3 opposition parties formulate joint campaign platform+

TOKYO, Aug. 14 Kyodo -
Three opposition parties said Friday they have formulated a set of joint
campaign pledges for the Aug. 30 general election, featuring boosting people's
disposable incomes and turning the export-oriented economy into one led by
domestic demand.

Putting top priority on support for people's livelihoods, the Democratic Party
of Japan, the Social Democratic Party and the People's New Party will promise
not to raise the consumption tax rate from the current 5 percent for at least
four years and will review the split-up of the nation's postal services into
four companies.
The main opposition DPJ plans to call on the two other parties to join a
coalition if the opposition camp succeeds in driving the governing Liberal
Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the New Komeito party, from power
in the House of Representatives election.
The three parties will promote their negotiations on forming a coalition based
on the joint campaign platform.
''We just want to put these measures in place by realizing a change of
government with victory in the lower house election,'' DPJ policy chief
Masayuki Naoshima said.
In their platform, the three parties also call for providing monthly child
allowances to families with small children and building more child-care
facilities to eradicate waiting lists for such facilities.
The parties will revive extra benefits for mother-and-child families that
depend on welfare.
In the social welfare field, they propose abolishing the current 220 billion
yen curb on the annual growth of social security costs and tackling the pension
record-keeping fiasco.
The parties agreed to impose a ban on the dispatch of temporary workers to the
manufacturing industry and establish legislation to protect temp workers.
They also propose enacting a law to create a consultative body of the central
and local governments in order to revitalize provincial areas.
It also calls for enacting a law to ban financial institutions from forcibly
withdrawing loans to or from cutting back on lending to small firms.
==Kyodo