Plan announced to launch new party involving local gov`t heads+

TOKYO, April 18 Kyodo -
The mayor of Tokyo's Suginami Ward, Hiroshi Yamada, officially announced Sunday
a plan to launch a new party with several other people who have experience
serving as heads of local governments.
Yamada said he will head the new party, Nippon Soshinto, while former Yokohama
Mayor Hiroshi Nakada and former Yamagata Gov. Hiroshi Saito have been named
secretary general and policy chief, respectively.
No current lawmaker is expected to join the new party, whose inaugural
convention is scheduled for late May.
Yamada and others will submit an application to the Ministry of Internal
Affairs and Communications to set up a political organization, instead of a
political party eligible to receive subsidies and other benefits under law. A
political party is required to have at least five lawmakers as members.
Yamada said the party is aiming to field more than 10 candidates in this
summer's House of Councillors election and win five to 10 seats in the upper
house of parliament, although he did not refer to any specific plans about the
selection of candidates.
Sources familiar with the move to create the party say Nakada and Saito will
likely run in the proportional representation segment of the upcoming election.
Yamada, an incumbent mayor, is not expected to run.
The new party said in a declaration that the members involved in its launch
''cannot stand the circumstances in which a chain of malicious situations is
created by policy gaffes by the national government, although improvements have
been made by reforms'' led by local government heads.
''We are determined to stand up in order to create a new Japan,'' the
declaration said, referring to the party's name that combines the words
''Japan,'' ''Creation'' and ''New.''
Among key policies mentioned in the declaration are rebuilding the national
finance and pursuing pragmatic diplomatic and defense policies.
Yamada criticized the ruling coalition led by the Democratic Party of Japan and
its predecessor headed by the Liberal Democratic Party for their ''checkbook
and populist'' politics, which have eroded the national finances.
''We will strive to create a powerful Japan with the nation, local governments
and people all having more self-support,'' he said.
Saitama Gov. Kiyoshi Ueda and 25 other former and current local government
heads are on the list of supporters for the new party released Sunday. However,
Ueda said they will be ''loosely united'' in backing the new party with their
''own styles of support.''
The announcement follows the launch earlier this month of another new party,
the Sunrise Party of Japan (Tachiagare Nippon), which was formed by a group of
veteran politicians, including former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma and former
Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano.
==Kyodo