DPJ to convene lower house ethics council next week to summon Ozawa+

TOKYO, Dec. 12 Kyodo -
The leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan plans to convene the
House of Representatives political ethics council next week with the aim of
deciding to summon DPJ bigwig Ichiro Ozawa for deliberations involving alleged
falsification of political funds reports by his fund management body, DPJ
sources said Saturday.
A session of the lower house deliberative council to which Ozawa is expected to
be summoned will likely be arranged for January, before the start of the
regular Diet session, the sources said.
With next week's council session, the DPJ aims to show it is tackling the
problem of politics and money in order to win cooperation from opposition
parties such as the New Komeito party, the sources said. But Ozawa is not
expected to attend the session.
At a meeting of DPJ executives Monday, Secretary General Katsuya Okada will
seek approval for the plan to convene the ethics council to summon Ozawa after
the leadership agrees to entrust the party's No. 2 man to deal with the matter,
according to the sources.
Although lawmakers close to Ozawa, including the DPJ's House of Councillors
caucus leader Azuma Koshiishi, are likely to object to the plan, Okada and
other executives believe they can effectively win their approval in the end,
the sources said.
If, however, Okada fails to win approval from all the executives in the first
place, Prime Minister Naoto Kan's influence could be open to question as he had
put the secretary general in charge of handling the scandal.
Okada told reporters in Yamaguchi city on Saturday that if Ozawa cannot decide
on his own to appear before the Diet for questioning, then the party ''must
express its will.''
On the possibility that Ozawa supporters might object, Okada said, ''We need to
live up to people's expectations even if it involves risks.''
But there appear to be rifts within the party, as Wakio Mitsui, a senior vice
minister for land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, criticized Okada for
being ''disqualified as secretary general.''
Meanwhile, Ozawa defended himself in a meeting of DPJ politicians Saturday in
Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, saying ''There is nothing at all in my attitude and
life as a politician about which I have to feel remorseful.''
Depending on how things develop at Monday's DPJ executive meeting, Okada is
prepared to gain the leadership's approval even through a majority vote among
members present, according to the sources.
Although the party's rules do not stipulate how its executives are to make
their decisions, most moves have been made unanimously thus far. ''There has
been no case in which a decision was made by majority vote,'' a DPJ member
said.
Squeezing out a decision by the party's executives before taking the case to
the lower house political ethics council is seen as an important step because
it would enable the DPJ leadership to take actions such as urging Ozawa to
leave the party in the event he refuses to attend the council's deliberations,
the sources said.
The DPJ has 14 executives, including Kan, Okada and Koshiishi. But Kan, who is
also DPJ president, rarely takes part in his party's executive meetings and is
also expected to skip the gathering on Monday.
==Kyodo
2010-12-12 22:04:15