TOKYO: Prime Minister ISHIBA Shigeru, president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is set to hold a debate with leaders of other parties at the Diet, Japan’s parliament, on Wednesday.

The schedule was agreed at a meeting on Friday of Diet affairs heads Tetsushi Sakamoto from the LDP and RYU Hirofumi from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

After the debate on the final day of the current extraordinary Diet session, Ishiba will dissolve the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber, for a snap election.

Instead of the debate, opposition parties including the CDP had called for meetings of the budget committees of both chambers, which require the attendance of the prime minister and all other cabinet ministers, before the dissolution.

After the meeting, Ryu told reporters, “It’s regrettable that the prime minister eventually decided not to hold meetings of the budget committees.”

The LDP has proposed extending the upcoming debate’s length to an hour from the standard 45 minutes, while the CDP is seeking a longer extension based on Ishiba’s blog post in June saying that such a debate should take at least two hours.

Sakamoto reacted negatively to the idea of setting the debate length at two hours, saying that it was Ishiba’s personal opinion.

JIJI Press