“…the reshuffle of the cabinet, the
relation between the PM and the LDP, and the new cabinet members (and their
background)…”
There
are two kinds of major cabinet reshuffles executed by an LDP-led administration:
1) the Hail Mary (football pass), an attempt to revive fading public support,
sometimes accompanied by the resignation of the prime minister himself and/or a
subsequent call on a snap election; and 2) the Jimmy Carter (WH tennis court
time management), a semi-regular reassignment, say, at a couple of years’
intervals, to contain restlessness among the non-cabinet/sub-cabinet
parliamentarians. The Abe administration’s
latest is obviously the latter. The evidence: high poll numbers nearly two
years after the inauguration, and the retention of his chief cabinet secretary,
minister of finance, and minister of foreign affairs.
The
relationship between the PM and the LDP used to be simple. Barring impending
disaster, faction leaders fought it out, and the winner became PM. But a
variety of reasons, including losing to the opposition, changed this. Faction
members now vote for whom they like with near-impunity. From Junichiro Koizumi
on, only the disastrous Taro Aso has assumed the PM’s office while the head of a
faction—one of the weakest ones at that—while faction leader Nobutaka Machimura
suffered the indignity of losing to Abe, a member of his own faction. Although
open rebellion outside of the regular triennial LDP presidential election is
rare, there should be significant pressure on the PM to resign if his poll
numbers threatens to dip into the twenties—the thirties if a national election looms
on the horizon—and a successful challenge is likely to be mounted at the
regular leadership election if the PM decides to stay the course.
There
are people who claim that this is a right-wing cabinet that reflects Abe’s nationalist
revisionist proclivities. Those people are idiots. Don’t listen to them. I do
not pretend to know the cabinet and sub-cabinet appointees well enough to pass
judgment on them individually. But they average out to a very solid and
moderate mean. Abe is not the sharpest quill on the proverbial porcupine. But
he comes across as an astute and ideology-free judge of character and
administrative talent.
If
you have the stomach for more, I am usually available at … on Thursdays, 2-5PM,
and lunch before that if you like. But call ahead just to be sure.
Addendum:
The Jimmy Carter analogy doesn’t work. Must keep working on my writing skills.
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