The Paradox of the LDP in Opposition

The founding of the Stand Up, Japan! Party (a name that has engendered no end of sarcastic comment in the political realm) the defections of a total of nine sitting Diet members from the Liberal Democratic Party since the August election and the dispeptic vocalizations of Masuzoe Yo'ichi as regards the LDP's present leadership -- despite the absorption of Koike Yuriko and Kono Taro into the party leadership ranks -- all highlight the paradox the LDP faces as it tries to rev up its engines for the July House of Councillors elections. To whit:

The greater the decline in the support ratings for the leadership of the DPJ duarchy of Hatoyama Yukio and Ozawa Ichiro, the more fragile becomes the unity of the LDP.

That the unpopularity of the leaders of the ruling party ends up destabilizing the main opposition party is decidedly peculiar. One could almost believe a conspiracy was somehow subverting the natural order -- that Yosano Kaoru, Ozawa's counterpart in an ongoing friendly rivalry over who is the best Go player in the Diet, was conspiring with his board game buddy in a end-around play extracting from the LDP its heretofore most reliable pillars of support: fiscal conservatives and historical revisionists.

However, one need not appeal to a conspiracy to make sense of these seemingly contradictory results. The fissioning of even a rump LDP is entirely congruent with the Rule.