by Richard Smart
TOKYO, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- One month after winning election in a political landslide, the Democratic Party of Japan has started to implement reforms as it aims to stay true to it's promise of delivering "seiken kotai" (political change) to the nation.
On Tuesday, the DPJ banned bureaucrats working for the government from taking jobs with independent administrative agencies, bodies that receive taxpayers money but are not supposed to be connected to the government. It also banned government agencies from encouraging their workers to retire before they reach the age of 60.
This allows the party to, at least in part, carry through its manifesto proposal to "ban involvement of central government ministries in the job placement of retiring national civil servants, which is a cause of 'amakudari'."
The Japanese word "amakudari" means "golden parachuting," or allowing former bureaucrats to take high-pay low-work jobs once they retire from the civil service. It has been considered a problem in Japan for a long time, but the measures taken by the DPJ on Tuesday to try to stop the system are perhaps the most drastic ever.
Since 1955, when the Liberal Democratic Party took power, Japan's government has operated under a system of consensus-based politics, in which politicians were answerable to bureaucrats, and not the other way round, as is the case in many other countries.
One consequence of this has been that an employment system has built up in which civil servants take pay rises each year and end up with such big salaries by the time they reach late middle age, they are asked to leave. At this point, "amakudari" often happens, as remaining civil servants help their colleagues to get jobs in government-related organizations.
Long being a bone of contention with the public in Japan, in tackling the matter the DPJ are pitting themselves against the bureaucracy. It now needs to find a solution to what to do with the bureaucrats when their salaries become too high. Reducing wages is a possible option, but given the DPJ's ties to unions, some of which include civil servants.
DIVISIVE CUTS
In its manifesto, the DPJ promised to reduce wasteful spending by the government and claimed it would be able to save trillions of yen by rolling back policies implemented by the former government led by the LDP. The party has now started work on saving money.
Also on Tuesday, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama abolished the framework established for the fiscal 2010 budget created by the LDP, giving the cabinet and ministries until Oct. 15 to submit new proposals.
Likely to be gone from the new budget are plans such as the LDP's proposed National Center for Media Arts -- a museum for art forms such as manga and animation which Hatoyama referred to as a "giant manga cafe" and the Yanba Dam project in Gunma Prefecture and Kawabe River Dam project in Kumamoto Prefecture.
Former Prime Minister Taro Aso was an avid fan of manga comic books and has been accused of ramming through legislation before he lost power to make sure the National Center for Media Arts was built.
Reversing this decision may come back to bite Hatoyama. As a city aiming to host the Olympic Games, and with tourism figures down 27.8 percent year on year in 2009, funding for a center with appeal to non-Japanese may not be seen as wasteful spending.
The cancellation of the dam projects has met local opposition from citizens hoping to start new lives along side the huge infrastructure projects, and the governments ability to go through with the planned cuts will provide an early test for the DPJ and its coalition partners.
The dams have become a symbol of the dividing line between the LDP and DPJ. The LDP invests in large public works projects that remain as fixed assets for generations to come, whereas the DPJ is promising to spend money on welfare rather than infrastructure wherever it considers possible. Making the change is proving emotive.
Residents living near the dams -- many on family land that has been with them for generations -- had jobs involved in the construction, had prepared to move into new accommodation and in some cases had already made immense sacrifices for the sake of the project. Been told now that a change in government means such a dramatic change in their futures is not going down well with many.
Transport minister Seiji Maehara has said he plans to promote a bill that will compensate residents living around the area, but whether this will be enough to calm the nerves of locals -- who could become as symbolic of the pain of change in this era as the local farmers who opposed the building of Narita International Airport were for the early days of LDP public spending -- only time will tell.
Before the Aug. 30 election, analysts who spoke to Xinhua were united in the belief that, to an extent, the Japanese electorate was likely to vote against the LDP as much as for political change.
Now that the DPJ is beginning to reverse and change policies put in place by the LDP, public reaction to this will provide a good indicator of how the DPJ will perform during the early stages of its first term in office.
