Tokyo : A last minute compromise between the ruling and opposition parties on a bill to create a secondary capital led to its passage in the opposition-controlled Upper House by just two votes.
Its enactment ended a week of intense debate and allowed parliament to end Saturday after 158 days, including an eight-day extension, the main purpose being to discuss the controversial secondary capital bill.
In the upper chamber, the final count was 123 votes for the bill and 121 against. Support came from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Japan Innovation Party as well as the small opposition party Team Mirai. Six major opposition parties came together to vote against it.
Getting the bill passed in the current parliamentary session was a key goal of the JIP, also known as Nippon Ishin no Kai. The legislation’s aim is to establish the concept of a secondary capital to serve as a backup location for Tokyo’s central government administrative functions in the event of a natural disaster, while also becoming the country’s second engine of national economic growth.
The Osaka-centric JIP hopes the new law will also serve as a boost to its longstanding efforts to pass a referendum that would merge the city’s 24 wards into larger, semiautonomous wards similar to Tokyo.
City voters rejected the JIPs merger effort, voting no in two previous referendums. The JIP, aiming to have Osaka serve as the secondary capital, had hoped to use the law to boost its chances of getting the referendum passed on its third try next spring, possibly on the same day as local elections, where JIP leader Hirofumi Yoshimura, who is also Osaka governor, is likely to stand for re-election.
The bill drew heavy criticism from opposition parties as well as some in the LDP, who saw it as nothing more than an attempt by the JIP to reward its Osaka base at the expense of other areas in the country. Other cities, including Fukuoka and Nagoya, have also expressed interest in serving as a secondary capital.
In the final hours before the bill was passed Friday night, the main sticking point was the question of whether to include a provision that would ban holding a merger referendum on the same day as local elections.
Opposition parties had demanded that a supplementary resolution include a provision prohibiting the simultaneous holding of a referendum on establishing special wards and elections for the relevant local governments as a condition for the vote.
In the end, parties agreed to proceed with the Upper House vote after settling on wording that states every effort will be made to coordinate schedules to avoid overlap between a referendum and local elections.
Yoshimura, however, was not pleased with the resolution’s wording and indicated he might try to ignore it.
“I don’t have the authority to make the final decision on the voting date. But I personally intend to aim for (holding elections on the same date as a referendum),” he told reporters in Osaka following the bill’s passage.
