The slapdash creation yesterday of the Japan Party of the Future (Nippon Mirai no To) in part answers the heretofore burning question, "Where is the umbrella party of the left, the correlate of the Liberal Democratic Party as the umbrella party of the center-right, now that the ruling Democratic Party of Japan has effectively expelled all of its anti-consumption tax, anti-nuclear power and anti-Trans Pacific Partnership members?" (Link)
Funny how political realignment, which was assumed was going to result in urban, free-market, multilateralist, liberals facing off against rural, crony-capitalist, bilateral relations and traditional social policy conservatives has become a four-way fight between parties and close allies with market socialism, social conservatism, activist foreign policy, regressive social policy, patriotism, fiscal rectitude, loose monetary policy, subsidies and education reform all in a jumble.
Considering how many parties have formed and disappeared over the last two weeks, it is not out of place to wonder whether the voters will be given enough time to discern what the various electoral alliances stand for.
The whole mad process of creating viable electoral groupings should end on December 4, when the final party lists are announced. Politicians have become so addicted to rebranding, however, that they may still be redefining themselves during their last speeches in the final hours of December 15.
Not sure I agree with you that these groupings are so incomprehensible--it's just that they are focused more around foreign policy and thought on the national interest. There has always been a rabid element of the LDP that has taken a revisionist view of history and wanted to loosen what they see as the shackles of the US Japan alliance (the restorationists), another bunch of revisionists that see the alliance as a ticket to great power status (the current LDP), and yet another group of LDP economic and foreign policy realists (You thought Hatoyama was only being silly when he referred to the current DPJ as the Noda faction of the LDP). This brand new future party looks to me like a party that finds common cause in stressing Japan's active participation in a liberal international security order--which has been a central tenant of Ozawa's philosophy since the Gulf War--although we'll have to see their manifesto to be sure. Add the socialists and the communists to the mix as eternal anti-US peace nationalists and you have pretty much what I would have expected to see happen had all parties dissolved and reformed along foreign policy lines.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, then there is Komeito. Nobody gets them.
ReplyDeleteBryce -
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the Mirai no To's policy platform? Hokori no aru gaiko? Do the founders not understand that hokori is the property of the revisionist right?
More seriously, the sudden coalescing of a political party out of the anti-nuclear power (or "the graduation out of nuclear power" as the party platform clevely rephrases it) movement represents an unexpected intrusion of truly popular populism, does it not?
As Winston Peters (look him up) once told me: "We're all populists! I have never met a politician that does not want to be popular."
ReplyDeleteBut to be fair, if you forget about nuclear power and foreign policy for a moment, the greater participation for women in the workforce and a focus on lifestyle improvement feature prominently as party goals. And the way Kada is presenting her nuclear free policy boils down to lifestyle improvement. Policies focused on improving individual lifestyles (even when they meant less focus on national growth strategies and repaying debt) were the core components of the 2009 manifesto that Ozawa campaigned on and the major concern of his splinter party? Populist, sure. Inconsistent? Not really.
ReplyDeleteActually, I see the Mirai no to leadership's strong focus on nuclear issues as later potentially problematic for Ozawa. I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to be part of a special interest party, and will probably start advocating a broader agenda than either Kada or Iida.
鳩山氏は「日本未来の党の考え方こそ本来の民主党の原点の発想だ」と絶賛。
ReplyDeleteSee?
「なぜ鳩山も新しい流れに合流しないんだと思いますよね」と聴衆に語りかけると、大きな拍手がわき起こり「拍手をいただくと、その誘惑はたいへん強い」と述べ、衆院選出馬への意欲を見せた。
I'm not sure possessing the power to make Hatoyama consider changing his mind is something the party should brag about, however.
Bryce -
ReplyDeleteIf memory serves, changing Hatoyama Yukio's mind takes no power at all.