Acknowledging Maneuver by Bureaucrats

Acknowledging growing skepticism against Specific Secret Protection Bill, Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is getting careful on passing the bill in the parliament without opposite party’s consent. With distortion inserted in the bill by bureaucrats, the bill intends to restrict free reporting and uglily expands executive power. The opposite parties are protesting against the bill with their own circumstances. They are eventually divided into winner and loser.

The first loser would be Your Party. It agreed with leading Liberal Democrats and New Komeito in modification of some provisions of the bill. Accepting request from Your Party, LDP would amend the bill to let PM involved in determination of specific secrets. The leader of Your Party, Yoshimi Watanabe, asserted that the bill became moderate with the amendment, and PM will be engaged in the process as a third party.

Your Party has been thirsty for spotlight in politics, since it was in jeopardy of separation over cooperation strategy with other opposite parties. Taking advantage of Watanabe’s personal closeness to Abe, the party tried to appeal constructive stance on the issue. However, saying PM a third party made no sense. He is the top leader of executive branch, never be independent from it. The party made a deal with leading party too early. It lost its fundamental cause of confronting bureaucracy by reaching LDP unreasonably.

After defeating Your Party, LDP took on Restoration Party, which has the third largest power in the House of Representatives. Restoration Party requires independent organization for checking discretion of the government. It otherwise is opposing the bill. PM Abe showed his willingness for accepting the request, with a notion that the bill might receive a broad consensus in the public, if it would get support from Restoration Party. LDP would take enough time for a deal.

Democratic Party of Japan firmly opposes the bill. With a recognition that the bill needed to be strictly limited for keeping secrets of international security, the party made up their own bill. It dismisses requirement of executive branch for discussing specific secrets in closed meeting in the Diet, penalty on legislators, and endless possession of secrets by the government. The party stresses the necessity to keep on putting legislative power above executive power, as the Constitution determines. If the bill is amended along with those concepts, it will be a victory for DPJ.

Although LDP does not show any sign to make a deal with DPJ, the alternative option of DPJ makes far better sense than current bill does. The point now is whether Abe administration stops blindly following arbitral expansion of executive power conspired by bureaucrats.