted against and 8 abstained. It is not too much to say that the LDP is a failure as the political party in power.



2. There is strong criticism that the dissolution of the House of Representatives because of a defeat of the postal privatization bills is not reasonable. Both the government party and the parties in opposition criticised the act which used dissolution as a threat. However, the Prime Minister sticks to his opinion that a defeat of the postal privatization bills is a non-confidence vote in the Koizumi Administration and therefore dissolved the House of Representatives. I believe that he will select postal privatization as the crucial issue of the general election.



3. On the other hand, what many people have a strong interest and expectation are to oppose a large tax hike targeted at salaried workers, to realise a complete reform of social security system including pensions and to change the policy of the Koizumi administration, which is based on the idea that the market economy is panacea and it has brought various disparities which is called bipolarization. The Democratic Party should make all of them crucial issues. Rengo will demand that the Democratic Party draws up a manifesto based on these as soon as possible and conduct the election campaign based on its manifesto.



4. The Democratic Party stepped forward to a two-party system wining at the general election in November 2003 and the election of House of Representatives in July 2004. We do not accept the circumstances of this dissolution, yet this coming election is extremely vital for Rengo to establish the administration which can reflect the workers’ voice. We take this general election as an opportunity to change the administration and will do our best to realise it. Therefore, Rengo will fight through the campaign with all the strength of its organisation.