DPJ moves to curtail special interests

The Democratic Party of Japan decided Monday to centralize the process of lobbying and conveying requests to ministries to rein in politicians promoting special interests.

The move is aimed at breaking collusive ties between politicians and bureaucrats while strengthening the party structure at the same time.

In effect, politicians will be banned from passing on requests from industry organizations and local governments directly to central government ministry officials.

All requests from such entities would instead go through the secretary-general's office at the DPJ headquarters.

To pass along the requests to the new central office in Tokyo, local DPJ chapters are already setting up desks to take requests from lobbyists--a move also aimed at creating a solid rural support base, officials said.

The steps are clearly aimed at cutting out zoku-giin-- politicians whose main job is greasing the wheels to ensure that certain legislation is passed or that ministry budget allocation requests are approved.

But whether the ban will be effective remains to be seen, as the DPJ plan includes no penalties for violations.

Collusive practices involving politicians and bureaucrats became entrenched under the Liberal Democratic Party's longtime rule, clouding the policymaking process.

On Monday, DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa told a news conference his party intended to "do away with the collusive structure typified by zoku-giin, and create an open and simple system."

The secretary-general's office will be tasked with screening requests. In addition, 14 vice secretaries-general will convey accepted requests to ministers, senior vice ministers and parliamentary secretaries of the corresponding ministries and agencies.

While the party's executive committee agreed the process must be transparent and fair, there is "in principle no penalty" for violators, Yoshimitsu Takashima, the DPJ's senior vice secretary-general, told reporters.

DPJ chapters in 16 prefectures, including Hokkaido, Aichi, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, have already gotten the ball rolling by starting to set up organizations to handle requests from lobbyists, The Asahi Shimbun has learned.

Moreover, DPJ chapters in 10 prefectures, including Gunma, Tochigi, Osaka and Wakayama, are considering setting up such offices.

Takashima said one merit of accepting requests at the local level will be to force the region's elected representatives to evaluate each project's value at the ground level, which will also strengthen their ties to their constituencies.

Meanwhile, some party members have doubts about the new arrangement.

One veteran DPJ politician confided, "Many older politicians will complain that their work is being taken away from them."

Another said, "Calling the minister, with whom the politician is acquainted, is probably a faster and more accurate way" to achieve results.

Parliamentarians in each ministry will also be burdened with even more work to process requests, when, in the words of one politician's aide, "We're already up to our necks in work as it is."(IHT/Asahi: November 4,2009)