The other day, I talked to some people who are intimately involved with but not of the LDP. This and other conversations only confirm what we’ve been seeing in the mainstream media (and the tabloids) in recent months: Aso has been an unmitigated disaster, and the LDP is in total disarray. I’ve also heard from people associated with the LDP/DPJ world speculating about a Communist surge in the 12 July Tokyo Prefectural Assembly election, or even personally voting, just maybe just voting, for the JCP.
The LDP is set to lose, in Tokyo as well as the national election, but the DPJ fails to inspire while the Socialists aka Social Democrats, long dead as the go-to protest party, has barely enough life to beg for a seat at the upcoming DPJ feast (faintly echoing the Socialists’ unholy coalition with the LDP that spawned the ill-fated Murayama Administration and destroyed the Socialists for most practical purposes). And I keep coming across anecdotal evidence that favors the JCP.
I can’t imagine the JCP coming in ahead of the Komeito in Tokyo or nationally. Still, it’s positioning itself to be the only place to go if you want to use your protest vote instead of sitting this year out—and there are an awful lot of undecided floaters still out there. If the floater do decide to go to the voting stations, chances are, they’ll end up denying a working majority to both coalitions…in Tokyo and across the nation. For that alone, the Sunday Tokyo election is worth watching.
Mark, I’ll try to get back to you over the weekend.
Showing posts with label JCP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JCP. Show all posts
Friday, July 10, 2009
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Quo Vadis? The Communist Vote in the Unrepresented Districts
Ross has reminded me that the Japan Communist Party’s decision not to field candidates in half, likely more, of the 300 single-seat seat Lower House elections are likely to have substantial consequences, in the DPJ’s favor. True, but it’s the magnitude that is so hard to guess at.
The JCP announced 138 candidates to contest single-seat races. That leaves 162 without a JCP candidate. Reports say that the JCP will be naming a small number of additional candidates later, but that’ll be it. A rough, sample scan of Hokkaido districts shows that the JCP typically reaps votes at somewhere in the 10,000s to the 30,000s per district. If the DPJ can capture a big chunk of those votes, that will make the difference in close and possibly even some not-so-close races. The question is, how likely is this to happen?
For me, the difficulties in making a plausible guess at the actual impact are at least twofold. First, I do not have access to the kind of detailed polling data that enables me to understand how the JCP vote breaks down into hardcore socialist and plain-vanilla protesters against the status quo. The JCP vote fluctuates substantially from election to election—a swing of 10,000 votes or so between elections in a single-seat district is not unusual—so a detailed, district-by-district examination coupled with a more macro analysis may yield a clue here. Second, the DPJ has been taking a decidedly populist/politics-first turn under Mr. Ozawa. I have no idea how this much this works against it in wooing the protest vote. If I have to add a third, it is that I don’t yet know if the JCP will try to influence their supporters one way or the other. My guess is that it will stay neutral and its core supporters in the unrepresented districts will mostly abstain.
The JCP announced 138 candidates to contest single-seat races. That leaves 162 without a JCP candidate. Reports say that the JCP will be naming a small number of additional candidates later, but that’ll be it. A rough, sample scan of Hokkaido districts shows that the JCP typically reaps votes at somewhere in the 10,000s to the 30,000s per district. If the DPJ can capture a big chunk of those votes, that will make the difference in close and possibly even some not-so-close races. The question is, how likely is this to happen?
For me, the difficulties in making a plausible guess at the actual impact are at least twofold. First, I do not have access to the kind of detailed polling data that enables me to understand how the JCP vote breaks down into hardcore socialist and plain-vanilla protesters against the status quo. The JCP vote fluctuates substantially from election to election—a swing of 10,000 votes or so between elections in a single-seat district is not unusual—so a detailed, district-by-district examination coupled with a more macro analysis may yield a clue here. Second, the DPJ has been taking a decidedly populist/politics-first turn under Mr. Ozawa. I have no idea how this much this works against it in wooing the protest vote. If I have to add a third, it is that I don’t yet know if the JCP will try to influence their supporters one way or the other. My guess is that it will stay neutral and its core supporters in the unrepresented districts will mostly abstain.
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