Aso, Hatoyama fail to have thorough policy debate+

TOKYO, May 27 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Taro Aso and opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama clashed Wednesday
in their first Diet face-off but failed to engage in a thorough policy debate,
providing few pointers to the public about who is more suitable to be prime
minister at a time when a national election is looming.

Hatoyama, 62, who was elected president of the main opposition Democratic Party
of Japan on May 16, blasted the Aso administration for what he said is its
overdependence on bureaucrats in policymaking and for squandering resources on
unnecessary measures.
''Let's clean up all the wasteful spending and stop such an extra budget (the
compilation of which was left in the hands of bureaucrats),'' Hatoyama said,
referring to a fiscal 2009 extra budget designed to finance Aso's economic
measures that entails massive deficit-covering bond issuance, but which
Hatoyama claimed fails to respond to the real needs of the public.
Aso, 68, who doubles as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party,
retorted, ''If you are looking to (take the helm and) use public servants, you
need to think about ways to motivate them,'' adding, ''It won't work out if you
only engage in bashing public servants.''
In the debate that lasted about 50 minutes, Aso repeatedly criticized Hatoyama
and his party, saying they had failed to explain a campaign funding scandal
that led to the indictment of a secretary of former DPJ chief Ichiro Ozawa.
Noting that the DPJ is compiling a bill to amend the political funds control
law and ban corporate donations following the scandal that surfaced in March,
Aso said that if the party blames the law for causing the scandal, it is just
''switching the focus of the argument.''
''For most people, it's not understandable that Mr. Ozawa assumed the post of
(DPJ) vice president'' despite stepping down as party leader to take the blame
for the scandal, Aso said.
Hatoyama responded that Ozawa recently provided explanations about the scandal
to members of an expert panel set up by the DPJ and that everything will be
made public shortly.
He argued, ''There were a lot (of lawmakers) on your side, too'' who are
alleged to have maintained shady relations with Nishimatsu Construction Co., a
general contractor embroiled in the Ozawa scandal.
Hotayama also slammed Aso for having no vision for the future while appearing
entirely focused on his ''yu-ai'' (fraternity) philosophy that aims to create a
society filled with love and happiness.
Aso emphasized that ''a regime change should be merely a means and not a
goal,'' saying that the DPJ only calls for a change in government and fails to
present specific ideas of what it wants to do, leading Hatoyama, in his second
stint as DPJ president, to counter that a regime change is just ''a starting
point for a new Japan.''
Concerning the government's response to North Korea's nuclear test conducted
Monday, Hatoyama said it failed to communicate effectively with the United
States and South Korea, two of Tokyo's close allies that are believed to have
been notified of the test by Pyongyang in advance.
''Without an effective information control capability, this country will not
last any longer,'' Hatoyama said.
Sparks had already been flying between Aso and Hatoyama since the latter became
the DPJ's chief earlier this month. The two did not shake hands when Hatoyama
paid a call on Aso last week, despite photographers' requests to do so.
Hatoyama's first duty as party leader is to revive the DPJ's reputation, which
has been hurt by the fundraising scandal, and to raise the chances of the party
winning the House of Representatives election that Aso can call anytime before
the terms of lower house members expire Sept. 10.
The DPJ chief, who has received more support than Aso in public opinion polls,
recently got another boost when a DPJ-backed candidate won a mayoral election
in Saitama, north of Tokyo, beating the incumbent supported by the ruling bloc
of the LDP and the New Komeito party.
With an eye toward realizing a change of government, the DPJ agreed earlier in
the day to draw up common policies with its smaller opposition allies -- the
Social Democratic Party and the People's New Party.
Wednesday's Diet debate between the two party leaders was watched with added
interest given that their grandfathers were also political foes in the
immediate postwar years. Aso is the grandson of former Prime Minister Shigeru
Yoshida, while Hatoyama is the grandson of Ichiro Hatoyama, also a former prime
minister.
Ozawa was slated to face off with Aso in mid-May following repeated overtures
from the LDP but stepped down two days before what would have been their second
showdown in the Diet, a move that led to criticism that Ozawa was ''fleeing
before the enemy.''
==Kyodo
2009-05-27 22