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TOKYO: Japan's ruling party pushed a budget bill for the new fiscal year through the key lower house on Tuesday, but the prospects of other bills necessary for it to be implemented look bleak.
As a matter of formality, the opposition-controlled upper house will debate the 92.4 trillion yen (1.1 trillion yen) spending plan for the year starting on April 1.
The constitution provides that a state budget becomes law even if the upper House of Councillors rejects it or fails to vote on it within 30 days after it is approved by the House of Representatives.
But Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which holds a majority in the lower house, is expected to meet further resistance over the budget which aims to boost the flagging economy but adds to a mountain of public debt.
The opposition parties are ready to shoot down a number of other bills necessary to put the budget into effect, including one designed to enable the government to issue deficit-covering bonds worth 38.2 trillion yen to fund the planned spending.
If these budget-related bills are rejected in the upper house, they are sent back to the lower house for a second vote.
Only a two-thirds majority vote would make them become law but the centre-left ruling party lacks the numbers to be able to ensure this happens.
"We have had sufficient discussions in parliament on the budget," DPJ whip Tsuyoshi Saito told a news conference Monday to prepare for the vote on the budget in the lower house.
But Tadamori Oshima, vice-president of the conservative opposition Liberal Democratic Party, said the ruling party was denigrating the role of the upper house. "We must work out countermeasures," he said.
The budget bill was passed by the lower house budget committee in the early hours of Tuesday after an opposition-proposed no-confidence motion against the committee's chairman, a DPJ lawmaker, was voted down in the house.
The DPJ's problems have been exacerbated by cracks are emerging within the party as Kan attempts to alienate his internal rival Ichiro Ozawa, who is facing a trial over a funding scandal.
In mid-February, 16 DPJ lawmakers close to Ozawa vowed not to automatically vote in support of bills presented by Kan's government.
Kan, whose approval ratings have plunged below 20 percent for the first time since he took office in June last year, suspended the party membership of Ozawa last week until the trial ends, further widening the split within the DPJ.
- AFP/de
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