DPJ Wants to Keep Aso Alive?

Coming from Sankei, this report supports another contention of mine (the other was that the LDP doesn’t want to push him out until April comes around): the DPJ doesn’t want to push Prime Minister too hard (and the other opposition parties are upset about that). The Sankei report clearly sees the best-case DPJ scenario as a mortally wounded Prime Minister Aso calling a snap election, which he is allowed to do under the Japanese Constitution regardless of the LDP’s wishes. Which means of course that the LDP will not allow that to happen which means that the DPJ…

Stepping away from that cloud of conjectures, I expect things to quiet down over the coming weeks (unless another shoe drops), in which case Aso’s poll numbers will begin edging up again over the coming months. But that’s a slow process, Aso’s starting from single-digit numbers, and he only has seven months.