[Yomiuri Shimbun, Feb. 15]Okinawa Prefecture assembly in battle over base relocation (Fwd)

[아름드리 나무]

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001037157

Okinawa Pref. assembly in battle over Henoko Feb. 15, 2014

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, left, attends a plenary session of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly on Friday.

11:44 pm, February 15, 2014

Michitaka Kaiya and Kotaro Nishiyama/Yomiuri Shimbun Staff WritersNAHA—The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly has entered a fierce political battle with the passage of a motion proposed by the opposition to set up a so-called Article 100 commission, which is expected to grill Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima for approving reclamation of offshore areas in the Henoko district in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, to construct facilities to replace the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station.

The assembly opened its February regular session Friday and held a vote to establish the commission, as opposition parties objected the governor’s approval late last year for the reclamation to transfer functions of the Futenma Air Station in Ginowan of the prefecture to envisaged facilities in the Henoko district.

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  The Yomiuri Shimbun

The central government is expected to fully support Nakaima because the planned relocation may become difficult if his political base is undermined in the prefecture.

An Article 100 commission is a special entity set up under Article 100 of the Local Autonomy Law for investigating suspicions or scandals over administrative works of local governments.

The commission is given strong investigation authority to summon officials to give testimony and demand the submission of records.

If a person gives false testimony or refuses to testify without proper cause, criminal punishments, including imprisonment, can be imposed.

The resolution to set up the commission was submitted by Osamu Toguchi, a Japanese Communist Party member of the prefectural assembly, during its plenary session.

Toguchi said he proposed the motion because “the governor’s sudden approval of the reclamation was incomprehensible, and his accountability toward prefectural residents has not been fulfilled at all. Prefectural residents’ sense of distrust has reached its peak.”

The assembly has 48 seats, with two of them vacant. Ruling parties in the assembly, including the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito, have lost a majority, with only 20 seats in total. This allowed the motion to pass the assembly.

The opposition parties have demanded the Article 100 commission conduct intensive investigations into the issue for several days, aiming to shoot down the governor’s political stance.

With creation of the Article 100 commission, the opposition parties are expected to seek to delay deliberations on the fiscal 2014 initial budget extensively and make it difficult to pass by the end of this fiscal year in March.

The opposition parties aim to give an impression to local residents that the governor’s management of the prefectural government is becoming dysfunctional, hurting Nakaima’s political image.

The opposition parties regard the February regular session as a preliminary skirmish for the next gubernatorial election to be held in November at the earliest.

The opposition parties plan to weaken the governor’s political foothold by fueling prefectural residents’ antipathy against the relocation because Nakaima is expected to run in the gubernatorial election for his third time.

The opposition parties desperately wish to take over office and establish a reformist progressive administration with the aim of making the central government give up on the relocation of the Futenma base to the Henoko district.

However, Nakaima and his aides have also maintained an aggressive stance. Before attending the plenary session, which was prolonged over schedules of the Article 100 commission and other conflicts, Nakaima showed his confrontational attitude to reporters.

He told reporters, “I believe that I have done things carefully in my own style.”

About the opposition parties’ tactics of obstructing passage of the budget by the end of this fiscal year, a senior member of the LDP’s prefectural federation of local branches said: “The method of taking the budget hostage should not be allowed. We’ll show that it is the opposition parties’ fault the budget will not be able to be executed.”

If the prefectural assembly compiles an interim budget only for essential necessities, such as labor costs and police budgets, it is feared that a huge amount of budget for economic stimulus in the prefecture will also be unable to be executed. The stimulus budget was allocated by the central government in exchange for accepting the plan to relocate the air station to the Henoko district.

“Local business leaders should ratchet up their criticism against the opposition parties,” an aide of Nakaima said.

Nakaima and his aides aim to gain the prefectural residents’ understanding by implementing the economic stimulus measures, which were provided from the central government as a set with the relocation to the Henoko district, and measures to reduce residents’ burdens from hosting U.S. bases.

They especially see it as key to make practical progress in the four-point measures to reduce the burdens, including stopping operations of Futenma Air Station within five years, which the governor demanded of the central government late last year.

Thus, the governor’s side has strongly demanded the central government honor the promise.

But Nakaima is anxious as the issue involves negotiations with the U.S. side. Sources said Nakaima has told aides, “If the central government’s moves are not good, I myself will visit the United States to hold direct negotiations with the U.S. government.”

(Fwd by Koohan Paik)