There May Be No Tomorrow but Ozawa Will Be Ozawa

The post-apocalypse Tomorrow Party of Japan got together on Christmas Eve, where party representative and governor of Shiga Prefecture Yukiko Kada nominated Tomoko Abe, recently defected from the Social Democratic Party, as co-representative. The Ichiro Ozawa side demurred and made a counterproposal for Ozawa co-representative. Kada refused, referring to an agreement with Ozawa that he would not seek party office. That was then, though, and she turned out to be anything but the antinuclear talisman that would salvage his minions in the House of Representatives general election. The one-issue Kada will be more of an albatross around Ozawa’s neck as he inevitably begins casting about for potential allies. I’ll be surprised to see TPJ more or less in its current configuration—minus Shizuka Kamei, who has already left, disgusted with all the commotion—make it to the House of Councillors election in July and will not be surprised to see it fall apart by the end of the 2013 regular Diet session. Not that it will matter politically, one way or the other.

One other typically Ozawa move: he was absent from the get-together. In fact, if Kada is to be believed, he doesn’t even call back.

And with that, I suspect that I won’t be referring to Ozawa again for a long time, if ever.