The Cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formally announced on Friday the ruling coalition's plan to convene an extraordinary Diet session on Sept. 28, the outset of which will likely see Abe dissolve the lower house for a snap election.
The government's endorsement of the plan to disband the lower chamber of Japan's bicameral parliament was announced by Japan's top government spokesperson, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, at a meeting of both chambers' steering committees.
The move, however, has drawn staunch criticism from opposition parties.
They believe the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior Komeito party ally approving the premier's plan to dissolve the lower house without making a policy speech, is, in part, to purposely suppress parliamentary debate.
The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Seiji Maehara, took aim at the plan saying that the prime minister not making a policy speech or allowing parliamentary deliberations, which would see Abe grilled by the opposition camp on accusations of cronyism, is an "act that ridicules the highest organ of state power."
On Thursday, the Democratic Party refused to attend steering committees of the lower and upper houses that were scheduled to hold board meetings, in protest of the ruling camp's bullish plan to dissolve the lower house.
The meetings were subsequently canceled.
