Ruling bloc pledges 2 mil. jobs in 3 yrs in common campaign platform

TOKYO, Aug. 12 Kyodo - The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the New Komeito party, unveiled a common campaign manifesto on Wednesday, pledging to create demand worth 40 trillion to 60 trillion yen and 2 million jobs over the next three years.

The manifesto also refers to the implementation of ''drastic'' tax reforms
including hiking the current 5 percent consumption tax, while promising to take
steps to lessen the impact of such a tax increase on those in the low-income
bracket.
The coalition's emphasis on achieving economic growth is seen as an attempt to
set itself apart from the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, whose
original manifesto was criticized as lacking a clear growth strategy.
The common policy was added to the campaign manifestos of the two parties
announced earlier for the Aug. 30 House of Representatives election.
''We will fight the election with these common public promises and stay in
power,'' Kosuke Hori, the LDP policy chief, told a news conference in Tokyo.
In the same news conference, Natsuo Yamaguchi, Hori's counterpart in New
Komeito, criticized the DPJ manifesto, saying that it remains ''very unclear
about its growth strategy and international contributions.''
The ruling bloc's common platform maps out the continuation of Japan's
refueling mission for U.S.-led coalition forces in the Indian Ocean and its
antipiracy mission off the coast of Somalia -- apparently an effort to cast the
coalition as being responsible in foreign policy and national security.
It also stresses the need for enacting a law to enable the Self-Defense Forces
to inspect banned cargo to and from North Korea on the high seas and elsewhere
in line with a U.N. Security Council resolution punishing Pyongyang for its
nuclear test in May.
Apparently with a fund scandal involving DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama in mind, the
coalition pledged to toughen penalties stipulated in the Political Funds
Control Law.
On child-rearing and social security, the common manifesto maps out a promise
to make education for preschoolers free for three years before they enroll in
elementary school, while planning to shorten the mandatory period to be
eligible for public pension payouts from the current 25 years to 10 years.
It also plans to make nursing homes available for 160,000 people given that
more people need such homes as society ages. To put these plans into practice,
the platform says, the coalition would pass necessary legislation in the
regular parliamentary session next year.
The coalition also vowed to continue to implement economic measures so that the
economy recovers within three years, while unveiling plans to expand domestic
demand through initiatives to create a ''low-carbon'' society.
In the revised campaign manifesto unveiled Tuesday, the DPJ mapped out a growth
strategy centering on domestic demand and plans to use its big-budget proposals
to boost household disposable income.
On the decentralization of power to local governments, the ruling bloc's common
platform says a fundamental law would be established within three years on
broadening local administrative areas from the current system based on
prefectures.
Like the DPJ's latest manifesto, the LDP-New Komeito bloc sets out the
installation through legislation of a consultative body between the central and
local governments to discuss decentralization.
While the LDP and New Komeito have had differences over hiking the consumption
tax, the two parties have settled on the description ''drastic tax reforms
including the consumption tax'' in their common policy.
The manifesto also maps out the creation of scholarships, as opposed to loans,
for high school and university students and the elimination of ''amakudari'' --
the practice whereby former senior bureaucrats land cushy jobs in organizations
and corporations they supervised before they retired from public service --
within three years.
==Kyodo