Yomiuri says that 13.44% of eligible voters had voted by 11AM, up 3.19 percentage points from the 2005 elections, but down from the 3.98 percentage point margin at 9AM. So let’s say that this election winds up 3 percentage points ahead of the 2005 election: such a turnout, at 46.99%, would place the election at—14th out of 16 post-WW II Tokyo Prefectural Assembly elections. This should help political parties with rock-solid constituencies, such as Komeito and the Communist Party. It would also be an indication of public dissatisfaction over the choice between the LDP and DPJ as the core of the next national administration.
Historically, turnout has followed a downward trend everywhere and Tokyo is no exception. The assembly election turnout dropped from a 1959 high of 70.13%*, up from 1955’s 59.63%—very low for those early years—to a 1998 low of 40.80%.
But the peaks and troughs tell a story of their own. The 1959 peak coincided with the national battle over the renewal of the Japan-U.S. security relationship that was to reach its peak with the signing of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan on 19 January 1960, while the low point reached in the previous 1955 election had been preceded by a Lower House general election only a couple of months earlier. The second lowest at a 43.99% turnout, the 2005 assembly election preceded Prime Minister Koizumi’s Post Office election by a couple of months, but nobody had an inkling at the time that one month later Koizumi would dissolve the Lower House and call an election.
Although I won’t rule out the possibility that a more thorough examination may show otherwise, these examples suggest that the interest of Tokyo voters in the assembly election waxes and wanes with their interest in the national political scene. From this point of view, the disinterest demonstrated by a turnout in the mid 40 percentile range, will speak volumes about the disappointment on the part of the public on the political parties across the board.
Showing posts with label Japanese elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japanese elections. Show all posts
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
To Take or Not to Take: the 12,000 Yen Giveaway
Cabinet members and the LDP and New Komeito leadership hold regular liaison meetings. At the latest such session today, Hiroyuki Hosoda, the LDP Secretary-General (deputy to Prime Minister Aso, who, following tradition, doubles as LDP President) insisted that Diet members take the 12,000 yen offered to each resident in Japan as part of the second-tranche economic stimulus package put forth by the Aso administration and spend it all. The thrust of Hosoda’s argument appears to be that Diet members are morally obligated to spend the money in order to goose the economy.
Now that would be sound advice, except that the Prime Minister himself has gone on the record to promise that he would not take the money and suggest that wealthy people who took the money were:
But the Prime Minister does have a point. A Diet member makes so much money compared to the average Jun that it’s hard to show that the 12,000 yen has been recycled back to the Japanese economy in the form of more consumption.
However, there is an easy way for the wealthy people to prove that they have actually spent an extra 12,000 yen: buy something with that money that you would never, ever dream of buying. Rich people will still have all the money that they need to keep buying whatever they were going to buy anyway. And this is where your humble blogger can be of help to the Secretary-General. You see, Hiroyuki Hosoda is a fellow METI alumnus, so I think I know him a little better than you my dear readers, and in a better position to suggest some things for purchase that he would never be buying on his own. Namely:
Actually, I had a suggestion for another, small item that would let him clear the 12,000 bar with a little room to spare. But he’s a healthy 64; you never know, he might need it for himself?
Now that would be sound advice, except that the Prime Minister himself has gone on the record to promise that he would not take the money and suggest that wealthy people who took the money were:
さもしい, as in (selfish; self‐seeking; mean; 《fml》 self‐interestedThe giveaway itself is a sensitive subject in the first place for the Prime Minister, who had reluctantly acceded to the New Komeito’s demand for an income tax refund that has since mutated into the 12,000-yen per-head, 2 trillion-yen, money-from-the-skies scheme. It is particularly painful for the Prime Minister because the giveaway has not been popular with the voters. Just as important, he (and the LDP) mishandled the issue in ways big and small before the relevant parties settled on its final form. The whole affair is credited with much of the blame in the Prime Minister’s plummeting fortunes, and rightfully so. Can anything better symbolize the plight of the beleaguered Prime Minister than the sight of his own second-in-command openly contradicting him in front of Cabinet Ministers and party bigwigs?
さもしい根性 《fml》 a mean mind; 《fml》 one's baser self
さもしい心から 《fml》 from base [sordid] motives
さもしいことをする stoop so low 《as to do
But the Prime Minister does have a point. A Diet member makes so much money compared to the average Jun that it’s hard to show that the 12,000 yen has been recycled back to the Japanese economy in the form of more consumption.
However, there is an easy way for the wealthy people to prove that they have actually spent an extra 12,000 yen: buy something with that money that you would never, ever dream of buying. Rich people will still have all the money that they need to keep buying whatever they were going to buy anyway. And this is where your humble blogger can be of help to the Secretary-General. You see, Hiroyuki Hosoda is a fellow METI alumnus, so I think I know him a little better than you my dear readers, and in a better position to suggest some things for purchase that he would never be buying on his own. Namely:
this, 4,879 Yen (including tax); andThey add up to 6,139 Yen, more than half the necessary expenditures. I’m sure my senpai can come up with other stuff that he doesn’t need. Just in case, though, I have a suggestion that covers most of the rest of the money for the consummate conservative pol:
this, 1,260 Yen(ditto)
here, 1896 Yen;Add them up, and it comes to 11,912 Yen. I know, I know, the Secretary-General is still 78 Yen short. To which I say, let my senpai keep at least that much; you never know how much longer he’ll have a job.
here, 1812 Yen; and
here, 2065Yen;
for a total of 5773 Yen.
Actually, I had a suggestion for another, small item that would let him clear the 12,000 bar with a little room to spare. But he’s a healthy 64; you never know, he might need it for himself?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The Meaning of Komeito as a Coalition Partner
Working out the first draft of a paper on the Fukuda administration has drained off most of my immediate thoughts on Japanese politics. But there’s something that I promised on this blog before I agreed to work on the write-for-hire piece that I only briefly touched on there: the pivotal role of Komeito in the lead-up to the Lower House general election. Moreover, there’s some guesswork that I wasn’t confident enough to include in the piece.
This is hopefully the first in several memos—in this case a brief introduction to the electoral significance of the LDP-Komeito coalition. If people find it informative, I may also keep building it towards an election primer, mainly for the upcoming Lower House.
Of all the help that the LDP has enjoyed over the years from non-traditional religious organizations, the support from Sokagakkai, a laic offshoot of the Nichiren sect , through its political arm Komeito has been by far the most important. In fact, without the bi-party coalition, now in its tenth year, the LDP would not have been able to remain in power over the past decade.
The help from Komeito goes beyond the obvious voting power of its Diet members and extends to the electoral process itself. Take the Lower House general election, where all 480 seats are contested, 300 of them in single-seat districts and 180 in 11 multiple-seat, regional proportional-representation districts. Komeito delivers the well-disciplined Sokagakkai membership as a voting bloc to the LDP candidate in most (but not all; see below) single-seat districts. Nobody can be sure how much many votes this is actually worth to the LDP—not even Komeito itself gets all the available Sokagakkai votes—but my guess is that it offers, say, a 4% liftt*, likely more in a highly urban district and less in a rural one. This is a significant leg up for the LDP in an increasingly evenly-matched battle against the DPJ.
Komeito of course also benefits electorally from the relationship, for electoral reciprocity is at the heart of the coalition. 8 of Komeito’s 31 Lower House members hold single-seat districts. Although all 8 hail from urban Kanto and Kansai, the traditional Sokagakkai strongholds**, it is obvious that none of them would have been elected unless the LDP had not only declined to field its own candidates against them but also given them the support of their local electoral machines. In certain proportional-representation districts, the LDP also hives off some wards and cedes their supporters there to vote for the Komeito candidate, thereby maximizing the combined electoral value of their supporters. Some of Komeito’s 23 proportional members surely owe their electoral success to this support.
It goes without saying then why am I going to say it? that the coalition also functions in the Upper House general election. 146 of the 242 seats are contested in prefecture-wide elections. (The remaining 96 are contested in a nationwide proportional election.) Sokagakkai throws its support behind the LDP candidates in the single-seat and the smaller multi-seat districts where the Komeito does not field a candidate. The LDP reciprocates by hiving off LDP supporters in selected wards in some larger districts to vote for the Komeito candidate. That way, the two parties maximize the value of the joint electoral power in the Upper House.
This is an intricate arrangement that has been dutifully worked out at the national, prefectural and municipal levels. Any change requires a painstaking, sometimes painful recalibration of the interests and egos of incumbents, aspirants, and their supporters. A switch in coalition partners to the DPJ would result in a dislocation of massive proportions for both parties. This alone ensures that the LDP and Komeito are stuck with each other for the upcoming Lower House election at least.
Looking further into the near future, it is notable that the DPJ is more reliant on independent voters; the support for the LDP is more solid and therefore more dependable. Thus, other things being equal, the LDP brings more benefits to its coalition partner in the short-term.
Finally, I have taken care to distinguish Komeito and Sokagakkai in my explanation. The relationship between the two will be an important element of my next post on the Komeito.
* I may have to alter his number after I look up past voting results, but I think that this is a good ballpark figure.
** The influence of traditional Buddhist sects appear to be stronger among the more conservative, less mobile population in the provinces.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Polls Show Reshuffle Bump Almost Gone; Public Wants Action Now
According to a couple of recent polls, the Fuji TV poll (Greater Metropolitan Tokyo, weekly, telephone) and the Yomiuri poll (national, monthly, interview), show that the modest bump from Prime Minister Fukuda’s cabinet-LDP leadership reshuffle is mostly gone but hints that the effect of Taro Aso’s return as party Secretary-General has been more substantial. This may be the first time in LDP history that a party-leadership switch turned out to be the most effective public relations move in the reshuffle. That is bad news for the Prime Minister.
The August 7 Fuji TV poll shows both the Fukuda Cabinet and the LDP (candidates in next Lower House election) dead even with their most recent pre-reshuffles selves in the July 17 poll at 27.2% and 21.4% support respectively. The “do not support” figure for the Fukuda Cabinet went up slightly, from 66.6% to 68.4%. Support for DPJ candidates was down slightly from 29.6% to 28.0%. All this should be within any meaningful margin of error.
The August 9-10 Yomiuri poll has support for the Fukuda Cabinet at 28.3%, up slightly from 26.6% in the July 12-13 poll and the “do not support” figure down slightly to 59.7% from 61.3%. More interesting are the Yomiuri figures for the LDP, whose public support has gone up 3.3 percentage points to 30.5%, while the DPJ stood almost unchanged at 18.7% (down 0.1 pp). Moreover, when the responders were asked which party they intended to vote for in the Lower House proportional districts, the LDP scored 31.3% (up 6pp), putting it ahead of the DPJ, which scored 25.1% (down 2pp), for the first time since May.
Only two week-after polls so far, so I’ll keep my eyes open, but it looks like the LDP is doing better that the Fukuda Cabinet and I can think of only one reason for this: Mr. Aso’s appointment. This must be giving both LDP Diet members and the rank-and-file ideas.
As I’ve told you before, procedurally, it’s not easy to depose a sitting President of the LDP. Besides, Mr. Fukuda is pretty stubborn once he makes his mind up, and he gives the impression of a guy that is determined to stay around for a while at least. However, RS and I have been tossing scenarios—more like plotlines—back and forth, and we (mostly he) came up with the idea that the Prime Minister Fukuda might do the delinking of the gasoline tax money from road development and maintenance—fundamental reform of the tax system, i.e. making the decision to raise the consumption tax rate looks increasingly doomed—and the re-extension of the Indian Ocean refueling operations and toss the scepter of power to the person-in-waiting, who’ll take the LDP-Komeito coalition into the next Lower House election.
This actually follows an oft-scripted Japanese narrative. The tragic hero that fulfills his duty against all odds then falls on his sword—or spills his guts, since this is Japan—is a familiar figure in Japanese folklore and popular drama. The cause he espouses matters only tangentially; the important thing is the self-sacrifice. Then all is forgiven. On a slightly different plane, the LDP rode Prime Minister Ohira’s untimely death during the campaign for the 1980 Upper-House-Lower House double election to an otherwise inexplicable landslide victory. Mr. Fukuda can only die a metaphorical death; not quite the real thing, but it’s better than nothing. For Mr. Fukuda, it beats leading the LDP into a bloodbath, then resigning, and it gives him the satisfaction of becoming a party martyr of sorts.
All this has everything to do with the political game and not much to do with statecraft. For that, we turn again to one of the questions in the Yomiuri poll, which asks:
The Yomiuri gave responders 17 examples to choose from. The numbers were down on 15, with the environment taking the biggest hit (22.9%←30.6%; note that the Fukuda Cabinet with the complicity of the media was touting its role in pushing the global warming agenda at the Hokkaido Summit), with North Korea (20.6%←27.5%) and food safety (32.0%←37.9%) also taking a tumble in the electorate’s priorities. Self-defense/national security showed a statistically insignificant 0.3 percentage-point rise (9.2%←8.9%). The only real gainer? “Economic and employment countermeasures”, at 63.2%, up 5.6 percentage points from 57.6%. We want economic stimulus, and more jobs. “Reform of the social security system including pensions and medical care” clocks in at 60.2% down 2.8 percentage points. Nothing else comes close.
The economy has even overtaken all the scandals over the social safety net and its long-term solvency worries in the minds of the Japanese public. This doesn't mean that the LDP can take its eyes off them; they have their own constituencies. But I do believe that most long-term, structural issues will be taking a backseat to more immediate concerns over the economy in the mass media. That is where the main thrust of what passes for statecraft is going to be directed for the time being.
The August 7 Fuji TV poll shows both the Fukuda Cabinet and the LDP (candidates in next Lower House election) dead even with their most recent pre-reshuffles selves in the July 17 poll at 27.2% and 21.4% support respectively. The “do not support” figure for the Fukuda Cabinet went up slightly, from 66.6% to 68.4%. Support for DPJ candidates was down slightly from 29.6% to 28.0%. All this should be within any meaningful margin of error.
The August 9-10 Yomiuri poll has support for the Fukuda Cabinet at 28.3%, up slightly from 26.6% in the July 12-13 poll and the “do not support” figure down slightly to 59.7% from 61.3%. More interesting are the Yomiuri figures for the LDP, whose public support has gone up 3.3 percentage points to 30.5%, while the DPJ stood almost unchanged at 18.7% (down 0.1 pp). Moreover, when the responders were asked which party they intended to vote for in the Lower House proportional districts, the LDP scored 31.3% (up 6pp), putting it ahead of the DPJ, which scored 25.1% (down 2pp), for the first time since May.
Only two week-after polls so far, so I’ll keep my eyes open, but it looks like the LDP is doing better that the Fukuda Cabinet and I can think of only one reason for this: Mr. Aso’s appointment. This must be giving both LDP Diet members and the rank-and-file ideas.
As I’ve told you before, procedurally, it’s not easy to depose a sitting President of the LDP. Besides, Mr. Fukuda is pretty stubborn once he makes his mind up, and he gives the impression of a guy that is determined to stay around for a while at least. However, RS and I have been tossing scenarios—more like plotlines—back and forth, and we (mostly he) came up with the idea that the Prime Minister Fukuda might do the delinking of the gasoline tax money from road development and maintenance—fundamental reform of the tax system, i.e. making the decision to raise the consumption tax rate looks increasingly doomed—and the re-extension of the Indian Ocean refueling operations and toss the scepter of power to the person-in-waiting, who’ll take the LDP-Komeito coalition into the next Lower House election.
This actually follows an oft-scripted Japanese narrative. The tragic hero that fulfills his duty against all odds then falls on his sword—or spills his guts, since this is Japan—is a familiar figure in Japanese folklore and popular drama. The cause he espouses matters only tangentially; the important thing is the self-sacrifice. Then all is forgiven. On a slightly different plane, the LDP rode Prime Minister Ohira’s untimely death during the campaign for the 1980 Upper-House-Lower House double election to an otherwise inexplicable landslide victory. Mr. Fukuda can only die a metaphorical death; not quite the real thing, but it’s better than nothing. For Mr. Fukuda, it beats leading the LDP into a bloodbath, then resigning, and it gives him the satisfaction of becoming a party martyr of sorts.
All this has everything to do with the political game and not much to do with statecraft. For that, we turn again to one of the questions in the Yomiuri poll, which asks:
If there are issues that you want the Fukuda Cabinet to take up on a priority basis, please give as many as you like.
The Yomiuri gave responders 17 examples to choose from. The numbers were down on 15, with the environment taking the biggest hit (22.9%←30.6%; note that the Fukuda Cabinet with the complicity of the media was touting its role in pushing the global warming agenda at the Hokkaido Summit), with North Korea (20.6%←27.5%) and food safety (32.0%←37.9%) also taking a tumble in the electorate’s priorities. Self-defense/national security showed a statistically insignificant 0.3 percentage-point rise (9.2%←8.9%). The only real gainer? “Economic and employment countermeasures”, at 63.2%, up 5.6 percentage points from 57.6%. We want economic stimulus, and more jobs. “Reform of the social security system including pensions and medical care” clocks in at 60.2% down 2.8 percentage points. Nothing else comes close.
The economy has even overtaken all the scandals over the social safety net and its long-term solvency worries in the minds of the Japanese public. This doesn't mean that the LDP can take its eyes off them; they have their own constituencies. But I do believe that most long-term, structural issues will be taking a backseat to more immediate concerns over the economy in the mass media. That is where the main thrust of what passes for statecraft is going to be directed for the time being.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Runoff for DPJ Leadership Election? The LDP Wishes
First, it was Katsuya Okada. Now, another ex-DPJ leader, Seiji Maehara, has declined to run for the DPJ presidency when Ichiro Ozawa’s current term expires in September. Since the other ex-leaders Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan have set aside their differences in order to take down the LDP-Komeito coalition in the next Lower House election, this leaves Yoshihiko Noda with his own nineteen-member Let All the Flowers Bloom Association as the only significant DPJ figure left who has not abandoned the thought.
Nobody expects Mr. Ozawa to be unseated. In fact, it is unlikely that anyone outside of Mr. Noda’s group and We Will Rise above the Clouds Association with 38-members (seven of them also belong to LAFBA) will cast a vote for a pretender to the throne. The logic behind a contested election despite such bleak prospects for a challenger* is that a healthy debate over the policy manifest for the upcoming election can only strengthen party unity and the campaign platform. Reelection by acclaim would rob the party of the invigorating effects of the runoff.
Don’t believe a single word of that.
It is telling that the calls for a contested election are coming from Mr. Ozawa’s opponents. An open debate would only serve to rehash the fragile political compromise that has papered over fundamental differences with regard to the need to raise the consumption tax rate for a 100%-subsidized basic pension plan and the desirability of overseas commitments for the Self-Defense Force. Moreover, it is likely to unleash the barely-disguised animosity between the anti-Ozawa crowd—witness, for example, Yukio Edano’s near-perpetual rage against the old-school politician—on one side and his diehard supporters and fellow travelers on the other. The LDP will scour the records of the proceedings for material to throw at the DPJ in a negative campaign come election time. Better, then, to maintain the façade of party unity, at least until the final polls are in for the main event, no later than September 2009.
An added point is that Mr. Ozawa is at best a mediocre debater, in demeanor and substance, and his obvious dislike of the limelight is well-known, to the point where a reporter was recently moved to ask him whether he really intended to serve if the DPJ won. The contrast in a public face-off with, say, the loquacious Mr. Noda would not reflect well on the party leader.
This last point reminds me of a related issue with regard to the Lower House election itself. The secretive, taciturn Mr. Ozawa is a stark contrast in style not only to the goofily pleasant Prime Minister Fukuda, but also to the congenial, loquacious-to-a-fault Taro Aso, and it shows in the polls. The latest Fuji TV Metropolitan Tokyo area poll taken on August 3 showed Mr. Aso leading Mr. Ozawa 29.2% to 12.4% as the preferred successor to Mr. Fukuda. Now this does not mean that the LDP will be replacing Mr. Fukuda with Mr. Aso any time soon. But it is important to note that at the hustings nationwide, it is Mr. Aso who will be the face of the LDP in lieu of the Prime Minister, who will be confined—perhaps a little too conveniently—to Tokyo for official business. The outcome of a Sir Foot-in-Mouth vs. Mr. Uncongeniality matchup is by no means foreordained, but it will nevertheless behoove the DPJ to avoid putting Mr. Ozawa front and center of the electoral fight.
The obvious corollary of this is that the LDP should do its best to make Mr. Ozawa the issue. The LDP cannot run on the coalition’s record; it cannot run on its program either. And it cannot run against itself, as it did in 2005 under Prime Minister Koizumi. The only option left is to run against the opposition, whose greatest strength and weakness is Mr. Ozawa. So look forward to plenty of negative campaigning, much of it personal. But that is the subject for a separate post.
* The DPJ has 219 Diet members, with two vote each. Official Diet candidates who are not Diet members have one each. Supporters and rank-and-file party members cast 100 votes; local assemblymen also have 100 votes. This brings the toal number of votes that can be cast to 638 plus the number of official candidates that have been selected by the time of the party election.
Nobody expects Mr. Ozawa to be unseated. In fact, it is unlikely that anyone outside of Mr. Noda’s group and We Will Rise above the Clouds Association with 38-members (seven of them also belong to LAFBA) will cast a vote for a pretender to the throne. The logic behind a contested election despite such bleak prospects for a challenger* is that a healthy debate over the policy manifest for the upcoming election can only strengthen party unity and the campaign platform. Reelection by acclaim would rob the party of the invigorating effects of the runoff.
Don’t believe a single word of that.
It is telling that the calls for a contested election are coming from Mr. Ozawa’s opponents. An open debate would only serve to rehash the fragile political compromise that has papered over fundamental differences with regard to the need to raise the consumption tax rate for a 100%-subsidized basic pension plan and the desirability of overseas commitments for the Self-Defense Force. Moreover, it is likely to unleash the barely-disguised animosity between the anti-Ozawa crowd—witness, for example, Yukio Edano’s near-perpetual rage against the old-school politician—on one side and his diehard supporters and fellow travelers on the other. The LDP will scour the records of the proceedings for material to throw at the DPJ in a negative campaign come election time. Better, then, to maintain the façade of party unity, at least until the final polls are in for the main event, no later than September 2009.
An added point is that Mr. Ozawa is at best a mediocre debater, in demeanor and substance, and his obvious dislike of the limelight is well-known, to the point where a reporter was recently moved to ask him whether he really intended to serve if the DPJ won. The contrast in a public face-off with, say, the loquacious Mr. Noda would not reflect well on the party leader.
This last point reminds me of a related issue with regard to the Lower House election itself. The secretive, taciturn Mr. Ozawa is a stark contrast in style not only to the goofily pleasant Prime Minister Fukuda, but also to the congenial, loquacious-to-a-fault Taro Aso, and it shows in the polls. The latest Fuji TV Metropolitan Tokyo area poll taken on August 3 showed Mr. Aso leading Mr. Ozawa 29.2% to 12.4% as the preferred successor to Mr. Fukuda. Now this does not mean that the LDP will be replacing Mr. Fukuda with Mr. Aso any time soon. But it is important to note that at the hustings nationwide, it is Mr. Aso who will be the face of the LDP in lieu of the Prime Minister, who will be confined—perhaps a little too conveniently—to Tokyo for official business. The outcome of a Sir Foot-in-Mouth vs. Mr. Uncongeniality matchup is by no means foreordained, but it will nevertheless behoove the DPJ to avoid putting Mr. Ozawa front and center of the electoral fight.
The obvious corollary of this is that the LDP should do its best to make Mr. Ozawa the issue. The LDP cannot run on the coalition’s record; it cannot run on its program either. And it cannot run against itself, as it did in 2005 under Prime Minister Koizumi. The only option left is to run against the opposition, whose greatest strength and weakness is Mr. Ozawa. So look forward to plenty of negative campaigning, much of it personal. But that is the subject for a separate post.
* The DPJ has 219 Diet members, with two vote each. Official Diet candidates who are not Diet members have one each. Supporters and rank-and-file party members cast 100 votes; local assemblymen also have 100 votes. This brings the toal number of votes that can be cast to 638 plus the number of official candidates that have been selected by the time of the party election.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Gasoline Prices: Here and There
Here, I took up Paul Krugman’s argument against the temporary relief that Senators Evil and Pointless—his words, not mine, sort of—are pretending to push. MK must be reading this blog, because she kindly sent me this report from the Center from American Progress Action Fund that sums up the discussions going on over there. The consensus of US economists appears to be that a temporary tax cut will not be reflected in a lower gas price and the money will go to the oil companies. (Senator Clinton proposes an excess profits tax on the oil companies to sop it up, which is where “pointless” comes in.) Makes sense, I guess. But wouldn’t economists love to see something like that happen, just to see if their theory works?
Well, Japan just did that all of last month, and the fact of the matter is, thing haven’t quite turned out that way. On and around April 1, service stations engaged in a session of price cutting that only game theorists could love, and come May, they are reportedly going through somewhat similar gyrations, ultimately bringing gas prices up to pre-April levels plus cost adjustments for rising oil prices. What gives?
Two possible reasons: First, I think that Japanese gas supply is more elastic than America’s. Japanese demand is growing more slowly, so there’s likely more production capacity available to take advantage of lower costs. The US oil market is a crazy-quilt of state regulations that makes it difficult in the short-run to adjust supply to cross-state shifts in demand, except for interstate drivers as well as drivers living near state borders. The segmentation also makes it difficult to increase supply through imports. These elements add up to a US market where supply is highly and uniquely inelastic.
Second, a shift in the supply curve can cause also cause changes in gas prices. Japanese oil businesses may be more amenable to public pressure and moral suasion. They cannot forget how the public vilified them for raising prices during the 1973 Oil Crisis, and politicians and the government piled on. All cost changes should be of equal effect, at least in the short-run, but in Japan, some costs are more equal than others.
Here, actually, I’d like to segue into my take on the fall showdown by way of the latest Asahi telephone poll. Hope to do that later, but in the meantime, briefly:
The LDP-New Komeito coalition must come up with a credible fiscal reform package that covers expenditures. The DPJ should come up with a credible fiscal reform package that ties together all the promises that they’ve been making with regard to cutting tax cuts and increasing subsidies. My vote in the next House of Representatives general election goes to the one that does. My bet is on None of the Above. Please stay tuned.
Well, Japan just did that all of last month, and the fact of the matter is, thing haven’t quite turned out that way. On and around April 1, service stations engaged in a session of price cutting that only game theorists could love, and come May, they are reportedly going through somewhat similar gyrations, ultimately bringing gas prices up to pre-April levels plus cost adjustments for rising oil prices. What gives?
Two possible reasons: First, I think that Japanese gas supply is more elastic than America’s. Japanese demand is growing more slowly, so there’s likely more production capacity available to take advantage of lower costs. The US oil market is a crazy-quilt of state regulations that makes it difficult in the short-run to adjust supply to cross-state shifts in demand, except for interstate drivers as well as drivers living near state borders. The segmentation also makes it difficult to increase supply through imports. These elements add up to a US market where supply is highly and uniquely inelastic.
Second, a shift in the supply curve can cause also cause changes in gas prices. Japanese oil businesses may be more amenable to public pressure and moral suasion. They cannot forget how the public vilified them for raising prices during the 1973 Oil Crisis, and politicians and the government piled on. All cost changes should be of equal effect, at least in the short-run, but in Japan, some costs are more equal than others.
Here, actually, I’d like to segue into my take on the fall showdown by way of the latest Asahi telephone poll. Hope to do that later, but in the meantime, briefly:
The LDP-New Komeito coalition must come up with a credible fiscal reform package that covers expenditures. The DPJ should come up with a credible fiscal reform package that ties together all the promises that they’ve been making with regard to cutting tax cuts and increasing subsidies. My vote in the next House of Representatives general election goes to the one that does. My bet is on None of the Above. Please stay tuned.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Can DPJ Dissenters Join the Ruling Coalition on the Other Side of the Road Money?
I swear I've never spent so much time on a single post. And it still needs editing. But I’ve run out of energy. Now back to life…
Tetsuro Yano is a three-term member of the House of Councilors (HC) whose only claim to national fame came last August during the wholesale Cabinet reshuffle that Prime Minister Abe undertook in a vain attempt to revive his political fortunes after the disastrous HC election the month before.
Many people, including Mr. Yano himself, had believed that he would be appointed to the Cabinet as one of two slots always reserved for the HC. Unfortunately, Mr. Abe was not among them, and kept Mr. Yano waiting in vain for the phone call that never came. (Mssrs. Yoichi Masuzoe and Shinichi Izumi got the nod.) Mr. Yano is not one to take things lying down, and made his displeasure known on national TV. He also called Mr. Abe and, if media reports are true, delivered a 25-munite diatribe.
Now, Mr. Yano is in the news again for giving a talk on April 23 in his home district where he claimed, “Some people are now emerging [among the DPJ HC members] who are willing to work with us. Pretty soon, those people are going to set up on their own.” The bone of contention is, of course, the gasoline tax revenue and its uses.
Coming from most people, this would be dismissed as mere pre-election tongue-wagging. That Mr. Yano is a member of the Ibuki faction--Bunmei Ibuki is the hardtalking Secretary-General of the LDP--raise more flags. However, the HC is a clubby place, and Mr. Yano worked closely with the opposition as the Chairman of the LDP’s HC Diet Affairs Committee between 2004 and 2007, so he should have a better-than-average idea of what’s going on in the hearts and minds of the people across the HC aisle than most of his LDP colleagues do. Then there’s Yasuhiro Ōe, the rebellious DPJ Councilor who claimed more than a month ago that he had the signatures of 39 DPJ Diet members (including 25 in the all-important HC) on a petition opposing the elimination of the surcharge.
But will enough DPJ Councilors break ranks and vote for or at least abstain from voting on the Fukuda administration’s tax bill to reinstate the surcharge? And if they do, will they break away to form a new party, or even join the LDP? If I had to make a guess, I’d say, possible, but unlikely.
On one hand, public works brings together one of the most powerful agglomerations of vested interests imaginable. Representatives of the provinces, whose economies are highly reliant on public expenditures, not to mention other old school, pork-barrel politicians, will find their beseeching hard to ignore. On the other hand, the DPJ wants to push the Fukuda administration and the ruling coalition over the edge on the issue, so the party leadership will come down more heavily on dissenters than in the case of the BOJ appointments*. In fact, there appears to be a real likelihood that the DPJ leadership will make it so uncomfortable for any members who vote with the ruling coalition on the tax bill that they will have no choice but to, in the words of Mr. Yano, “set up on their own”. Here, note that two of the likely ringleaders, Yasuhiro Ōe (2007), next to last, and Hideo Watanabe (2004) hold proportional seats. This is important.
Mssrs. Ōe and Watanabe and other HC proportional members in the DPJ, with their strong though limited local ties, are likely to find the siren call of the vested interests and assemblymen and mayors and governors hard to resist. But they have little appeal beyond their immediate environs, and as a result will have a hard time attracting votes over and above what they can carry over individually from their old DPJ haunts. Banding together, they will manage to elect the top vote-getters on their proportional candidates list, but the others will surely wind up losing their seats. They could stand for election in the prefectural districts in parallel, but that’s where they would be in the first place if they had sufficient local appeal, wouldn’t they? In fact, many of them are local losers who made it on the national list, so they would wind up being caught in the crossfire as the quasi-LDP, third-party candidate.
It turns out that Mssrs. Ōe and Watanabe are perfect examples of those likely losers. The DPJ won 19 proportional seats (allocated on a national basis) to the LDP’s 15 in the 2004 HC election, enabling Mr. Watanabe to scrape through at the very bottom, as the 19th highest vote-getter among the DPJ candidates. The DPJ was even more successful in the 2007 HC election, winning 20 proportional seats to the LDP’s 14, DPJ landslide victory, where Mr. Ōe slipped past the stiles in, yes, 19th place. In other words, in both cases, if the DPJ margin of victory in the popular vote had been much lower, they would very likely be out of a job now.
Would it help them to join the LDP outright then? Not necessarily. Mssrs. Ōe and Watanabe both received substantially less votes than the LDP proportional Councilors-elect with the least individual votes in the respective elections. Barring an LDP victory of 2004/2007 DPJ proportions, it is likely that they will lose their seats in their next elections.
Likeminded DPJ cohorts may be in a better position to bolt and hold onto their proportional seats. But remember, the number of seats that a party receives will be determined by the total of the votes for the entire party. A splinter party consisting of members with no national name recognition and without the money to field a large number of candidates with local appeal will be little more than the sum of its parts. A safe proportional seat in a big party would be at serious risk in a minor upstart. Those figures would be advised to switch to the LDP, rather than start a new one. Since we don’t have their names, it is impossible to be sure how many of them there are. What is clear is that their interests are not necessarily consonant with those of the two of the most prominent dissidents.
Yoshitake Kimata voted for Toshirō Mutō and was slapped with a one-month suspension, and is thus seen as a possible co-conspirator. He is elected from Aichi Prefecture, so he will not suffer from the same constraints that make a rebellion problematic for many proportional seat-holders. So could he join the LDP. But Aichi is a DPJ stronghold, with support from its powerful, moderate wing of the labor movement, with which global industrial giant Toyota has enjoyed very good relations. Mr. Kimata was himself one of two DPJ Councilors elected in the 2007 victory. The lone 2007 LDP incumbent will be very reluctant to compete against another LDP incumbent for what is likely to end up as one, not two, LDP seat in the 2013 HC elections. Other Councilors elected from prefectural districts may have an easier time of it, but in the 18 multiple-seat election provinces (with 4 or more seats, so that 2 or more are contested in any election), they could face fierce opposition from the LDP incumbents. Mr. Kimata and his non-proportional cohorts do have the option of setting up a party of their own. Good luck contesting the next elections as a small, quasi-LDP offshoot from the DPJ.
What is likely to happen, then?
Assuming that it continues to receive the unanimous support of the 105 LDP and Komeito Councilors, the Fukuda administration needs 17 non-coalition votes, 33 non-coalition abstentions, or combinations thereof for a HC majority. With more to lose either way, many potential DPJ dissenters will be strongly tempted to catch the flu, miss a connecting flight, anything, just to avoid voting at all. So if I’m reading the situation correctly, dissent will be expressed mainly through abstention and there won’t be many outright crossovers. That means that the coalition will require a fairly large number, much closer to the maximum 33 than the minimum 17, to step out of line if it is to gain a working HC majority. That seems like a tall order, though I don’t have the data to do a one-by-one analysis.
So far, I’ve argued that the opposition is more likely than not to be able to hold the line. But since I’ve been wrong quite often--not that professional pundits do a particularly good job of foretelling the twists and turns of the political game very well--it’s probably prudent to do a what-if and consider what sufficient crossover would mean to the coalition’s fortunes.
It is easy to think that this would yield immediate benefits to the LDP. They could very likely do more than just pass the tax and road bills without resorting to the House of Representatives supermajority override vote. In fact, in the case of an irrevocable DPJ split, they would be able to pass other contested bills as well.
But would the tactical success be a good thing for the LDP’s fortunes? I don’t think so. The would-be rebels are not going to bolt the DPJ just to put off the transfer of the gasoline tax money to general-purpose funds to FY2009 as the Fukuda administration intends instead of immediately as the DPJ demands, or just to reinstate the surcharge for the greater good as the Fukuda administration claims, but to keep as much of the money as possible for roads, earmark or no earmark. The would-be rebels will surely spare no effort to leverage their hold on the legislative fortunes of the coalition to achieve that aim.
This leverage that vested interests will be able to exercise on the end uses of the gasoline tax revenue will be bad enough on its own. But Prime Minister Fukuda has promised, with the post facto approval of the ruling coalition, to eliminate the earmark as part of “thoroughgoing” tax reform this autumn. In other words, Mr. Fukuda, he has linked the maintenance of the surcharge with what is very likely to be a substantial, albeit phased in, hike of the consumption tax, currently standing at 5%.
Now the public understands, in principle, the inevitability of a greater tax burden. But it has seen ample evidence of waste, corruption, and plain indifference; it will be ill-disposed to accept any tax package that is not accompanied by credible reform on the administration and expenditure of public funds. The public pension and healthcare systems are an obvious example of this; the road development and maintenance program is another. Mr. Fukuda faces a formidable task in putting together a publicly credible package by autumn. It will become even more daunting if vested interests could hold the gasoline tax revenues as hostage in return for their political support.
The coalition should be careful what it wishes for, don’t you think?
* I posted on the matter here. The three dissenters merely received “severe admonishments”.
Tetsuro Yano is a three-term member of the House of Councilors (HC) whose only claim to national fame came last August during the wholesale Cabinet reshuffle that Prime Minister Abe undertook in a vain attempt to revive his political fortunes after the disastrous HC election the month before.
Many people, including Mr. Yano himself, had believed that he would be appointed to the Cabinet as one of two slots always reserved for the HC. Unfortunately, Mr. Abe was not among them, and kept Mr. Yano waiting in vain for the phone call that never came. (Mssrs. Yoichi Masuzoe and Shinichi Izumi got the nod.) Mr. Yano is not one to take things lying down, and made his displeasure known on national TV. He also called Mr. Abe and, if media reports are true, delivered a 25-munite diatribe.
Now, Mr. Yano is in the news again for giving a talk on April 23 in his home district where he claimed, “Some people are now emerging [among the DPJ HC members] who are willing to work with us. Pretty soon, those people are going to set up on their own.” The bone of contention is, of course, the gasoline tax revenue and its uses.
Coming from most people, this would be dismissed as mere pre-election tongue-wagging. That Mr. Yano is a member of the Ibuki faction--Bunmei Ibuki is the hardtalking Secretary-General of the LDP--raise more flags. However, the HC is a clubby place, and Mr. Yano worked closely with the opposition as the Chairman of the LDP’s HC Diet Affairs Committee between 2004 and 2007, so he should have a better-than-average idea of what’s going on in the hearts and minds of the people across the HC aisle than most of his LDP colleagues do. Then there’s Yasuhiro Ōe, the rebellious DPJ Councilor who claimed more than a month ago that he had the signatures of 39 DPJ Diet members (including 25 in the all-important HC) on a petition opposing the elimination of the surcharge.
But will enough DPJ Councilors break ranks and vote for or at least abstain from voting on the Fukuda administration’s tax bill to reinstate the surcharge? And if they do, will they break away to form a new party, or even join the LDP? If I had to make a guess, I’d say, possible, but unlikely.
On one hand, public works brings together one of the most powerful agglomerations of vested interests imaginable. Representatives of the provinces, whose economies are highly reliant on public expenditures, not to mention other old school, pork-barrel politicians, will find their beseeching hard to ignore. On the other hand, the DPJ wants to push the Fukuda administration and the ruling coalition over the edge on the issue, so the party leadership will come down more heavily on dissenters than in the case of the BOJ appointments*. In fact, there appears to be a real likelihood that the DPJ leadership will make it so uncomfortable for any members who vote with the ruling coalition on the tax bill that they will have no choice but to, in the words of Mr. Yano, “set up on their own”. Here, note that two of the likely ringleaders, Yasuhiro Ōe (2007), next to last, and Hideo Watanabe (2004) hold proportional seats. This is important.
Mssrs. Ōe and Watanabe and other HC proportional members in the DPJ, with their strong though limited local ties, are likely to find the siren call of the vested interests and assemblymen and mayors and governors hard to resist. But they have little appeal beyond their immediate environs, and as a result will have a hard time attracting votes over and above what they can carry over individually from their old DPJ haunts. Banding together, they will manage to elect the top vote-getters on their proportional candidates list, but the others will surely wind up losing their seats. They could stand for election in the prefectural districts in parallel, but that’s where they would be in the first place if they had sufficient local appeal, wouldn’t they? In fact, many of them are local losers who made it on the national list, so they would wind up being caught in the crossfire as the quasi-LDP, third-party candidate.
It turns out that Mssrs. Ōe and Watanabe are perfect examples of those likely losers. The DPJ won 19 proportional seats (allocated on a national basis) to the LDP’s 15 in the 2004 HC election, enabling Mr. Watanabe to scrape through at the very bottom, as the 19th highest vote-getter among the DPJ candidates. The DPJ was even more successful in the 2007 HC election, winning 20 proportional seats to the LDP’s 14, DPJ landslide victory, where Mr. Ōe slipped past the stiles in, yes, 19th place. In other words, in both cases, if the DPJ margin of victory in the popular vote had been much lower, they would very likely be out of a job now.
Would it help them to join the LDP outright then? Not necessarily. Mssrs. Ōe and Watanabe both received substantially less votes than the LDP proportional Councilors-elect with the least individual votes in the respective elections. Barring an LDP victory of 2004/2007 DPJ proportions, it is likely that they will lose their seats in their next elections.
Likeminded DPJ cohorts may be in a better position to bolt and hold onto their proportional seats. But remember, the number of seats that a party receives will be determined by the total of the votes for the entire party. A splinter party consisting of members with no national name recognition and without the money to field a large number of candidates with local appeal will be little more than the sum of its parts. A safe proportional seat in a big party would be at serious risk in a minor upstart. Those figures would be advised to switch to the LDP, rather than start a new one. Since we don’t have their names, it is impossible to be sure how many of them there are. What is clear is that their interests are not necessarily consonant with those of the two of the most prominent dissidents.
Yoshitake Kimata voted for Toshirō Mutō and was slapped with a one-month suspension, and is thus seen as a possible co-conspirator. He is elected from Aichi Prefecture, so he will not suffer from the same constraints that make a rebellion problematic for many proportional seat-holders. So could he join the LDP. But Aichi is a DPJ stronghold, with support from its powerful, moderate wing of the labor movement, with which global industrial giant Toyota has enjoyed very good relations. Mr. Kimata was himself one of two DPJ Councilors elected in the 2007 victory. The lone 2007 LDP incumbent will be very reluctant to compete against another LDP incumbent for what is likely to end up as one, not two, LDP seat in the 2013 HC elections. Other Councilors elected from prefectural districts may have an easier time of it, but in the 18 multiple-seat election provinces (with 4 or more seats, so that 2 or more are contested in any election), they could face fierce opposition from the LDP incumbents. Mr. Kimata and his non-proportional cohorts do have the option of setting up a party of their own. Good luck contesting the next elections as a small, quasi-LDP offshoot from the DPJ.
What is likely to happen, then?
Assuming that it continues to receive the unanimous support of the 105 LDP and Komeito Councilors, the Fukuda administration needs 17 non-coalition votes, 33 non-coalition abstentions, or combinations thereof for a HC majority. With more to lose either way, many potential DPJ dissenters will be strongly tempted to catch the flu, miss a connecting flight, anything, just to avoid voting at all. So if I’m reading the situation correctly, dissent will be expressed mainly through abstention and there won’t be many outright crossovers. That means that the coalition will require a fairly large number, much closer to the maximum 33 than the minimum 17, to step out of line if it is to gain a working HC majority. That seems like a tall order, though I don’t have the data to do a one-by-one analysis.
So far, I’ve argued that the opposition is more likely than not to be able to hold the line. But since I’ve been wrong quite often--not that professional pundits do a particularly good job of foretelling the twists and turns of the political game very well--it’s probably prudent to do a what-if and consider what sufficient crossover would mean to the coalition’s fortunes.
It is easy to think that this would yield immediate benefits to the LDP. They could very likely do more than just pass the tax and road bills without resorting to the House of Representatives supermajority override vote. In fact, in the case of an irrevocable DPJ split, they would be able to pass other contested bills as well.
But would the tactical success be a good thing for the LDP’s fortunes? I don’t think so. The would-be rebels are not going to bolt the DPJ just to put off the transfer of the gasoline tax money to general-purpose funds to FY2009 as the Fukuda administration intends instead of immediately as the DPJ demands, or just to reinstate the surcharge for the greater good as the Fukuda administration claims, but to keep as much of the money as possible for roads, earmark or no earmark. The would-be rebels will surely spare no effort to leverage their hold on the legislative fortunes of the coalition to achieve that aim.
This leverage that vested interests will be able to exercise on the end uses of the gasoline tax revenue will be bad enough on its own. But Prime Minister Fukuda has promised, with the post facto approval of the ruling coalition, to eliminate the earmark as part of “thoroughgoing” tax reform this autumn. In other words, Mr. Fukuda, he has linked the maintenance of the surcharge with what is very likely to be a substantial, albeit phased in, hike of the consumption tax, currently standing at 5%.
Now the public understands, in principle, the inevitability of a greater tax burden. But it has seen ample evidence of waste, corruption, and plain indifference; it will be ill-disposed to accept any tax package that is not accompanied by credible reform on the administration and expenditure of public funds. The public pension and healthcare systems are an obvious example of this; the road development and maintenance program is another. Mr. Fukuda faces a formidable task in putting together a publicly credible package by autumn. It will become even more daunting if vested interests could hold the gasoline tax revenues as hostage in return for their political support.
The coalition should be careful what it wishes for, don’t you think?
* I posted on the matter here. The three dissenters merely received “severe admonishments”.
Friday, January 04, 2008
A Few Thoughts on the Post-Lower House General Election
I just posted to the effect that the ruling coalition will win the next Lower House election, or rather, the DPJ will not win. But that does not mean that Prime Minister Fukuda will necessarily be out of the woods.
If the ruling coalition maintains a supermajority, Mr. Fukuda will have a renewed mandate. Heaven has spoken: the coalition will rightfully claim the right to exercise the override more freely, still with care, than in the upcoming regular Diet session. Moreover, even if the coalition loses the supermajority, I expect that Mr. Fukuda can stay on if he wishes as long as the LDP can maintain a symbolic one-party majority; Mr. Asō is not exactly the person you want to put forward as Prime Minister when seeking accommodation with micro-parties to exercise the override or, at worst, with the DPJ, in order to pass sorely-needed legislation. I will not guess at what may happens below that talismanic figure.
It appears that Mr. Fukuda has put a definitive lid on a Cabinet reshuffle. That means that he will keep that card to play for much later, after the Lower House election if it falls within the year. Fukushirō will not go unless the other shoe drops and he becomes yoked with Fumio Kyūma. I think that I should have given more thought to the possibility that a bored press corps travelling with Mr. Fukuda blew it up out of proportions.
If the ruling coalition maintains a supermajority, Mr. Fukuda will have a renewed mandate. Heaven has spoken: the coalition will rightfully claim the right to exercise the override more freely, still with care, than in the upcoming regular Diet session. Moreover, even if the coalition loses the supermajority, I expect that Mr. Fukuda can stay on if he wishes as long as the LDP can maintain a symbolic one-party majority; Mr. Asō is not exactly the person you want to put forward as Prime Minister when seeking accommodation with micro-parties to exercise the override or, at worst, with the DPJ, in order to pass sorely-needed legislation. I will not guess at what may happens below that talismanic figure.
It appears that Mr. Fukuda has put a definitive lid on a Cabinet reshuffle. That means that he will keep that card to play for much later, after the Lower House election if it falls within the year. Fukushirō will not go unless the other shoe drops and he becomes yoked with Fumio Kyūma. I think that I should have given more thought to the possibility that a bored press corps travelling with Mr. Fukuda blew it up out of proportions.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Why I Think that Taro Aso Will Win and Will Not Call Elections until Next August at the Earliest
I said it yesterday and I'll say it again: Taro Aso is the next Prime Minister, and his administration will last beyond the next regular Diet session till next August at the earliest. (Actually, I said September, but I look up the law, and I changed my mind, okay?)
Why Mr. Aso, who did not get his own micro-faction until he was in his sixties? Why a moderately engaging public speaker but also one who has been known to come forth with multiple verbal gaffes of not-quite "baby-birthing machine" proportions? The purported hawk who, as Foreign Minister, talked openly about conceding half the Northern Territories to Russia as a negotiations starter? There are good reasons why people have had a hard time taking him seriously as head of government material, even as he has scaled the highest echelons of the coalition government and the LDP party hierarchy; and why they, including the media, are not quite ready to concede the race to him. (The media do have an added interest in making this a real race, but that's beside the point here.)
First of all, the race will be conducted among the usual suspects. No Koizumi-type outliers will emerge as a serious candidate. The truncated, emergency selection process bypasses the normal popular vote by registered party members and puts the decision squarely in the hands of regional ward chiefs and Diet members. Not exactly smoke-filled room, it nevertheless rules out any possibility of the likes of Yoichi Masuzoe (who has anyway been torched mercilessly by the tabloid media for his purportedly prolific sexual achievements of past) being crowned by popular acclaim.
So let's take a look at the usual suspects. Yasuo Fukuda, Kaoru Yosano, and Fukushiro Nukaga are the most frequently quoted names, other than Sadakazu Tanigaki, whom I will get to later. In fact, they are almost, though not quite, the only ones being talked about.
The three men are safe choices, and you may have noticed that I have a thing for Mr. Yosano's hobbit-like charm. I also have warm feelings for Mr. Fukuda, partly from a fleeting look I had that showed him at his unassuming, considerate best. I have little feel for what Mr. Nukaga is like, but he seems to be a steady if unspectacular personage himself. But it is notable that none of them, all in their mid- to late-sixties, lead a faction. (In fact, Mr. Yosano doesn't even belong to one, which means he won't have a institutional power base to help him round up votes.) Choose one of the three, and you choose safety. Yes, safety over leadership, which was so damagingly absent in Mr. Abe.
And then there's Sadakazu Tanigaki, with his own micro-faction. Which brings me to my second point. Mr. Tanigaki shares another distinction with Mr. Mr. Aso: the pair actually ran for LDP president last time around against impossible odds. Believe it or not, this confers a certain measure of political legitimacy that is missing in the three did-not-runs. This is a matter of no small importance as the now chaotic, drifting LDP looks for someone to take the helm. This gives the pair an edge over all other candidates. Unfortunately for Mr. Tanigaki, his combination of overtly MOF-friendly fiscal conservatism and soft-walk, small-stick diplomacy will not allow him to gather the necessary votes to overtake Mr. Aso.
As for other possibilities, Nobutaka Machimura is one of the smarter and nicer people I got to know in METI, where he is from. But he is more of a caretaker than leader as the nominal head of the Machimura faction, and he has never ran for LDP president either. Besides, four successive PMs seem a little too much for the other factions to bear. He will not stand, and will not be elected if he does. There's always the Koizumi card, but he won't run either. I can't quite put my finger on it; it just feels so wrong. On what basis can he run? And what about his many, very real enemies? It goes against his formidable sense of political theater.
And that leaves Mr. Aso.
Why do I think that an Aso administration will last through next summer? Simply put, I don't see any advantages for Mr. Aso in calling for an early election. Either the Aso administration will prove unpopular, which means that they'll lose at least a very goodly portion of their Lower House seats, which is a truly stupid thing to do; or it will prove mildly popular, in which case they will still lose some seats and still leave the Upper House in opposition hands. As a matter of pure logic, it is not impossible that the Aso administration will prove so popular that and Mr. Aso decides that he wants a renewed mandate through a new election. I don't see how that can come to pass. Still, he will need an incredibly successful regular Diet session that requires a substantial extension to get things done in a split Diet. This at a minimum will take it very deep into June and likely some point in July, before the Lower House can be dissolved, after which Mr. Abe will have to wait a minimum of 24 days before the ensuing general election can be held. that should take us to August.
The problem with these predictions is that anything can happen in politics, as we have just seen in Mr. Abe's sudden resignation. Leaders fall ill, leaders die, and sex scandals explode, any of these of these things can happen to Mr. Aso as well within the month. Who knows, Mr. Koizumi might throw his hat in the ring after all. Beyond that, the economy might tank sooner rather than later.
And I could be just a plain, garden-variety of dead wrong. In which case, you'll understand why I'm not being paid to write this stuff. Unlike this precocious whippersnapper here.
Why Mr. Aso, who did not get his own micro-faction until he was in his sixties? Why a moderately engaging public speaker but also one who has been known to come forth with multiple verbal gaffes of not-quite "baby-birthing machine" proportions? The purported hawk who, as Foreign Minister, talked openly about conceding half the Northern Territories to Russia as a negotiations starter? There are good reasons why people have had a hard time taking him seriously as head of government material, even as he has scaled the highest echelons of the coalition government and the LDP party hierarchy; and why they, including the media, are not quite ready to concede the race to him. (The media do have an added interest in making this a real race, but that's beside the point here.)
First of all, the race will be conducted among the usual suspects. No Koizumi-type outliers will emerge as a serious candidate. The truncated, emergency selection process bypasses the normal popular vote by registered party members and puts the decision squarely in the hands of regional ward chiefs and Diet members. Not exactly smoke-filled room, it nevertheless rules out any possibility of the likes of Yoichi Masuzoe (who has anyway been torched mercilessly by the tabloid media for his purportedly prolific sexual achievements of past) being crowned by popular acclaim.
So let's take a look at the usual suspects. Yasuo Fukuda, Kaoru Yosano, and Fukushiro Nukaga are the most frequently quoted names, other than Sadakazu Tanigaki, whom I will get to later. In fact, they are almost, though not quite, the only ones being talked about.
The three men are safe choices, and you may have noticed that I have a thing for Mr. Yosano's hobbit-like charm. I also have warm feelings for Mr. Fukuda, partly from a fleeting look I had that showed him at his unassuming, considerate best. I have little feel for what Mr. Nukaga is like, but he seems to be a steady if unspectacular personage himself. But it is notable that none of them, all in their mid- to late-sixties, lead a faction. (In fact, Mr. Yosano doesn't even belong to one, which means he won't have a institutional power base to help him round up votes.) Choose one of the three, and you choose safety. Yes, safety over leadership, which was so damagingly absent in Mr. Abe.
And then there's Sadakazu Tanigaki, with his own micro-faction. Which brings me to my second point. Mr. Tanigaki shares another distinction with Mr. Mr. Aso: the pair actually ran for LDP president last time around against impossible odds. Believe it or not, this confers a certain measure of political legitimacy that is missing in the three did-not-runs. This is a matter of no small importance as the now chaotic, drifting LDP looks for someone to take the helm. This gives the pair an edge over all other candidates. Unfortunately for Mr. Tanigaki, his combination of overtly MOF-friendly fiscal conservatism and soft-walk, small-stick diplomacy will not allow him to gather the necessary votes to overtake Mr. Aso.
As for other possibilities, Nobutaka Machimura is one of the smarter and nicer people I got to know in METI, where he is from. But he is more of a caretaker than leader as the nominal head of the Machimura faction, and he has never ran for LDP president either. Besides, four successive PMs seem a little too much for the other factions to bear. He will not stand, and will not be elected if he does. There's always the Koizumi card, but he won't run either. I can't quite put my finger on it; it just feels so wrong. On what basis can he run? And what about his many, very real enemies? It goes against his formidable sense of political theater.
And that leaves Mr. Aso.
Why do I think that an Aso administration will last through next summer? Simply put, I don't see any advantages for Mr. Aso in calling for an early election. Either the Aso administration will prove unpopular, which means that they'll lose at least a very goodly portion of their Lower House seats, which is a truly stupid thing to do; or it will prove mildly popular, in which case they will still lose some seats and still leave the Upper House in opposition hands. As a matter of pure logic, it is not impossible that the Aso administration will prove so popular that and Mr. Aso decides that he wants a renewed mandate through a new election. I don't see how that can come to pass. Still, he will need an incredibly successful regular Diet session that requires a substantial extension to get things done in a split Diet. This at a minimum will take it very deep into June and likely some point in July, before the Lower House can be dissolved, after which Mr. Abe will have to wait a minimum of 24 days before the ensuing general election can be held. that should take us to August.
The problem with these predictions is that anything can happen in politics, as we have just seen in Mr. Abe's sudden resignation. Leaders fall ill, leaders die, and sex scandals explode, any of these of these things can happen to Mr. Aso as well within the month. Who knows, Mr. Koizumi might throw his hat in the ring after all. Beyond that, the economy might tank sooner rather than later.
And I could be just a plain, garden-variety of dead wrong. In which case, you'll understand why I'm not being paid to write this stuff. Unlike this precocious whippersnapper here.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Lack of Excitement over the Cabinet Remake. Yet Another Comment on the Upper House Election
I think that too much time has passed since the election for the cabinet remake - not that Abe could have avoided it, given the need to deal with the implications of the political financing scandal - and too many incidents remindful of the pre-election Abe era happening in the meantime that any bright spots in the appointments will be merely noted and quickly forgotten. There's a belabored, shopworn feel to the political Christmas Eve atmosphere.
I also think that too much is made of the electoral consequences of the kakusa (economic winners and losers) issue. After all, the coalition did badly in the big cities as well, where the benefits of the economic recovery are supposedly accruing. As substantial as the crises were – which the Abe administration had more than its share – the seriousness of the leadership problem, real and perceived, in dealing with them cannot be overemphasized. Not that any of the other hopefuls project themselves very well in that respect.
I also think that too much is made of the electoral consequences of the kakusa (economic winners and losers) issue. After all, the coalition did badly in the big cities as well, where the benefits of the economic recovery are supposedly accruing. As substantial as the crises were – which the Abe administration had more than its share – the seriousness of the leadership problem, real and perceived, in dealing with them cannot be overemphasized. Not that any of the other hopefuls project themselves very well in that respect.
Monday, August 06, 2007
How Do I Read the New Komeito Loss in the Upper House Election?
How do I read the New Komeito loss in the Upper House election? That's the latest assignment from my favorite Japan analyst. As per request, I am posting my homework here.
Somewhat overshadowed by the coalition's loss of an Upper House majority, as well as the LDP's first ever loss of a plurality since the Great Conservative Merger of 1955, is the heavy setback that junior coalition partner New Komeito also suffered. There seems to have been some defections from the NK's Sokagakkai constituency, and the NK's ability to throw Sokagakkai support behind the LDP where it is not fielding its own candidates (all single- and two-seat districts as well as one three-seat district) has been called into question. In the aftermath of the debacle, the NK and/or the LDP, depending on whom you listen to, was rethinking the value of the coalition.
This is important if anything comes of it because, depending on the results of the next Lower House general election (coming no later than October 2009 and possibly as early as late spring 2008), the NK could hold the casting vote in deciding the new prime minister. However, from an election perspective, the LDP continues to make more sense as the NK coalition partner. Moreover, practical concerns make DPJ-NK cooperation in the next two Upper House elections difficult, if not impossible. Thus, barring a fundamental realignment of the Japanese political parties, the LDP-NK coalition will hold for the foreseeable future. Let me explain…
The coalition brings no obvious benefits in the proportional-seat election, where both parties work to keep their party faithful in line while bringing in as many unaligned and cross-party votes as possible. The NK may have suffered from guilt by association this time around, as polls leading up to the vote showed roughly one-tenth of NK supporters intending to cross over to the opposition, and the actual NK votes did drop from 8.62 million (15.4% of all votes cast) to 7.77 million (13.2%). (It won 8.19 million, or 15.1%, in 2001). The LDP by contrast, managed a much smaller drop, from 16.80 million (30.0%) to 16.54 million (28.1%). I believe that the NK has a core Sokagakkai constituency of around 8 million, and that a small percentage of this religious faithful as well as a very small fraction of non-Sokagakkai floaters are willing to move their votes around. But despite what must have been the drop off in floater and religious faithful vote for the NK, it managed to keep seven seats, down only one from 2004 (and 2001). So the downside for the NK has been limited.
The benefits accrue to the coalition in the local-seat election, where the seats are apportioned to the provinces according to the number of eligible voter residents with each province receiving a minimum of one seat. The value of the LDP-NK coalition for the LDP is in the support the NK gives to the LDP candidates where the NK is not fielding its own candidates. This is most evident in the single-seat or two-seat districts, where the NK has no realistic prospects of winning on its own. (The NK has in the past chosen not to field candidates in some three-seat districts.) The value to the NK is in the support the LDP can throw to the NK candidate in any three-seat district where the LDP fields only one candidate. The LDP does not have realistic prospects of winning two seats on its own in these three-seat districts because they are urban provinces, where the traditional LDP support base of farmers, public works-dependent construction firms, the local post office and others is less effective.
In the July election, one province had five seats, five had three, and twelve had two, while the rest (29) had one each. In the provinces where collaboration occurred (one-, two-, and three-seaters), both the LDP and NK received significantly more votes for the local election than they received for the (national) proportional election. The crossover effect is easier to discern for NK candidates. Since the NK has very limited appeal beyond its institutional Sokagakkai support base, I think that it is fair to assume that most of the additional votes for the local NK candidate came from LDP supporters.
NK help for the LDP candidate in the single- and two-seat elections is harder to discern because the difference between the proportional and local votes varied wildly. The more personal nature of the support for LDP candidates, as well as the resultant potential for defections from the LDP support base, undoubtedly contributed to this variance. However, there is enough of a gain to make me believe that the NK support did substantially help LDP candidates both successful and unsuccessful in receiving more votes than they would have received on their own. The coalition did work, if not to the total satisfaction of the two parties.
But what would the electoral prospects of the NK in a coalition with the DPJ? Not as good as the deal they have now. The DPJ has a much smaller support base than the LDP, and is consequently more reliant on the unaligned "floater" votes. In other words, the DPJ has less control over the number of votes it can throw to the NK. Moreover, there are practical concerns that virtually preclude collaboration in the 2010 and 2013 general elections.
In a perfect world, the NK would be able to keep its coalition benefits by fielding the second coalition candidate in the three-seat districts. But the DPJ will have two incumbents in two of the three-seat districts in the 2010 election in question, while both the DPJ and NK have one incumbent in the other. Chiba will step up from a two-seat to three-seat district. But the NK was not strong enough to field a candidate there in the July election, when the DPJ won two seats. As for the other three-seat district, Osaka, the single LDP and KN candidates will have their hands full in a four-way fight with the DPJ and JCP. In other words, there is little room for DPJ-NK coordination to come into play in the 2010 Upper House election in the all-important (to the NK) three-seat districts. The NK has nothing to gain from leaving the coalition even if the 2010 election were the only general election under consideration, and prospects look even worse in 2013, when the DPJ will be fielding two incumbents in four of the five (and one incumbent in Osaka, where it will likely again face a four-way single-candidate fight, leaving no room for collaboration).
On a substantive policy level, some people think that the DPJ is a more natural fit for the pacifist Buddhism that underlies the NK foreign and security policy. It is true that Ichiro Ozawa's stand against the renewal of the anti-terror law and his emphasis on the importance of the UN is much more than a mere tactical choice to position the DPJ in opposition to an unpopular coalition policy to support the US in Iraq (and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan), or to appease the still significant support from the traditionally pacifist, politically anti-American labor unions. However, Mr. Ozawa's shelf life could be fairly limited, if only because of his health problems, and there is reportedly substantial mistrust between Mr. Ozawa and the NK. Moreover, the younger, more libertarian generation of LDP Diet members, represented by people like the previous pro-US DPJ leader Seiji Maehara and current policy head Takeaki Matsumoto, prefer a much more muscular security policy. There is no reason to believe that, over the long-term, the NK will find more ideological comfort in collaboration with the DPJ.
Barring a fundamental realignment of the political parties, the LDP-NK coalition, now in its ninth year, shall continue.
A quantitative analysis should yield a better understanding of the benefits of the coalition. More importantly, my conclusions are based solely on the analysis of the Upper House general elections. I do not expect my conclusions to be significantly altered by an analysis of the Lower House general elections, but someone will have to pay me to do that. I need to use less user-friendly databases for that, and the analysis itself promises to be more complex due to the more complicated nature of the Lower House electoral system.
The NK suffered a big loss in the local-seat election, going in with five seats and escaping with only two. Three of the four NK incumbents standing for election in four of the five three-seat districts lost. (The NK did not field a candidate in Chiba, the fifth three-seat district.) In all three cases, the big winner was the DPJ, which took two seats in each of them, while the LDP managed to keep one apiece. The three-seat districts are all urban districts, where the LDP has not fared well of late. Here, the coalition fielded two candidates, one each from the NK and LDP (the exception being Chiba, where the LDP fielded two candidates and the NK none). But the DPJ won two seats in each of the three three-seat elections that it contested with two candidates. The coalition did a good job of vote allocation - the NK received considerably more votes in the three- and five-seat elections it contested than it did in the same prefectures for the proportional seat election and the LDP seemed to have benefited from NK support in districts where the NK did not field a candidate (though the benefit to the LDP is more difficult to gauge from publicly available data). But in each of the three cases, the JDP outpolled the LDP-NK coalition total by a wide margin, and in only one of these cases could even a perfect 50-50 split of the cumulative LDP-NK vote have lifted the NK candidate above the successful DPJ candidate with the fewer votes. Unfortunately for the coalition, the shift in voter sentiment swamped the positive effects of the vote sharing.
Somewhat overshadowed by the coalition's loss of an Upper House majority, as well as the LDP's first ever loss of a plurality since the Great Conservative Merger of 1955, is the heavy setback that junior coalition partner New Komeito also suffered. There seems to have been some defections from the NK's Sokagakkai constituency, and the NK's ability to throw Sokagakkai support behind the LDP where it is not fielding its own candidates (all single- and two-seat districts as well as one three-seat district) has been called into question. In the aftermath of the debacle, the NK and/or the LDP, depending on whom you listen to, was rethinking the value of the coalition.
This is important if anything comes of it because, depending on the results of the next Lower House general election (coming no later than October 2009 and possibly as early as late spring 2008), the NK could hold the casting vote in deciding the new prime minister. However, from an election perspective, the LDP continues to make more sense as the NK coalition partner. Moreover, practical concerns make DPJ-NK cooperation in the next two Upper House elections difficult, if not impossible. Thus, barring a fundamental realignment of the Japanese political parties, the LDP-NK coalition will hold for the foreseeable future. Let me explain…
The coalition brings no obvious benefits in the proportional-seat election, where both parties work to keep their party faithful in line while bringing in as many unaligned and cross-party votes as possible. The NK may have suffered from guilt by association this time around, as polls leading up to the vote showed roughly one-tenth of NK supporters intending to cross over to the opposition, and the actual NK votes did drop from 8.62 million (15.4% of all votes cast) to 7.77 million (13.2%). (It won 8.19 million, or 15.1%, in 2001). The LDP by contrast, managed a much smaller drop, from 16.80 million (30.0%) to 16.54 million (28.1%). I believe that the NK has a core Sokagakkai constituency of around 8 million, and that a small percentage of this religious faithful as well as a very small fraction of non-Sokagakkai floaters are willing to move their votes around. But despite what must have been the drop off in floater and religious faithful vote for the NK, it managed to keep seven seats, down only one from 2004 (and 2001). So the downside for the NK has been limited.
The benefits accrue to the coalition in the local-seat election, where the seats are apportioned to the provinces according to the number of eligible voter residents with each province receiving a minimum of one seat. The value of the LDP-NK coalition for the LDP is in the support the NK gives to the LDP candidates where the NK is not fielding its own candidates. This is most evident in the single-seat or two-seat districts, where the NK has no realistic prospects of winning on its own. (The NK has in the past chosen not to field candidates in some three-seat districts.) The value to the NK is in the support the LDP can throw to the NK candidate in any three-seat district where the LDP fields only one candidate. The LDP does not have realistic prospects of winning two seats on its own in these three-seat districts because they are urban provinces, where the traditional LDP support base of farmers, public works-dependent construction firms, the local post office and others is less effective.
In the July election, one province had five seats, five had three, and twelve had two, while the rest (29) had one each. In the provinces where collaboration occurred (one-, two-, and three-seaters), both the LDP and NK received significantly more votes for the local election than they received for the (national) proportional election. The crossover effect is easier to discern for NK candidates. Since the NK has very limited appeal beyond its institutional Sokagakkai support base, I think that it is fair to assume that most of the additional votes for the local NK candidate came from LDP supporters.
NK help for the LDP candidate in the single- and two-seat elections is harder to discern because the difference between the proportional and local votes varied wildly. The more personal nature of the support for LDP candidates, as well as the resultant potential for defections from the LDP support base, undoubtedly contributed to this variance. However, there is enough of a gain to make me believe that the NK support did substantially help LDP candidates both successful and unsuccessful in receiving more votes than they would have received on their own. The coalition did work, if not to the total satisfaction of the two parties.
But what would the electoral prospects of the NK in a coalition with the DPJ? Not as good as the deal they have now. The DPJ has a much smaller support base than the LDP, and is consequently more reliant on the unaligned "floater" votes. In other words, the DPJ has less control over the number of votes it can throw to the NK. Moreover, there are practical concerns that virtually preclude collaboration in the 2010 and 2013 general elections.
In a perfect world, the NK would be able to keep its coalition benefits by fielding the second coalition candidate in the three-seat districts. But the DPJ will have two incumbents in two of the three-seat districts in the 2010 election in question, while both the DPJ and NK have one incumbent in the other. Chiba will step up from a two-seat to three-seat district. But the NK was not strong enough to field a candidate there in the July election, when the DPJ won two seats. As for the other three-seat district, Osaka, the single LDP and KN candidates will have their hands full in a four-way fight with the DPJ and JCP. In other words, there is little room for DPJ-NK coordination to come into play in the 2010 Upper House election in the all-important (to the NK) three-seat districts. The NK has nothing to gain from leaving the coalition even if the 2010 election were the only general election under consideration, and prospects look even worse in 2013, when the DPJ will be fielding two incumbents in four of the five (and one incumbent in Osaka, where it will likely again face a four-way single-candidate fight, leaving no room for collaboration).
On a substantive policy level, some people think that the DPJ is a more natural fit for the pacifist Buddhism that underlies the NK foreign and security policy. It is true that Ichiro Ozawa's stand against the renewal of the anti-terror law and his emphasis on the importance of the UN is much more than a mere tactical choice to position the DPJ in opposition to an unpopular coalition policy to support the US in Iraq (and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan), or to appease the still significant support from the traditionally pacifist, politically anti-American labor unions. However, Mr. Ozawa's shelf life could be fairly limited, if only because of his health problems, and there is reportedly substantial mistrust between Mr. Ozawa and the NK. Moreover, the younger, more libertarian generation of LDP Diet members, represented by people like the previous pro-US DPJ leader Seiji Maehara and current policy head Takeaki Matsumoto, prefer a much more muscular security policy. There is no reason to believe that, over the long-term, the NK will find more ideological comfort in collaboration with the DPJ.
Barring a fundamental realignment of the political parties, the LDP-NK coalition, now in its ninth year, shall continue.
A quantitative analysis should yield a better understanding of the benefits of the coalition. More importantly, my conclusions are based solely on the analysis of the Upper House general elections. I do not expect my conclusions to be significantly altered by an analysis of the Lower House general elections, but someone will have to pay me to do that. I need to use less user-friendly databases for that, and the analysis itself promises to be more complex due to the more complicated nature of the Lower House electoral system.
The NK suffered a big loss in the local-seat election, going in with five seats and escaping with only two. Three of the four NK incumbents standing for election in four of the five three-seat districts lost. (The NK did not field a candidate in Chiba, the fifth three-seat district.) In all three cases, the big winner was the DPJ, which took two seats in each of them, while the LDP managed to keep one apiece. The three-seat districts are all urban districts, where the LDP has not fared well of late. Here, the coalition fielded two candidates, one each from the NK and LDP (the exception being Chiba, where the LDP fielded two candidates and the NK none). But the DPJ won two seats in each of the three three-seat elections that it contested with two candidates. The coalition did a good job of vote allocation - the NK received considerably more votes in the three- and five-seat elections it contested than it did in the same prefectures for the proportional seat election and the LDP seemed to have benefited from NK support in districts where the NK did not field a candidate (though the benefit to the LDP is more difficult to gauge from publicly available data). But in each of the three cases, the JDP outpolled the LDP-NK coalition total by a wide margin, and in only one of these cases could even a perfect 50-50 split of the cumulative LDP-NK vote have lifted the NK candidate above the successful DPJ candidate with the fewer votes. Unfortunately for the coalition, the shift in voter sentiment swamped the positive effects of the vote sharing.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Thoughts on the LDP Take on the Upper House Election Results Plus Some Odds And Ends
The prime minister stays on but cabinet heads roll, and the secretary-general falls on his sword. So, apparently, the LDP leadership has decided. They can make its stick too - for the time being - since the LDP has 306 seats out of 480 in the all-important Lower House, and there's no one else in the LDP poised to take over.
Prime Minister Abe and the LDP leadership claim that the electorate may have blamed the LDP for its political scandals and the public pension mess, but it did not repudiate his policies. Perhaps. But the public did not exactly endorse his emphasis on constitutional amendment and patriotism in education as priority issues. In fact, if you follow his trajectory since he first came to notice as a sub-cabinet member of the Koizumi administration, you will notice the following:
Mr. Abe made his name as an administration hardliner on the abductees issue. But the only reason the abductees became a top issue was because Prime Minister Koizumi decided to make it one. And the only occasions on which the Japanese government made any headway were when Prime Minister Koizumi twice flew to Pyongyang and essentially bribed the North Korean regime. Mr. Abe has delivered little on the abductees.
Mr. Abe (and the LDP) can take a breather only because the LDP has a comfortable Lower House majority on its own even without the help of the New Komeito. But the majority exists only because Mr. Koizumi bet the house in 2005 by dissolving the Lower House over Post Office privatization and won a landslide victory in the general election. And it was only with visible reluctance that Mr. Abe went along with the reform legislation. Accordingly, after he became prime minister, he made it a top political priority to allow back in the Lower House rebels who had managed to maintain their seats in the general election. But this led to his first serious setback in public opinion polls, from which he never managed to recover.
Another political decision has brought him nothing but grief as well. He chose his cabinet members mainly on the basis of their role in corralling support for the LDP presidency election and their personal relationships with him, giving short shrift to the wishes of party elders and faction leaders. But many of his ministers either became ensnared in a continuous stream of political financing scandals or committed one verbal gaffe after another. And at least one replacement for the failures kept both problems in the public eye, late into the electoral campaign. Although Mr. Abe was not personally implicated in the political financing scandals, they did touch him personally, as their frequency and his hands-off-the-tiller responses gave him an air of powerlessness.
(It is notable that Mr. Koizumi's most serious political troubles over a cabinet appointee's behavior came when he allowed political considerations to overrule practical concerns. Makiko Tanaka, the charismatic but undisciplined daughter of ex-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, bungled her way through her brief tenure as foreign minister and caused a major setback for Mr. Koizumi in public opinion polls. She had been given her pick of cabinet appointments because her very public campaigning was directly responsible for pushing him over the top against the heavily favored ex-Prime Minister Hashimoto.)
However, the prime minister has not been totally without success in raising his esteem with the public. Although Mr. Abe was clearly Mr. Koizumi's handpicked successor, he has so far repudiated at least one part of his predecessor's legacy. He has not visited the Yasukuni Shrine since he became prime minister, even though his views on pre-1945 issues are clearly to the right of Mr. Koizumi's, This was the unstated quo pro quo for China's acceptance of his 2006 September visit, right after the installment of his cabinet. This raised his public approval to a historical high. It is also important to note that the only notable uptick in his popularity came when the Chinese prime minister (but not the more important head of state) paid a return visit in April.
Mr. Abe is in many ways the anti-Koizumi, yet he owed the prime minister's chair to his predecessor, and will continue to do so. The further, double irony is that where he has deviated from his legacy, he has faltered miserably, except where he has deviated from his own personal beliefs.
I can now tell you now that my favorite Japan analyst was off by just one seat on LDP returns.
The DPJ, JCP, DSP, and the New Party Japan have between them 122 seats out of 242. That's a simple majority. Not that the Communist Party will march in lockstep with the other opposition parties, and the other opposition parties do not exactly harbor unconditional love for the DPJ. But even if the ruling coalition brings in the People's Party and all the unaligned - an impossibility since, for one, some of the newly-elected unaligned ran with the official support of multiple opposition parties against LDP candidates – they will still have only 120 votes in the Upper House. The possibility that the ruling coalition can cobble together a working majority in the Upper House by bringing in the unaligned, micro-parties, and defectors is not there in the foreseeable future.
The New Komeito, the junior coalition partner, also took a beating, as it won only nine, a net loss of three. They did particularly badly in the three-seat districts, where the DPJ managed to take two seats in three of the four three-seat districts that the New Komeito contested. The third seat in all cases went to the LDP, leaving the New Komeito in the cold. This will be a persistent problem for the narrow-based New Komeito, if the voters continue to lock in on the two major parties in future elections. In this respect, it is notable that the JCP and DSP, the perennial opposition parties also suffered losses.
The Yomiuri estimates the proportion of the number of actual votes to the number of eligible voters at 58.64%, a modest rise from 56.57% in 2004. Public attention was significantly higher this time around according to polls, but it did not materialize as actual turnout. (Imagine if there had not been the growing awareness of the 2003 voting reform, which has made it much easier for voters to vote before the actual election day.) The election, it appears, was not so much won by the DPJ as lost by the LDP.
One Internet poll had Mr. Koizumi as the favored candidate to succeed Mr. Abe. Mr. Abe himself ran a close second.
I know the Ichiro Ozawa is not popular in many quarters and has potentially serious health problems (he did not show up in post-election celebrations due to exhaustion), but you can't argue with success.
Tomorrow, the US House of Representatives vote on the comfort women issue. Perhaps then we'll see how long the post-election buzz lasts in the foreign media.
Prime Minister Abe and the LDP leadership claim that the electorate may have blamed the LDP for its political scandals and the public pension mess, but it did not repudiate his policies. Perhaps. But the public did not exactly endorse his emphasis on constitutional amendment and patriotism in education as priority issues. In fact, if you follow his trajectory since he first came to notice as a sub-cabinet member of the Koizumi administration, you will notice the following:
Mr. Abe made his name as an administration hardliner on the abductees issue. But the only reason the abductees became a top issue was because Prime Minister Koizumi decided to make it one. And the only occasions on which the Japanese government made any headway were when Prime Minister Koizumi twice flew to Pyongyang and essentially bribed the North Korean regime. Mr. Abe has delivered little on the abductees.
Mr. Abe (and the LDP) can take a breather only because the LDP has a comfortable Lower House majority on its own even without the help of the New Komeito. But the majority exists only because Mr. Koizumi bet the house in 2005 by dissolving the Lower House over Post Office privatization and won a landslide victory in the general election. And it was only with visible reluctance that Mr. Abe went along with the reform legislation. Accordingly, after he became prime minister, he made it a top political priority to allow back in the Lower House rebels who had managed to maintain their seats in the general election. But this led to his first serious setback in public opinion polls, from which he never managed to recover.
Another political decision has brought him nothing but grief as well. He chose his cabinet members mainly on the basis of their role in corralling support for the LDP presidency election and their personal relationships with him, giving short shrift to the wishes of party elders and faction leaders. But many of his ministers either became ensnared in a continuous stream of political financing scandals or committed one verbal gaffe after another. And at least one replacement for the failures kept both problems in the public eye, late into the electoral campaign. Although Mr. Abe was not personally implicated in the political financing scandals, they did touch him personally, as their frequency and his hands-off-the-tiller responses gave him an air of powerlessness.
(It is notable that Mr. Koizumi's most serious political troubles over a cabinet appointee's behavior came when he allowed political considerations to overrule practical concerns. Makiko Tanaka, the charismatic but undisciplined daughter of ex-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, bungled her way through her brief tenure as foreign minister and caused a major setback for Mr. Koizumi in public opinion polls. She had been given her pick of cabinet appointments because her very public campaigning was directly responsible for pushing him over the top against the heavily favored ex-Prime Minister Hashimoto.)
However, the prime minister has not been totally without success in raising his esteem with the public. Although Mr. Abe was clearly Mr. Koizumi's handpicked successor, he has so far repudiated at least one part of his predecessor's legacy. He has not visited the Yasukuni Shrine since he became prime minister, even though his views on pre-1945 issues are clearly to the right of Mr. Koizumi's, This was the unstated quo pro quo for China's acceptance of his 2006 September visit, right after the installment of his cabinet. This raised his public approval to a historical high. It is also important to note that the only notable uptick in his popularity came when the Chinese prime minister (but not the more important head of state) paid a return visit in April.
Mr. Abe is in many ways the anti-Koizumi, yet he owed the prime minister's chair to his predecessor, and will continue to do so. The further, double irony is that where he has deviated from his legacy, he has faltered miserably, except where he has deviated from his own personal beliefs.
I can now tell you now that my favorite Japan analyst was off by just one seat on LDP returns.
The DPJ, JCP, DSP, and the New Party Japan have between them 122 seats out of 242. That's a simple majority. Not that the Communist Party will march in lockstep with the other opposition parties, and the other opposition parties do not exactly harbor unconditional love for the DPJ. But even if the ruling coalition brings in the People's Party and all the unaligned - an impossibility since, for one, some of the newly-elected unaligned ran with the official support of multiple opposition parties against LDP candidates – they will still have only 120 votes in the Upper House. The possibility that the ruling coalition can cobble together a working majority in the Upper House by bringing in the unaligned, micro-parties, and defectors is not there in the foreseeable future.
The New Komeito, the junior coalition partner, also took a beating, as it won only nine, a net loss of three. They did particularly badly in the three-seat districts, where the DPJ managed to take two seats in three of the four three-seat districts that the New Komeito contested. The third seat in all cases went to the LDP, leaving the New Komeito in the cold. This will be a persistent problem for the narrow-based New Komeito, if the voters continue to lock in on the two major parties in future elections. In this respect, it is notable that the JCP and DSP, the perennial opposition parties also suffered losses.
The Yomiuri estimates the proportion of the number of actual votes to the number of eligible voters at 58.64%, a modest rise from 56.57% in 2004. Public attention was significantly higher this time around according to polls, but it did not materialize as actual turnout. (Imagine if there had not been the growing awareness of the 2003 voting reform, which has made it much easier for voters to vote before the actual election day.) The election, it appears, was not so much won by the DPJ as lost by the LDP.
One Internet poll had Mr. Koizumi as the favored candidate to succeed Mr. Abe. Mr. Abe himself ran a close second.
I know the Ichiro Ozawa is not popular in many quarters and has potentially serious health problems (he did not show up in post-election celebrations due to exhaustion), but you can't argue with success.
Tomorrow, the US House of Representatives vote on the comfort women issue. Perhaps then we'll see how long the post-election buzz lasts in the foreign media.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
I Go forth to Choose Between the Return of the Lost Decade and the End of Democracy （Or Do I?)
Unlike most of the people who are kind enough to read my blog, I have the opportunity to vote for the LDP and put an end to democracy in Japan; the DPJ and push Japan right back into the political chaos and economic stagnation of the Lost Decade and please the North Koreans no end; or none of the above. Given these choices, can "none of the above" be too bad? We'll see.
The expected opposition victory - the morning voting, as well as the two-week pre-election day voting, is up and the weather is holding – or, rather, the coalition loss, is likely to leave a divided Diet, which will make it difficult for the Abe administration to achieve much legislation during the next regular Diet session, typically beginning in December and going through June. If the coalition wants to avoid this predicament, it will have to do more than just corral unaffiliated Upper House members, or even bring the New People's Party; it must reach into the ranks of the opposition parties and seek out potential defectors.
The likelihood of legislative deadlock has brought on speculation in many quarters, including a cabinet member, that the Lower House will have to be dissolved for a general election well before its term expires in 2009. Indeed, I have done so myself. But I have not been able to think through the consequences of the outcome. Have you?
Looking further ahead, political deadlock has the potential to become a recurrent problem, as the electorate decides every three years to reward or punish the parties in power through the Upper House election. Now U.S. Congress can muddle through Senate-House divisions (or even executive-legislative splits) by vote seeking across party lines on individual issues, but Japanese party discipline is strong.
Two things could change these long-term prospects: a serious and lasting deterioration in the fortunes of the DPJ, or a major realignment of the political parties. The former seems unlikely. Although the LDP has beaten back many challenges before (Mr. Ozawa is taking his third crack at it), the DPJ appears to have the lasting power that comes from a reasonable facsimile of the human resources (sizeable representation in the Diet seats, viable candidates, and a growing party machine) and policy diversity (which some people might call lack of principle) that has served the LDP so well. The latter seems more likely, particularly if the public tires of persistent deadlock and the media pick up on such public sentiment.
The expected opposition victory - the morning voting, as well as the two-week pre-election day voting, is up and the weather is holding – or, rather, the coalition loss, is likely to leave a divided Diet, which will make it difficult for the Abe administration to achieve much legislation during the next regular Diet session, typically beginning in December and going through June. If the coalition wants to avoid this predicament, it will have to do more than just corral unaffiliated Upper House members, or even bring the New People's Party; it must reach into the ranks of the opposition parties and seek out potential defectors.
The likelihood of legislative deadlock has brought on speculation in many quarters, including a cabinet member, that the Lower House will have to be dissolved for a general election well before its term expires in 2009. Indeed, I have done so myself. But I have not been able to think through the consequences of the outcome. Have you?
Looking further ahead, political deadlock has the potential to become a recurrent problem, as the electorate decides every three years to reward or punish the parties in power through the Upper House election. Now U.S. Congress can muddle through Senate-House divisions (or even executive-legislative splits) by vote seeking across party lines on individual issues, but Japanese party discipline is strong.
Two things could change these long-term prospects: a serious and lasting deterioration in the fortunes of the DPJ, or a major realignment of the political parties. The former seems unlikely. Although the LDP has beaten back many challenges before (Mr. Ozawa is taking his third crack at it), the DPJ appears to have the lasting power that comes from a reasonable facsimile of the human resources (sizeable representation in the Diet seats, viable candidates, and a growing party machine) and policy diversity (which some people might call lack of principle) that has served the LDP so well. The latter seems more likely, particularly if the public tires of persistent deadlock and the media pick up on such public sentiment.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
This Article on the Upper House Election Is a Good Reminder of TIME "Magazine"'s Embrace of the Internet.
This article on the Upper House election, appearing just two calendar days (in real time a little less) before voting day, is a good reminder of TIME "magazine"'s embrace of the Internet. Yes, it's an AP wire, not self-generated content. It provides an excellent and timely overview for people who have nothing more than a passing interest in the Japanese political scene. It tells you that TIME, in contrast to the mostly weekly-content online Newsweek, is serious in its drive to be a day-by-day, consistent presence on your PCs. And a slew of professional blogs also draw in many, if sometimes maniacal, eyeballs to the TIME website on the cheap.
The fact that TIME relies on an AP wire also speaks to the resource limitations of the retail MSM. Only the wire services have the resources to build up the knowledge, expertise, and contacts to cover overseas issues with depth and accuracy. Which means that in-house correspondents will lean towards interview-rich, local-color pieces, the Pocari Sweat, Calpis meets Hiroshima oysters, Yubari melon stories....
That was not nice. So, to restore some balance, I'll point out a flaw in the AP article:
In the most punishing scandal, the pension records of 50 million benefit claims were discovered missing… The government has not said how much the lost claims are worth, but the Communist Party estimates it at $165 billion — a substantial chunk of the $1.25 trillion in total deposits.
That's a bad quote to end the pension riff on, since it gives the impression to the casual reader that the money is lost to the pensioners for good. In fact it is likely that the bulk, perhaps most, of the claims will ultimately reconciled, possibly even before much of the payment is due. But this is what happens when a correspondent is unable to work with the native language and must rely on assistants for veracity
The fact that TIME relies on an AP wire also speaks to the resource limitations of the retail MSM. Only the wire services have the resources to build up the knowledge, expertise, and contacts to cover overseas issues with depth and accuracy. Which means that in-house correspondents will lean towards interview-rich, local-color pieces, the Pocari Sweat, Calpis meets Hiroshima oysters, Yubari melon stories....
That was not nice. So, to restore some balance, I'll point out a flaw in the AP article:
In the most punishing scandal, the pension records of 50 million benefit claims were discovered missing… The government has not said how much the lost claims are worth, but the Communist Party estimates it at $165 billion — a substantial chunk of the $1.25 trillion in total deposits.
That's a bad quote to end the pension riff on, since it gives the impression to the casual reader that the money is lost to the pensioners for good. In fact it is likely that the bulk, perhaps most, of the claims will ultimately reconciled, possibly even before much of the payment is due. But this is what happens when a correspondent is unable to work with the native language and must rely on assistants for veracity
My Favorite Japan Analyst Writes in on the Upper House Election
My favorite Japan analyst writes in on the Upper House election. Although I'm not going to put the exact number down here since it may be proprietary information, let's just say that it's very much in line with all the current 40 over-under speculation going on.
Which reminds me, let's just say I'm glad I'm not a real bookie; otherwise, thansk to my earlier 45 over-under offer, I'd be looking forward to a long, long summer vacation. With the fishes.
The turnout looks to be good. Interest is up, and the weekend weather forecasts have improved. This is bad news for the coalition, since the volatile unaligned electorate will break sharply towards the opposition this time.
Coalition candidates have made some headway into getting their supporters behind their candidates. But nothing seems to happening that lessens the public's desire to punish the LDP (though not to reward the opposition) this time around.
I don't see any way that the coalition can engineer a working majority any time soon. I suppose the prime minister can stay on nevertheless if he wishes though, by keeping Taro Aso, and shedding lightweights and lesser lights and replacing them with a more balanced group of middleweights and light heavyweights.. (I assume that the one true heavyweight, with his sense of political drama if nothing else, will continue to make himself scarce.)
Which reminds me, let's just say I'm glad I'm not a real bookie; otherwise, thansk to my earlier 45 over-under offer, I'd be looking forward to a long, long summer vacation. With the fishes.
The turnout looks to be good. Interest is up, and the weekend weather forecasts have improved. This is bad news for the coalition, since the volatile unaligned electorate will break sharply towards the opposition this time.
Coalition candidates have made some headway into getting their supporters behind their candidates. But nothing seems to happening that lessens the public's desire to punish the LDP (though not to reward the opposition) this time around.
I don't see any way that the coalition can engineer a working majority any time soon. I suppose the prime minister can stay on nevertheless if he wishes though, by keeping Taro Aso, and shedding lightweights and lesser lights and replacing them with a more balanced group of middleweights and light heavyweights.. (I assume that the one true heavyweight, with his sense of political drama if nothing else, will continue to make himself scarce.)
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
LDP Jaws Start Wagging in Anticipation of an Upper House Election Debacle, Ex-PM Mori Steps in; Have We Heard This Story Before?
With LDP prospects looking dire and even its coalition partner New Komeito facing something of a reputation risk by association, LDP officials and Cabinet members have been chiming in on the fate of the prime minister in the event of a debacle in Upper House election next Sunday.
As early as June 21, Upper House LDP Secretary-General Yoichi Masuzoe (who is the Bay City Rollers to LDP Secretary-General Hidenao "Big" Nakagawa's Beatles), irate over the one-week extension to the regular Diet session that the Abe regime rammed through to gain time to enact his version of public service reform, said on national TV, "It depends on whether the prime minister can explain why [the Diet session] was extended. If not, we'll suffer an enormous loss. There's the danger that the Cabinet may resign and the administration disintegrate", and repeated his complaint even more forcefully with the press. Mr. Nakagawa did some damage control over this and other grumbling from Upper House incumbent candidates - you would be pissed off too if you were an incumbent and your party leader decided that the best way to win the election was to give your opponents an extra week to campaign without any of the restrictions that come into effect once the campaign officially starts, while you were stuck in Tokyo tending to official business that you weren't sure your constituents really cared about – saying, "there's no possibility that the prime minister will resign just because we fail to retain a majority, since an Upper House election is [merely] an occasion for mid-term evaluation."
Things heated up even more after the Diet recessed and the campaign began in earnest, what with new accusations of political financing irregularities (implicating two more Cabinet ministers and awful damage control pushing LDP/Abe poll numbers further down). Poised to take over if Mr. Abe falters according to some speculations (which I discount), Foreign Minister Aso, as if to deflect suspicion of grave robbery, weighed in on July 12 with his view that "an Upper House election has nothing to do with the election of an administration; it's not the Lower House election."
Things got really dicey as the coalition poll numbers continued to fall, as a sitting Cabinet member, Yoshimi Watanabe, last seen here on this blog, sallied forth on July 23 saying, "If [management of the parliamentary process] ultimately comes to a dead end and nothing can be done about it, it will result in a choice of regimes."
The next day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki refuted this view, essentially reprising Mr. Aso's claim, saying, "Upper House lections have been deemed in principle not to be elections to choose regimes. So is this one. [Although there has been a case where a Cabinet resigned as the result of an Upper House election,] that was the decision of that administration." Shoichi "Little" Nakagawa also seconded these thoughts, stating that the election had nothing to do with nominating the prime minister.
Now I can understand Cabinet members and top LDP officials minimizing the consequences of the Upper House election. But it is definitely not music to the ears of Upper House members, who are being told that they don't matter, or to the public who are being asked to take it seriously and give up weekend travel plans (or go to the trouble of absentee voting) to vote in an inconsequential election. And all this defeatist talk is very depressing.
So it is no wonder that ex-Prime Minister and Mr. Abe's guardian Yoshiro Mori sought to dampen such LDP speculation, stating, "the prime minister is saying, "[we'll] do the [corroboration and notification [of the public pension records] properly." If it isn't done properly, the prime minister himself must resign. Isn't now the time to watch over the situation so that the work can go ahead quietly?" In the context of Japanese political parlance, you have heard Mr. Mori tell the LDP minions to shut up.
LDP jaws wag in disunion, Mr. Abe keeps his counsel, and Mr. Mori wades in to calm the waters. Have we heard this story before?
As early as June 21, Upper House LDP Secretary-General Yoichi Masuzoe (who is the Bay City Rollers to LDP Secretary-General Hidenao "Big" Nakagawa's Beatles), irate over the one-week extension to the regular Diet session that the Abe regime rammed through to gain time to enact his version of public service reform, said on national TV, "It depends on whether the prime minister can explain why [the Diet session] was extended. If not, we'll suffer an enormous loss. There's the danger that the Cabinet may resign and the administration disintegrate", and repeated his complaint even more forcefully with the press. Mr. Nakagawa did some damage control over this and other grumbling from Upper House incumbent candidates - you would be pissed off too if you were an incumbent and your party leader decided that the best way to win the election was to give your opponents an extra week to campaign without any of the restrictions that come into effect once the campaign officially starts, while you were stuck in Tokyo tending to official business that you weren't sure your constituents really cared about – saying, "there's no possibility that the prime minister will resign just because we fail to retain a majority, since an Upper House election is [merely] an occasion for mid-term evaluation."
Things heated up even more after the Diet recessed and the campaign began in earnest, what with new accusations of political financing irregularities (implicating two more Cabinet ministers and awful damage control pushing LDP/Abe poll numbers further down). Poised to take over if Mr. Abe falters according to some speculations (which I discount), Foreign Minister Aso, as if to deflect suspicion of grave robbery, weighed in on July 12 with his view that "an Upper House election has nothing to do with the election of an administration; it's not the Lower House election."
Things got really dicey as the coalition poll numbers continued to fall, as a sitting Cabinet member, Yoshimi Watanabe, last seen here on this blog, sallied forth on July 23 saying, "If [management of the parliamentary process] ultimately comes to a dead end and nothing can be done about it, it will result in a choice of regimes."
The next day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki refuted this view, essentially reprising Mr. Aso's claim, saying, "Upper House lections have been deemed in principle not to be elections to choose regimes. So is this one. [Although there has been a case where a Cabinet resigned as the result of an Upper House election,] that was the decision of that administration." Shoichi "Little" Nakagawa also seconded these thoughts, stating that the election had nothing to do with nominating the prime minister.
Now I can understand Cabinet members and top LDP officials minimizing the consequences of the Upper House election. But it is definitely not music to the ears of Upper House members, who are being told that they don't matter, or to the public who are being asked to take it seriously and give up weekend travel plans (or go to the trouble of absentee voting) to vote in an inconsequential election. And all this defeatist talk is very depressing.
So it is no wonder that ex-Prime Minister and Mr. Abe's guardian Yoshiro Mori sought to dampen such LDP speculation, stating, "the prime minister is saying, "[we'll] do the [corroboration and notification [of the public pension records] properly." If it isn't done properly, the prime minister himself must resign. Isn't now the time to watch over the situation so that the work can go ahead quietly?" In the context of Japanese political parlance, you have heard Mr. Mori tell the LDP minions to shut up.
LDP jaws wag in disunion, Mr. Abe keeps his counsel, and Mr. Mori wades in to calm the waters. Have we heard this story before?
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Even More Upper House Election Trivia: This Time, Mr. Shiozaki (But That's Not My Point)
The latest Cabinet member to be implicated in the never-ending political financing scandal is Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki. The story itself is fairly run-of-the-mill, following what has now become a familiar pattern that ultimately winds up with the media deploring the lack of a satisfactory explanation; you can read the original story here if you can read Japanese. (Sorry, the English version did not carry it.) It was a very small article in the hard copy version as well, which should please conspiracy theorists.
But no, that's not what caught my attention; what struck me was the fact that the story was first carried by Akahata, or Red Flag, the Communist Party's official newspaper. And I know that because the Yomiuri article says so. (And so does Asahi, which I will do not link to unless it is absolutely material because Asashi links go dead too quickly to serve my purposes.)
You see, way, way back in the day, I used to joke that if you were afraid that a scandal would break out, you should leak it to the Akahata, since none of the mainstream newspapers would do follow up on an Akahata scoop. But that was then.
But no, that's not what caught my attention; what struck me was the fact that the story was first carried by Akahata, or Red Flag, the Communist Party's official newspaper. And I know that because the Yomiuri article says so. (And so does Asahi, which I will do not link to unless it is absolutely material because Asashi links go dead too quickly to serve my purposes.)
You see, way, way back in the day, I used to joke that if you were afraid that a scandal would break out, you should leak it to the Akahata, since none of the mainstream newspapers would do follow up on an Akahata scoop. But that was then.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Reuters Gets It about as Right as You Can in a Wire
If you have time to read only one article on the Upper House election, you can't do much better than this Reuters piece. No, it says little about the opposition, and I'm not quite convinced that "Foreign Minister Taro Aso, 66, who shares much of Abe's policy agenda and is known for his love of "manga" comics and for verbal gaffes, is widely seen as a frontrunner to replace Abe." And it relies heavily on two recent polls for material. Still, the writer appears to know what she's writing about, and it shows.
A couple of brief excerpts show how deftly she encapsulates Prime Minister Abe's dilemma
"The surveys by the Asahi and Sankei newspapers were the latest to forecast a loss for Abe's coalition after government bungling of pension records and a series of gaffes and scandals that led ministers to resign and one to commit suicide."
"Abe, 52, came to power last September pledging to boost Japan's security profile and rewrite the country's 1947 pacifist constitution.
Those changes would be welcome to the United States, Japan's closest security ally, but rank well below bread-and-butter issues such as pensions with most voters."
There are a couple of quotes in the article, but they both come from Professor Yasunori Sone, a well-regarded political scientist with excellent command of public trends and technical details.
Incidentally, there's some speculation about how the coalition can maintain a measure of control in the Upper House, so that it will be easier to use the Lower House supermajority to overrule UH simple-majority vetoes. That is, by registering as a joint Diet group in the UH, this would enable them to be the largest UH "party", which, by longstanding custom, would entitle them to occupy the UH presidency, chairmanships in the UH procedural committee, budget committee, and other venues important to maintaining and facilitating the flow of legislation and budget bills. There are many examples of such joint Diet groups consisting of opposition parties, sometimes in order to maintain parliamentary (Dietary?) privileges that are denied to small parties falling under a threshold.
I thought about that, but dismissed the possibility. The UH chairs are nowhere near as powerful their US counterparts in controlling the agenda over matters under their respective jurisdictions, and party discipline is almighty when it comes to individual voting. Thus, there is very little room to use your procedural control to pull away some UH Diet members from the opposition on individual issues. Also, such a naked play for power would play very badly in the public eye. Moreover, if it came to that, nothing would prevent the opposition from breaking longstanding tradition and getting behind a, say, DPJ candidate for the presidency and divvying up the rest of the prime UH chairmanships.
This is not discussed in the Reutersarticle, but since the UH-LH relationship is covered quite nicely in the article, I decided to mention it here.
A couple of brief excerpts show how deftly she encapsulates Prime Minister Abe's dilemma
"The surveys by the Asahi and Sankei newspapers were the latest to forecast a loss for Abe's coalition after government bungling of pension records and a series of gaffes and scandals that led ministers to resign and one to commit suicide."
"Abe, 52, came to power last September pledging to boost Japan's security profile and rewrite the country's 1947 pacifist constitution.
Those changes would be welcome to the United States, Japan's closest security ally, but rank well below bread-and-butter issues such as pensions with most voters."
There are a couple of quotes in the article, but they both come from Professor Yasunori Sone, a well-regarded political scientist with excellent command of public trends and technical details.
Incidentally, there's some speculation about how the coalition can maintain a measure of control in the Upper House, so that it will be easier to use the Lower House supermajority to overrule UH simple-majority vetoes. That is, by registering as a joint Diet group in the UH, this would enable them to be the largest UH "party", which, by longstanding custom, would entitle them to occupy the UH presidency, chairmanships in the UH procedural committee, budget committee, and other venues important to maintaining and facilitating the flow of legislation and budget bills. There are many examples of such joint Diet groups consisting of opposition parties, sometimes in order to maintain parliamentary (Dietary?) privileges that are denied to small parties falling under a threshold.
I thought about that, but dismissed the possibility. The UH chairs are nowhere near as powerful their US counterparts in controlling the agenda over matters under their respective jurisdictions, and party discipline is almighty when it comes to individual voting. Thus, there is very little room to use your procedural control to pull away some UH Diet members from the opposition on individual issues. Also, such a naked play for power would play very badly in the public eye. Moreover, if it came to that, nothing would prevent the opposition from breaking longstanding tradition and getting behind a, say, DPJ candidate for the presidency and divvying up the rest of the prime UH chairmanships.
This is not discussed in the Reutersarticle, but since the UH-LH relationship is covered quite nicely in the article, I decided to mention it here.
More Upper House Trivia: ex-Gaijin Out on Election the Hustings
hustings: definition
pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
1. a. A place where political campaign speeches are made: a candidate out on the hustings in the farm belt.
b. The activities involved in political campaigning: a veteran of the hustings.
There are three candidates among the Upper House proportional-seats candidates who have names that are recognizable as naturalized citizens, two on the DPJ list and one on the People's New Party.
The DPJ has the colorful incumbent マルテイ・ツルネン (Tsurunen Marutei), formerly Martti Turnunen of Finland (Finland and Japan like each other; we both fought Russia, and, by some accounts, belong to the same broad language group) on its list and hopeful 金ジョンオク (Kimu Jonoku), the katakana (one of the two Japanese alphabets) version of his given name Kim Jongok and dead giveaway that he was born a Korean. (Mr. Kim's choice when he became a naturalized Japanese citizen is one of several options that Koreans have when they make this choice. It is something I would like to elaborate one of these days.)
The PNP has the most colorful name in Pema Gyaurupo (Pema Gyalpo in its original roman alphabetical version), a scholar of Tibetan studies and the Dalai Lama's virtual ambassador in Japan. It also has Fujimori (like Pele, Magic, and Ichiro, the PNP obviously feels that Mr. Fujimori is big enough to go with one name), the ex-president of Peru. Technically, Fijimori does not qualify as a gaijin since he obtained Japanese citizenship at birth, but certainly deserves honorary mention, like Sadaharu Oh in Cooperstown.
What intrigues me is that none of these people adopted names that obscure their foreign origins (unlike Shokei Arai, the naturalized South Korean Lower House Diet member who took his life in the wake of a personal political scandal).
The Japanese national side in soccer, rugby, basketball, softball, volleyball, and American football, as well as individual sports like table tennis, all include or have included naturalized citizens as key members on their rosters. And the top two sumo wrestlers are Mongolians. Now politics may be a contact sport as well, but the outcome also turns on popular consent. In other words, two political parties led by savvy old-timers (DPJ - Ichiro Ozawa; PNP – Tamisuke Watanuki, Shizuka "bad cop" Kamei, and Yasuoki "good cop" Kamei) from the LDP of the good old days have decided that these names will help pull in votes at the national level. Against a background of the heavy celebrity politicking on the national stage, this is surely an encouraging commentary on civil society in Japan.
PS: Is there no statute of limitations on the photos candidates are allowed to submit for a publicly paid-for ad? One of the candidates on party X looks at least 20 years younger than she should. And she didn't look like that when I saw her back in the day. The image has the smooth and shiny, retouched smile that reminds me of North Korean propaganda photos. Anyone who has access to the newspaper inserts in the national dailies is free to write in with his/her guess on who I'm talking about. I do not erase any comments, anonymous or non-, other than surf-by spam, so your efforts, if any, will not go to naught. (Visual legerdemain for the candidates' photos, by the way, does not appear to be limited to women.)
pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
1. a. A place where political campaign speeches are made: a candidate out on the hustings in the farm belt.
b. The activities involved in political campaigning: a veteran of the hustings.
There are three candidates among the Upper House proportional-seats candidates who have names that are recognizable as naturalized citizens, two on the DPJ list and one on the People's New Party.
The DPJ has the colorful incumbent マルテイ・ツルネン (Tsurunen Marutei), formerly Martti Turnunen of Finland (Finland and Japan like each other; we both fought Russia, and, by some accounts, belong to the same broad language group) on its list and hopeful 金ジョンオク (Kimu Jonoku), the katakana (one of the two Japanese alphabets) version of his given name Kim Jongok and dead giveaway that he was born a Korean. (Mr. Kim's choice when he became a naturalized Japanese citizen is one of several options that Koreans have when they make this choice. It is something I would like to elaborate one of these days.)
The PNP has the most colorful name in Pema Gyaurupo (Pema Gyalpo in its original roman alphabetical version), a scholar of Tibetan studies and the Dalai Lama's virtual ambassador in Japan. It also has Fujimori (like Pele, Magic, and Ichiro, the PNP obviously feels that Mr. Fujimori is big enough to go with one name), the ex-president of Peru. Technically, Fijimori does not qualify as a gaijin since he obtained Japanese citizenship at birth, but certainly deserves honorary mention, like Sadaharu Oh in Cooperstown.
What intrigues me is that none of these people adopted names that obscure their foreign origins (unlike Shokei Arai, the naturalized South Korean Lower House Diet member who took his life in the wake of a personal political scandal).
The Japanese national side in soccer, rugby, basketball, softball, volleyball, and American football, as well as individual sports like table tennis, all include or have included naturalized citizens as key members on their rosters. And the top two sumo wrestlers are Mongolians. Now politics may be a contact sport as well, but the outcome also turns on popular consent. In other words, two political parties led by savvy old-timers (DPJ - Ichiro Ozawa; PNP – Tamisuke Watanuki, Shizuka "bad cop" Kamei, and Yasuoki "good cop" Kamei) from the LDP of the good old days have decided that these names will help pull in votes at the national level. Against a background of the heavy celebrity politicking on the national stage, this is surely an encouraging commentary on civil society in Japan.
PS: Is there no statute of limitations on the photos candidates are allowed to submit for a publicly paid-for ad? One of the candidates on party X looks at least 20 years younger than she should. And she didn't look like that when I saw her back in the day. The image has the smooth and shiny, retouched smile that reminds me of North Korean propaganda photos. Anyone who has access to the newspaper inserts in the national dailies is free to write in with his/her guess on who I'm talking about. I do not erase any comments, anonymous or non-, other than surf-by spam, so your efforts, if any, will not go to naught. (Visual legerdemain for the candidates' photos, by the way, does not appear to be limited to women.)
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The Media Response to Foreign Minister Aso's "Alzheimer's" Comment Is Subdued. Is There a Conspiracy?
"In Japan one 60-kilogram bag of rice is sold for 16,000 yen, whereas in China, Japanese rice is sold for 1,300 yen per kilogram--equivalent to 78,000 yen per bag. Even a person with Alzheimer's can work out whether 78,000 yen or 16,000 yen is more expensive."
Despite the predictable cries from the opposition for his head, the JMSM response to Foreign Minister Aso's "Alzheimer's" comment has been subdued. Is there a conspiracy? No.
There are several reasons why Mr. Aso's comment is receiving less attention than previous gaffes from this foot-in-mouth disease-afflicted administration.
First of all, Mr. Aso and the LDP have the latest earthquake and the questions it has raised with nuclear safety to thank for. This matter has so far failed to take on partisan colors, except for cries of opportunism when Prime Minister Abe went to the disaster area. But seriously, what else could you expect? And the LDP can thank the gods he didn't pat the TEPCO man on the back, telling him he was doing a good job. Let's just say, we haven't seen many slow news days recently.
Yes, I do suspect that there is a measure of caution in the JMSM about possibly overplaying this verbal misstep in a way that eclipses the substantive issues only a couple of weeks before voting day. But I am sure that the JMSM (and not just the daily tabloids) would have jumped in with relish if he had, say, uttered anything that could have been even remotely linked with a potential nuclear weapons program. In fact, Mr. Aso's words revealed nothing about Mr. his views on rice, aging, or any other substantive issues. And that takes us to my main point.
You see, Mr. Aso is a guy, most of us men are guys (caution: do not open at work unless you are using a headphone), and there's a roughly equal number of women who are resigned to sharing life with one guy or other. (Husbands, boyfriends of course, but also dads, brothers, kids.) Unlike Hakuo Yanagisawa's painfully labored "breeding machine" metaphor or Defense Minister Kyuma's third-rail musings on the meaning of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mr. Aso's words were the kind of things we say in casual, private conversation, things grownups do not want to show up in on YouTube. But, like it or not, that is the way we are; careless, sometimes, callous, no. Mr. Aso was being his guy self, and it is precisely this inimitable knack of keeping it real in public that sets this manga-loving foreign minister apart from the rest of his usually scripted peers (though the hawkish Shoichi Nakagawa also manages to leave the reservation frequently with his dyspeptic wit) and overall makes him such an effective public speaker.
In sum, I do not think that this will have any effect on voting behavior come July 29. (I know that this is just my thumb saying stuff that cannot be disproved.) However, it does serve as a potent reminder why people had such a hard time taking him seriously as a potential prime minister when he ran for the LDP presidency in 2006. That's an important thing to keep in mind in any post-Abe speculations. And that is the real takeaway from this latest uproar.
Cows, please accept my heartfelt apologies for my inappropriate comment in the third paragraph of this post (second paragraph of my own comments). You have my promise that such an incident will not be repeated in the future. I would also like to take this opportunity to inform you that no cows were used in the manufacture of this post or any other post or feature on this blog. In the interests of full disclosure, it is with the greatest of regret that I inform you that I did use some cow parts in preparing today's dinner. Yes, I cooked the dinner, but I did not shoot the cow, oh no.
Despite the predictable cries from the opposition for his head, the JMSM response to Foreign Minister Aso's "Alzheimer's" comment has been subdued. Is there a conspiracy? No.
There are several reasons why Mr. Aso's comment is receiving less attention than previous gaffes from this foot-in-mouth disease-afflicted administration.
First of all, Mr. Aso and the LDP have the latest earthquake and the questions it has raised with nuclear safety to thank for. This matter has so far failed to take on partisan colors, except for cries of opportunism when Prime Minister Abe went to the disaster area. But seriously, what else could you expect? And the LDP can thank the gods he didn't pat the TEPCO man on the back, telling him he was doing a good job. Let's just say, we haven't seen many slow news days recently.
Yes, I do suspect that there is a measure of caution in the JMSM about possibly overplaying this verbal misstep in a way that eclipses the substantive issues only a couple of weeks before voting day. But I am sure that the JMSM (and not just the daily tabloids) would have jumped in with relish if he had, say, uttered anything that could have been even remotely linked with a potential nuclear weapons program. In fact, Mr. Aso's words revealed nothing about Mr. his views on rice, aging, or any other substantive issues. And that takes us to my main point.
You see, Mr. Aso is a guy, most of us men are guys (caution: do not open at work unless you are using a headphone), and there's a roughly equal number of women who are resigned to sharing life with one guy or other. (Husbands, boyfriends of course, but also dads, brothers, kids.) Unlike Hakuo Yanagisawa's painfully labored "breeding machine" metaphor or Defense Minister Kyuma's third-rail musings on the meaning of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mr. Aso's words were the kind of things we say in casual, private conversation, things grownups do not want to show up in on YouTube. But, like it or not, that is the way we are; careless, sometimes, callous, no. Mr. Aso was being his guy self, and it is precisely this inimitable knack of keeping it real in public that sets this manga-loving foreign minister apart from the rest of his usually scripted peers (though the hawkish Shoichi Nakagawa also manages to leave the reservation frequently with his dyspeptic wit) and overall makes him such an effective public speaker.
In sum, I do not think that this will have any effect on voting behavior come July 29. (I know that this is just my thumb saying stuff that cannot be disproved.) However, it does serve as a potent reminder why people had such a hard time taking him seriously as a potential prime minister when he ran for the LDP presidency in 2006. That's an important thing to keep in mind in any post-Abe speculations. And that is the real takeaway from this latest uproar.
Cows, please accept my heartfelt apologies for my inappropriate comment in the third paragraph of this post (second paragraph of my own comments). You have my promise that such an incident will not be repeated in the future. I would also like to take this opportunity to inform you that no cows were used in the manufacture of this post or any other post or feature on this blog. In the interests of full disclosure, it is with the greatest of regret that I inform you that I did use some cow parts in preparing today's dinner. Yes, I cooked the dinner, but I did not shoot the cow, oh no.
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