61960    The government as well as ruling and opposition parties first and foremost must concentrate their efforts on emergency recovery measures related to the Great Hanshin Earthquake, and in addition to taking action to help the victims to return to a stable daily life outside of the shelters as soon as possible, it should work on establishing the fundamental anti-earthquake and disaster prevention measures utilizing the lessons they have learned from the latest earthquake.

61961    The most significant factor in politics this year is that it is an "election year."

61962    There will be the unified local elections during the current Diet session and elections for the House of Councillors will be held in July.

61963    Additionally, though the timing has yet to be decided, there is the strong likelihood that the first general election may be held under the new electoral system in view of the current political climate.

61964    The current session of the Diet can be positioned as the main stage where the ruling and opposition parties will clash head-on in anticipation of the decisive political battles of the "three major elections."

61965    In opening the Diet session, we first want to ask the ruling and opposition parties, through debate, to clearly present to the nation such options as what criteria voters can look for to determine their voting in the "three major elections," which in turn will determine the political trend for the latter half of the 1990s.

61966    While the political realignment set off by the fall of the Miyazawa administration in the year before last is still underway, unfortunately, the basic principles and policies that are supposed to be the pillars of this realignment have been pushed aside and it has ended up in a scramble for political power with parties looking for a "marriage of convenience."

61967    It seems more and more likely that all opposition parties, except for the Communist Party, joined together to form the New Frontier Party (Shinshin Party) at the last minute to deal with the single-seat constituency system with their differences in political agenda being left unresolved, and, to begin with, the Murayama administration itself is a coalition government that was formed without any consideration for the political principles or agenda.

61968    In the midst of the political realignment with no clear agenda or opposite views, voters are completely confused for being asked to make a decision based on undefined points of dispute and options.

61969    However, it's not that there are no confrontations.

61970    Political issues such as those concerning tax reform, administrative reform, pension reform, and a permanent seat in the UN Security Council that are disputed among or within parties and/or factions definitely exist.

61971    They have done nothing more than to sweep the "kink" under the carpet in favor of staying in power and keeping internal solidarity in a party.

61972    However, this makes politics difficult to understand and we must say that the attitude of these parties show an extreme dishonesty to the people.

61973    It has been reported that during the question period and the appropriation committee meeting following the administrative policy speech by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, the opposition New Frontier Party will introduce the Ministers of the" Tomorrow Cabinet" led by the party head Toshiki Kaifu and will challenge the government with a debate in an unconventional way.

61974    In particular, it is said that Mr. Kaifu intends to take full advantage of his question time and put forward "proposal-style" questions to clarify the party's political view and how it differs from the government measures and policies, which will be fine if the debate during the process leads to the revelation of issues to be confronted.