Sunday, May 30, 2010
Coalition Update: Officially Dissolved but Collaboration in July Election Still in the Cards
The SDP meeting of its prefectural chapter director-generals in a near-unanimous decision—the Niigata and Oita chapter DGs dissented, go figure—Sunday afternoon to opted to officially leave the three-party alliance supporting the Hatoyama administration but to seek to continue to cooperate with the DPJ in the July upper house election. This makes tactical sense but is likely to be pillaged by the MSM (except tabloid Nikkai Gendai). I don’t think that it’s a good idea if the SDP wants to survive as an anti-business, anti-Japan-US alliance protest party. But maybe that’s just me.
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2 comments:
Doesn't seem to make much sense to cooperate for the election if you're not going to cooperate afterwards. And as both parties have locked themselves up pretty tightly over what has become a signature issue for this government I don't see an easy way for them to actually collaborate again in any formal manner.
Besides, the SPD may have decided to cooperate over the election but it takes two to tango; as the DPJ can't count on the SDP going forward they may simply decide to ignore it in favour of maximizing their own electoral prospects.
Janne:
A political party, like so many other enterprises, has principles that extend beyond the economic. (Napster: Free music for everyone! Kellogs: Health! . But, like all enterprises, it also has management, employees, and their families, people who depend on it for their livelihoods.
The DPJ likewise. In fact, the DPJ arguably has more to lose, since it thinks that it needs all the SDP votes that it can scrounge in the regional districts to avoid a debacle. That explains for me the DPJ/Ozawa’s continued courting of the SDP. I think that both parties are underestimating the impact of the abnormally high level of undecided voters, but maybe that’s just me.
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