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.

61975    These days, as people are too turned off to pay attention to the "mediocrity" at the Diet that has become hollow where words are said and heard with nobody challenging them, we have to give credit to the New Frontier Party for using their ingenuity to come up with a different debate format from that in the past.

61976    As well, we look forward to and will keep an eye on the debate from the viewpoint of revitalizing parliamentary politics.

61977    In the case of a regular Diet session with upcoming elections, it has been a familiar practice where the government tends to hold back the bills that might cause pain to the people and draw up a lavish budget, and both the ruling and opposition parties tend to be preoccupied with advertising campaigns attempting to turn every argument to make themselves look good while avoiding actual debates.

61978    Taking this opportunity, we hope that the ruling and opposition parties will do away with the shallow brown-nosing "collusive" politics and will engage in a serious debate keeping firmly in mind the Japanese politics and economy after the end of the Cold War.

61979    The sense of powerlessness is spreading among seismologists.

61980    It was because they were unable to predict the four major earthquakes that happened in Hokkaido and Tohoku regions in the past two years, and they were caught off guard when the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck.

61981    Both the government and the seismologists have said repeatedly that, "the only predictable earthquakes would be those that are the magnitude of class 8 for the Tokai region."