House of Councillors Election 2010 - What It All Means

For a review of what this House of Councillors election was supposed to mean, please see my op-ed published at The Diplomat.

House of Councillors Election 2010 - Will Vote For Food (Discounts)

One of the results of the drastic review process of the Government Revitalization Unit (GRU) this year and last was a 20% reduction in the budget allocation used to promote voting and increase voter participation rates, which are currently stuck at around 54%-to-58% of the electorate. As a consequence, local authorities are looking for innovative ways to promote voting at at dramatically lower costs than before. The movement even has its own name, the "cheap-cheap strategy" (kechi kechi sakusen).

In some areas, local authorities are pairing up with retailers, promoting the election with stickers on food packages, or posters on the front doors reminding customers that Sunday, July 11 is the day of the vote for the House of Councillors.

It was thus with tremendous interest that I today received, together with my groceries at Peacock -- the supermarket division of the Daimaru retailing empire -- a flyer with a most intriguing offer printed on its lower extremity.

Here is an image of the flyer in its entirety, most of which is covered with announcements of special prices on a variety of goods going on sale on July 10 or July 11.

Here below, however, is the image of the lower extremity of the flyer, whereupon is printed the invitation, in diagonal white writing, "On your way back home from voting, please by all means come to Peacock!"

According to the offer -- and it is an offer -- if you present proof of having voted, you will receive a 5% discount on your final total* at the register.

I cannot for the life of me understand how this offer, which gives an actual financial reward for a person's having voted, manages to skirt Japan's Byzantine voting laws. Yet is somehow must, or at least will be assumed to do so until we see the prosecutors on Monday marching, cardboard boxes in hand, into Daimaru's headquarters.

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* Certain products are not included in this offer, including cigarettes, salt, digital photo printing, gift coupons and dry cleaning.

Unclear on the Concept

Funny thing about the Kyodo polling reports whose numbers I posted yesterday. If you actually add up the numbers in the article, the various shares of the vote add up to 109.5%.

Someone somewhere is unclear on the concept of "share of the total vote" -- and it is probably me.

Now if the percentage of the electorate that is undecided is 30.3% -- then the numbers add up.

Otherwise, not so much.

(Yes, I know the other column is wrong too).

Later - The Lawyer guesses that the figure is an epic typographical error on Kyodo's part, that the number of undecided voters is not 39.8% but 29.8%.

The Lawyer is almost certainly correct.

Now how to fix the second column, which still adds up to 103.5%...

House of Councillors Election 2010 - Panic Time?

The latest figures from Kyodo on which parties the voters will be casting their ballots for in the proportional half of the vote on Sunday.

* = "Gosh, I Don't Know"

Where is the collapse over the last 10 days? Where is the dramatic shift away from the DPJ? Where is the calamity? Where is the surge for Your Party?

Gosh, I don't know.

On the other hand, I also do not know whether either the SDP or Sunrise or neither of them will manage to clear the 2.2% a party needs to claim a seat -- which can be seen as good news for the DPJ, for it is next in line to get a seat should either of the micro-parties fail to meet the threshold.

Faith in Numbers (2)

Really don't mind if you sit this one out
Your words but a whisper...your deafness a shout!

- Ian Anderson, "Thick As A Brick" (1972)

It is the night of Tanabata, when the star-crossed lovers meet

When we left off 10 days ago, the DPJ was in a position in the proportional vote to at least repeat its performance of 2004, where it won 19 seats with 37.7% of the vote. Due to the proliferation of parties bursting out of the LDP these last few years, the DPJ will need only 35.7% of the final vote to match its 2004.

Number of seats from the simulation of the D'Hondt system apportionment.

DPJ 19
LDP 11
New Komeito 6
Your Party 6
Japan Communist Party 3
Democratic Socialist Party 2
Sunrise 1
_________________

Total = 48

With 19 seats from the proportional list, the DPJ is a third of the way from its ultimate goal of 60 seats, which together with the 61 seats it holds from the 2007 electoral cycle, would give the party 50% of the seats and thus control of the House of Councillors.

With control of the House of Councillors with the 307 out of 480 seats the party holds in the House of Representatives, the DPJ would be in the position to pass unencumbered most any piece of legislation it might desire. It would be able to do so for three years as the next House of Representatives election need not be held until mid-2013, when the House of Councillors has its next election.

Opening the door for:

1) a radical restructuring of Japan in line with the values of white collar suburban and urban voters, rather than rural or industry-based voting blocs

2) a great span of time for the opposition Liberal Democratic Party to further split into pieces

The DPJ certainly wishes to secure these two advantages. In order to do so, DPJ candidates have to win 41 of the 73 district seats up for election. The newspapers are laying down bets that the DPJ cannot possibly succeed in this endeavor.

While certainly difficult, it is not impossible, given:

1) Ozawa Ichiro's three years of wandering the hinterlands cultivating local primary industry, small business, professional group and religious order votes the DPJ had theretofore ignored.

2) the lack of a clear reason to vote for a specific LDP district candidate other than to prevent the DPJ from having a majority in the House of Councillors.

3)the end of official cooperation between the New Komeito and the LDP.

The end of the LDP-New Komeito coalition throws a monkey wrench into almost any calculation of potential results of this elections.

Here's how. The New Komeito has 8 million dedicated voters who will turn out on July 11, typhoon or shine. In the proportional half of the vote they will vote for the party or for particular members of the party.

However, except in Saitama, Tokyo and Osaka, New Komeito voters have no one to vote for in the district elections. This is because the party, mentally fried by the 2009 House of Representatives election where every single one of its district candidates lost his or her seat, has put up a district candidate only in those three prefectures. It has no official candidates anywhere else. Now a great fraction of New Komeito's total 8 million (about 13% of the likely final total national vote) live in just those three prefectures. Tokyo hosts about 825,000 New Komeito voters; Osaka about 790,000 and Saitama about 580,000. New Komeito voters are also extremely numerous in Kanagawa (690,000) and Aichi (580,000) Prefectures, but are not so numerous to able to elect candidates in these districts on their own.

Subtracting these huge numbers of Komeito voters living in these core city prefectures from the 8 million total, one is left with some 4.5 million votes, scattered around the remaining 42 prefectures in varying densities.

That's a lot of votes, and in prefectures where the margin of victory is 30,000 votes or less, the lack of New Komeito support could be fatal for the hopes of an LDP candidate.

The importance of New Komeito voters for the LDP was established in 2009. Except in the districts where the New Komeito was running its own candidates, the 8 million received divine guidance to vote for the LDP, and 7 million of them seem to have responded - providing the LDP with about a quarter of the votes in received in the district elections.

There is nothing wrong with this kind of vote swapping -- except that it turned out to have been pointless. In the 2009 House of Representatives election, even with the 7 million New Komeito voters voting for the LDP's district candidates, the LDP got slaughtered.

This time around New Komeito voters have been no clear, public instructions from on high as to whom they should vote for, other than the New Komeito candidates in the three districts listed above. The print media is saying that local prefectural branches of the New Komeito are leaning toward supporting the local LDP candidate.

The general theory being espoused is that by cooperating with the LDP again, the New Komeito will prevent the DPJ from winning enough seats to have a simple majority. Indeed, with the present sour mood toward the DPJ and the support of the New Komeito, the LDP and Your Party (Minna no To) could even steal seats from the DPJ's present totals.

With its seat totals far below what it needs to move legislation through the Diet smoothly*, the DPJ will have to go on a search for coalition partners. Your Party's Watanabe Yoshimi has stated his party will not form a coalition with DPJ. Which would leave the New Komeito as the bridesmaid of choice for the DPJ.

Do you see the problem with this theory, why is is dafter than Daft Punk?

Here is the supposed strategy

1) rule Japan in coalition with the LDP for 10 years
2) dump association with LDP after devastating 2009 House of Representatives losses by both coalition partners
3) make goo-goo eyes on television and in the Diet toward the DPJ
4) thank your lucky stars you are no longer LDP associates as the LDP sheds its most attractive members and fails to capitalize on the serious problems hounding the DPJ's top leaders
5) realize the Post-Hatoyama, Post-Ozawa New Look DPJ is into fiscal stringency and curtailing social welfare payments - which are poison to your party
6) surreptitiously cooperate with the LDP again in the district elections half of the House of Councillors election
7) either

a) watch the collaboration fail to make a change, as the LDP flames out in defeat
b) watch the collaboration succeed in preventing the DPJ from winning its sought-for majority

8) wait by the telephone patiently for the call that is sure to come from DPJ headquarters begging the New Komeito to become the DPJ's new coalition partner

...

It is step #8 that I am having trouble with right now. It is beyond my capacity to imagine that the DPJ, its hopes and dreams having been thwarted by an LDP aided by the New Komeito, will turn around and ask the New Komeito to be its partner.

So no matter what the evening sports newspapers are saying, the New Komeito cannot be reviving cooperation with the LDP -- not if it wants to be part of a post-election order...and if the LDP is going to try to defend its 25 current districts without the support of the New Komeito machine, it will fail.

So what are my predictions for the results for this election?

Worst case scenario - The DPJ defends the 36 district seats it now holds. Together with the 19 seats it will win the proportion vote, it will be at 5 seats short of the magical 60 it needs for a control of the House. It will gain that control through absorption of independents and breakaway members of other parties -- or by making Watanabe Yoshimi an offer he cannot refuse (Financial Services Minister?).

Best case scenario - the DPJ wins 60-to-62 seats -- 19-to-20 in the proportional and 41-to-43 in the districts.

Going at this backwards, the ultimate maximum for the DPJ in the districts is 61 out of the total 73 seats - the total number of district candidates the DPJ is running. The party has no candidate in angry Okinawa -- where the terms "DPJ candidate" and "snowball's chance in hell" would probably go very well together. The party is otherwise offering a candidate every other in the single-seat districts except Kagawa, where it, the Social Democratic Party and People's New Party are supporting an independent.

In its most audacious bet, the DPJ is running two candidates in all but 2 of the 12 two-seat districts: everywhere but Fukuoka and Niigata. In Fukuoka, the New Komeito branch seems to be cooperating openly with the LDP candidate, making his election a given. The DPJ seems to have conceded there was no point in fielding a second candidate. In Niigata, the DPJ's main opponent and likely top vote getter is a member of the former coalition partner SDP.

The DPJ is fielding two candidates in the three-seat districts of Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, Aichi, though only a single candidate in Osaka. In Tokyo, it is has two candidates vying for the five seats available.

So in its drive to secure control of the House of Councillors, the DPJ has to win two thirds of the seats it is contesting.

Or, looking at the same problem from the opposite direction, the DPJ can withstand up 20 errors in electoral strategy and still come out on top.

Against an opposition whose top member's claim to fame is that under its rule, the country was run into the ditch it finds itself in.

I think the voters will by July 11 figure out where their interests lie.

I have faith in their numbers.

_____________________________________

* "Smooth Diet relations" being an inexplicable fetish of media correspondents and commentators.

Indi, Just Let It Go!

Why I love Sato Masaaki, the cartoonist at the Tokyo Shinbun.


Prime Minister Naoto Kan, dressed as Professor Indiana Jones, hangs from his bullwhip, trying to keep from sinking into quicksand whilst clutching a small satchel marked "Consumption Tax." However, the branch his bullwhip is wrapped around, marked "Support Ratings," is cracking, presaging his being swallowed up in the mire. At the edge of the area of quicksand, the trio of Kamei Shizuka, Fukushima Mizuho and what seems to be Tanigaki Sadakazu mutter in confusion, "Just separate himself from it and he's fine, but..." (Hanaseba ii no ni...)*

The title of this work is "The Treasure" (Otakara).


Dedicated to EC, Richard Katz and Gerald Curtis.

Image Courtesy: The Tokyo Shimbun

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* Just why Tanigaki would feel anything but unbridled joy at Kan's hanging on to a pledge to serious consider raising the consumption tax as a part of his fiscal reconfiguration package escapes me. Maybe the tall man in the glasses is supposed to be Ozawa Ichiro.

House of Councillors Election 2010 - The Raw Numbers

Number of eligible voters (as of June 23, 2010): 104,513,907
Number of female voters: 53,977,415
Number of male voters: 50,536,492

Greatest voting disparity (ippyo no kakusa) between two districts = 5.01 times
in between Tottori Prefecture (487, 893 voters - 1 seat) and Kanagawa Prefecture (7,328,018 voters - 3 seats)

Number of candidates: 438
Number of seats available: 121
Number of district seat candidates: 251
Number of district seats available: 73
Number of proportional seat candidates: 187
Number of proportional seats available: 48

Number of candidates in previous elections:

377 (2007)
320 (2004)
497 (2001)
474 (1998)
567 (1995)
640 (1992)

Number of parties participating in the proportional half of the vote: 12
Number of candidates on proportional lists, by party:

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) 45
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) 35
Your Party (Minna no To) 23
Japan Communist Party (JCP) 18
New Komeito 17
Sunrise Party (Tachiagare Nippon) 10
Women's Party 10
People's New Party (PNP) 7
Social Democratic Party (SDP) 6
Spirit of Japan Party (Nippon Soshinto) 6
New Renaissance (Shinto Kaikaku) 5

Minimum age for a candidate = 30 years of age

Number of female candidates: 100
By party (and out of...)

DPJ 27 out of 106
JCP 18 out of 64
LDP 14 out of 84
Your Party 8 out of 44
SDP 5 out of 14

Number of female candidates in previous elections

91 (2007)
68 (2004)
137 (2001)
110 (1998)
124 (1995)
123 (1992)

Speaking of Big Dogs

Okumura Jun is back with two excellent overviews of the current state of the race and some cracking analysis about the potential fallout of this election.

- Will the DPJ Win a Simple Majority in the Upper House?

- The Upper House Elections and Some Political Implications

As for me, some political perspective...a propos of potential outbreaks of hyperventilation in the press.

In the Mediterranean and in Mitteleuropa, when a government proposes stringent fiscal measures, this in a desperate effort to combat exploding debt and deficits, the people respond with general strikes and marches with flags and banners whilst masked radicals toss cobbles, injure police officers and destroy public and private property.

In Japan, in the face of similar threats from the government, the Cabinet's popularity rating declines 10% whilst the percentage of persons saying they will be voting for the ruling party in Sunday's House of Councillors proportional vote plunges by 2%.

Oh tell me, where one may find the homeland of sweet reason and civilization?

House of Councillors Election 2010 - Time to Let the Big Dog Run

Posted over at Twisting Flowers is a depressing review of the latest polling data. According to the author's analysis, the gamble of calling the Liberal Democratic Party's bluff on raising the consumption tax to 10% has backfired upon the Democratic Party of Japan, eroding confidence in the Cabinet and reducing the percentage of persons responding favorably when asked about the DPJ.

However, looking at the numbers in the bottom row of the Twisting Flowers charts seems to indicate that it is not yet the hour to be hitting the panic button. The number of undecided voters is still one third of the electorate, a few of whom fled support from supporting the DPJ in the general hysteria being generated in the media over the prospects of a consumption tax increase. Even then, the shift is only of a few percentage points, and not toward any of the opposition parties.

As for the drops in Cabinet ratings -- well, why not? The Diet is in recess; the Cabinet members are all out on the campaign trail-- all, that is, except for the PM himself, who had the annoying responsibility of representing his country at the G8 / G20 summit and sing along with the Hallelujah chorus there of fiscal stringency. Why wouldn't they fall, when it is unclear that the Cabinet is, in fact, doing anything?

Now that The Man is back on Japanese soil, the solution for the DPJ is simple: let the big dog run. Prime Minister Kan Naoto may not have the greatest of lilting cadences but he is damn clear and straight about what he says. He is the new DPJ brand -- the party can do little else but let him roll up and down the length of this land dispensing his serious but self-deprecatory common sense.

The question is not the amount of time left before the election; it is how many hours a day the party can keep the PM talking (he will need a voice coach). The more people hear him, the more they like his party and its ideas.

The PM had to leave Japan at an inconvenient time. It is imperative that in the week that remains that he be out on the streets and in the studios of his homeland, making the case for his government.

Then we will see what the polls say.

House of Councillors Elections 2010 - The Tokyo Quintilemma (corrected)

In politics, what you see is not always what you get.

Tokyo is blessed because it sends five Senators (yes, that is what they are called) to the House of Councillors.

Tokyo is cursed because it has to select five Senators for the House of Councillors.

First there is the list itself, with a staggering 24 names. Only Aomori and Kumamoto, each with 5 candidates vying for but a single seat, have more freewheeling level of competition, and then only fractionally. In Tokyo, recent candidate inflation rate is just out of control: in 2007, there were 20 candidates for the 5 seats, in 2004, there were 11 candidates for 4 seats.

And why not? House of Councillors member is a great job. A six-year position with a fabulous salary, extraordinary housing and transportation perquisites, basically three free meals a day, personal and family security, social status and very few responsibilities.

It is a wonder that there are not hundreds of aspirants.

Then there is the plethora of parties, mostly of the right. In 2007, voters had to contend with 6 parties offering candidates and a mass of independents. This year there are 9 parties, if one includes the Nippon Soshinto and the Happiness Realization Party, plus a lot of candidates from what claim to be parties.

Then there is the doubling up. The Democrats have two incumbents, Government Revitalization Minister Renho and the Democratic Party of Japan's top vote getter in 2004 Ogawa Toshio. They are being challenged by a pair of two LDP candidates: incumbent Nakagawa Masaharu and newcomer Tokai Yukiko, holder of a U.S. journalism degree.

-- An aside, but what is wrong with the LDP as regards its strong women candidates? Tokai's heavily photoshopped campaign posters immediately bring to mind the Katayama Satsuki disaster (Katayama, the former Mrs. Masuzoe Yo'ichi for those who are new to this game, is one of the candidates on the Liberal Democratic Party's proportional lists). The actual Ms. Tokai is somewhat less doe-like in appearance. Is it because she is taking on, in the person of Renho, a former model and Clarion Girl? And why do the papers fail to say diddly about her coming directly out of General Electric to run in this race, referring to her instead as "a former newscaster?" --

Then there are the guys with the movie star good looks and the scintillating resumes. First is the attractive and savvy Matsuda Kota, the man who brough Tully's Coffee to Japan. He is running on the corporate-sponsored Your Party (Minna no To) ticket (odd that). He is matched on the left by the Social Democratic Party's 37 year-old Morihara Hideki, a former international NGO worker.

Once past these six candidates, one crosses a over to the wrong side of the tracks, where one's associates cast a shadow upon one's image.

The candidate on Easy Street is Takeya Toshiko of the New Komeito (and yes, that fade in is creepy).
Even though Takeya's party has been for the last decade the LDP's coalition partner in government, selling out nearly every one of its core principles in order to hold onto a ministry, the New Komeito still has enough cadres dedicated voters in Tokyo to get Takeya elected no matter what. She has 790,000 to 800,000 votes in the bag, and in the 2004 and 2007 elections, the highest ranking failed candidates won 597,000 and 652,000 votes, respectively.

The hard-luck case is Koike Akira, who is himself not bats--t crazy but as a member of the Communist Party will be treated as such. One of the rare physicians in the Diet and blessed with a good sense of humor, he will be anathema to all but his party's faithful. He would have a decent shot at winning a seat as an independent, especially if he made a special effort to label himself an ex-Communist-running-as-an-independent. Instead, he should go down ignominious defeat with a 450,000 JCP loyalist votes.

After this, one crosses the Rubicon, from the acceptable to the bats--t crazy.

Back in the old days, when comedian/actors like Aoshima Yukio or prominent writers, architects, doctors or whatnot were on tail end of the ballot, one could toss a vote in their direction, certain one was at least giving the country a reason to smile, or, as it turned out in Aoshima's case, would have capped off a great double career.

What to do? What to say? It is right-wing fringe you like? Come on it -- so many different flavors one available could start up an ice cream store. Possibly sane independent one has never heard of before? The voters have at least nine to choose from.

Then there my personal favorite; the Wringer. Ogawa Shoji (小川昇志) has a name is so similar to the DPJ's Ogawa Toshio (小川敏夫) that one can has to think that Shoji-kun was either

a) hired by a member of the opposition to confuse DPJ voters about which Ogawa they want to vote for, resulting in a lot of votes going to Sho-chan that were meant for Toshi-kun

b) wanted to see if he could steal one of the last remaining seats thanks votes that were meant for Ogawa Toshio

c) filled with a hatred so intense for Ogawa Toshio he registered himself just to mess up Ogawa's otherwise fairly certain reelection.

d) Some mix of the above

So how to winnow out 5 winners from out of this mass?

My guess is that Renho is the top vote getter and Takeya Toshiko wins a seat on the Soka Gakkai vote. Ogawa Toshio survives but in only fourth or fifth place due to his obscurity relative his glamorous fellow party member and the other Ogawa's meddlesome presence. Nakagawa Masaharu was the top vote getter of all in 2004 but he will be fighting with his colleague Tokai Yukiko. He will grab the fifth seat, if an LDP candidate finishes in the running at all, the poor showing due to the collapse of the LDP's Tokyo party organization and the plethora of right wing fringe candidates on the ballot from tiny but still established parties. Of the pretty boys in the running, I am guessing Matsuda wins the last seat on both the media-zaikai tailwinds currently inflating the reputation of Your Party and his Matsuda's actual reputation for bringing in a business into Japan and making it a success.

My apologies to all the other candidates...but you are just not in this race. A Tokyo voter has five Senators, more than the citizens of any other prefecture (Hurrah!) and you are not going to be one of them. (And that does include you, Yamada Hiroshi. You should have never left your day job.)


With thanks to John de Hoog for his help.

Later - This post has been edited for clarity.