TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio on Monday denied an intention to dissolve the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, for a snap election in April.

“I absolutely have no such idea,” Kishida told a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, asked whether he is considering dissolving the Lower House in line with three Lower House by-elections scheduled for April.

The Upper House Budget Committee started on the day substantive debates on the government’s fiscal 2024 draft budget after the Lower House passed it on Saturday.

At the committee meeting, Kiyomi Tsujimoto, executive deputy president of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, grilled Kishida on his reason for rushing for the budget bill’s passage through the Lower House by unusually holding parliamentary discussions on a Saturday.

Denying any correlation between the move and a possible Lower House dissolution, Kishida said, “Enacting the fiscal 2024 budget by the end of fiscal 2023 (on March 31) is more important than anything else.”

Bringing up a high-profile slush funds scandal involving factions of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Kishida, Tsujimoto called for the introduction of a guilt-by-association system, which holds politicians responsible as well for their accountants’ political funds control law violations.

“Politicians should take responsibility in certain malicious cases,” Kishida said. “We need to consider amending (the political funds control) law.”

“Whether (LDP members involved in the scandal) have fulfilled their accountability will eventually affect people’s scrutiny (of the matter),” he said.

They need to give further explanations, including at the parliament’s political ethics councils.

On the government’s efforts to shore up Japan’s low birthrate, the prime minister said, “It will be difficult to maintain our country’s socioeconomic system unless we stop the rapid declines in its population and the number of children.”

“We must restore a virtuous economic cycle through growth in income,” he added.

According to preliminary health ministry data released last week, births in Japan totaled 758,631 in 2023, hitting a record low for eight straight years.

JIJI Press