Comments for TAUTUA SAMOA PARTY at http://www.samoalivenews.com , comment 0 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.samoalivenews.com Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:05:51 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.samoalivenews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1327&Itemid=59#pc_2382 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- July 19, 2008 The Saturday Profile No Longer a Reporter, but a Muckraker Within Japan’s Parliament By NORIMITSU ONISHI TOKYO HE has a crusader’s intensity, rarely cracking a smile and dispensing with the politician’s need to win over a visitor. No, for Akira Nagatsuma, an opposition lawmaker who was once a reporter, the goal at hand was clear: breaking Japan’s one-party state by rooting out hidden information. By chasing after tips he receives daily on his cellphone, prying secrets out of the all-powerful bureaucracy or going for the jugular in parliamentary debates, Mr. Nagatsuma, 48, has become the nation’s chief muckraker. He again grabbed front-page headlines recently by exposing the widespread practice among elite bureaucrats of using taxpayers’ money to take taxis home at night, and accepting drinks, gifts and even cash as kickbacks from drivers looking for repeat fares. The revelations surrounding the “pub taxis,” as they became known, made him an even more feared figure among bureaucrats. And they elevated his standing among voters who first heard of him last year when he uncovered widespread bureaucratic mishandling of the national pension records. His dogged pursuit of the pension problems earned him the nickname Mr. Pension and helped his Democratic Party seize Parliament’s upper house last summer. Voter anger against the governing Liberal Democratic Party eventually led to the downfall of Shinzo Abe, then the prime minister, and to something that postwar Japan had never experienced: a divided Parliament. Used to half a century of nearly continuous rule by the Liberal Democrats, Japanese voters remain uneasy with the present political situation, which the news media uniformly describe negatively as a “twisted Parliament.” And indeed, with no history of bipartisanship, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and his Liberal Democrats have struggled to pass even the most basic of laws. For the first time, they have had to deal with an opposition with real powers. “I think that’s the best possible thing,” Mr. Nagatsuma said, “because we are getting closer to what basic democracy should be. Strictly speaking, democracy still hasn’t taken root in Japan.” So Mr. Nagatsuma sees possibilities in the so-called twisted Parliament. The opposition’s control over the upper house has led to substantial debates over policy, though the governing party has used its grip over the more powerful lower house to ram through some legislation. The change has also given his party’s committee chairmen in the upper house the legal authority to investigate the workings of government by summoning witnesses or demanding documents. Even though that power is seldom exercised and Mr. Nagatsuma himself is a member of the lower house, he said his party’s new standing has made bureaucrats more responsive to his demands for information, though not as responsive as he wished. “Compared to before, they’re somewhat more willing to disclose information,” he said. “We’re talking of a change from 1 out of 10 times to 2 out of 10. I think that, for an advanced nation, that’s just unbelievable. No other country hides government documents the way Japan does.” When he was reminded that a change from one to two times was double the previous rate, Mr. Nagatsuma smiled — the only time during an hourlong interview at his office. WITH documents piled high on a chair, stored inside boxes on his desk and floor and bound in folders titled “pension,” the office had the cluttered look of a reporter’s workspace. Located inside one of the two buildings housing members of the lower house, it was tiny, like all the other offices, with an even tinier waiting room where his staff worked and guests waited. Unlike their American counterparts, Japanese lawmakers do not have the office space, let alone the budget, to hire enough staff members for serious legislative work. They depend on bureaucrats within the various ministries to provide information, research issues, write speeches and, of course, draft bills. As scholars of Japanese politics have long pointed out, that situation has created a cozy — and often collusive — relationship between bureaucrats and the Liberal Democrats. About 20 percent of the party’s lower-house legislators are former bureaucrats, a far higher percentage than in the opposition. In return, bureaucrats, who are supposed to be neutral public servants, have long favored the governing party and treated the opposition dismissively. “If the bureaucracy is a horse,” Mr. Nagatsuma said, “politicians and the people are riding the horse without holding the reins. We’re just sitting on the horse and letting it decide the country’s direction.” In a legislative body where a quarter of his colleagues inherited their seats from their fathers or relatives, Mr. Nagatsuma came to politics in a roundabout way. After college he joined NEC, the electronics giant, because he was inspired by the company’s project at the time to contribute to world peace by building a simultaneous language interpretation machine. But as a young salaryman, he read Nikkei, the country’s main economic newspaper, and became interested in journalism. He applied successfully for a reporting post at the newspaper’s magazine, Nikkei Business, and tortured himself over whether to make the jump. “My wife scolded me by saying that if I really wanted to go, I should make up my mind and just go,” he recalled. Few members of his generation would have left a prestigious company to pursue such an interest, and he was unsure whether he had made the right choice. “My editors told me I wrote more poorly than a junior high school student,” he said. “They told me, ‘You’ve chosen the wrong path.’ One time, I wrote and rewrote something 30 times without sleeping for 70 hours.” AFTER two years, though, he found that his strengths lay in ferreting out information. He had an epiphany when he was reporting on Japanese banks’ nonperforming loans, which are in default or close to being in default. When he went to a Finance Ministry official for information, he was told “not to stir anxiety” by writing about the loans. As an opposition lawmaker since 2000, he still found that the bureaucracy was closed to him. But using his reporter’s investigative skills, he began investigating health bureaucrats’ misuse of public funds. That drew the ire of some health officials who, an investigation found later, attacked him on his Japanese Wikipedia entry while they were on duty. His investigating also led to tips and to his big scoop that health officials had mishandled or simply lost the pension records of tens of millions of Japanese. The governing party first tried to hide the fact, then made matters worse by trying to make light of it. Nowadays Mr. Nagatsuma receives up to 30 e-mail messages a day and acts on the most promising tips, like the one about the “pub taxis.” To squeeze answers out of bureaucrats, he has had to hone his questioning techniques. One bureaucrat initially denied having received any gifts from drivers but later admitted accepting department store gift certificates. Why? The bureaucrat said he had been asked whether he had ever accepted a “kickback,” but he argued the certificates were “year-end gifts.” “They’ll never tell the truth unless you ask 100 questions, or you find a concrete case on your own,” Mr. Nagatsuma said. “Japanese bureaucrats won’t tell a direct lie,” he added. “But they won’t say anything beyond what they’ve been asked. They’ll never volunteer anything. If you put it to them like this — ‘How about this? Yes or no?’ — then they won’t lie.” - Yep Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:48:49 +0100 http://www.samoalivenews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1327&Itemid=59#pc_2317 Faamanuiaga mo le Tautua Samoa Party. E ui ina e lei aloaia o se vaega faaupufai i totonu o le Palemene, ae faamalo mo le taumafai. Matagofie le taimi o le faamoemoe aua le alo atu i le palota o le 2011. Faailoa mai loa i le atunuu le manulauti ma le polokalame fuafua a le party i le tulaga o le faagaoioiga o le tamaoaiga, aemaise o tulaga faapolokiki mo se lumanai o le atunuu pe afai ae tulai mai le tatou party i le 2011. Manuia le faamoemoe ma ia faatausala ona faatino. Mosese Birmingham UK - Mosese Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:14:11 +0100 http://www.samoalivenews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1327&Itemid=59#pc_2249 Congradulations is indeed in order for all the new members of the New Tautua Samoa Political Party. It is great to see that you few have chosen to come together to build a strong opposition party to counter the present one party political situation which has empowered itself over the past few years. It is always democratic to have at least a two party system of government, that way, will endeavor to keep both parties on the straight and narrow and mostly honest in not only themselves but to the whole country and its people. Malo lava tauave le pologa mo le lelei o le lautele ma Samoa atoa mo le lumana'i. Folomalo Des Krone. Brisbane, Australia. - Folomalo Des Krone Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:01:02 +0100 http://www.samoalivenews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1327&Itemid=59#pc_2242 Nice name, excellent concept based on Samoa’s culture and matai traditions. What I would hope this new party to remember is there is a “tautua faamaoni” (honorable service) and there’s also a “tautua pa’o” (“noisy service” - meaning a resentful and begrudging tautua). We all understand that the new party is referring to the former, however, we also understand well the nature of power (political power) and how it can quickly shift the intended “tautua” to that of being a noisy and corrupt one. And what a place to make the initial announcement - a nightclub!?!?! LOL! I hope the members were sober at the time of the announcement....hehee. I won’t be surprised if Sh-Tui picks up on this one, and with his usual audacity and sarcasm, he can say: “Well the new party is a “night club”. Imagine all the connotations that one can conjure therefrom. I am not keeping any of my hopes up for this new party, but time will eventually tell, ...at least we have some kind of opposition in the pipeline, a? - Sifa Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:12:36 +0100 http://www.samoalivenews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1327&Itemid=59#pc_2241 For those opposed to a One Party State-- Step Up and Meet the Future A Truly Democratic Society mends its fences on the heals of Tyranny and all its births Samoa Muamua Le Atua(always) Long Live Samoa and Her People - The Last Riot of Samoa Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:49:03 +0100