A Brief Rumination On Ozawa Ichiro, With A Long Detour Through A Condemnation Of The LDP

I have been accused for being unfairly negative toward Ozawa Ichiro, both here and in private communications.

I have always found these accusations rather peculiar. I have consistently argued that Ozawa was the victim of a baseless persecution in the public sphere.I have argued repeatedly that the charges filed against him and his aides were bogus; that his shady reputation was just that, a reputation, not a fact; that he was a bugbear of The Establishment and had suffered for it.

Often the accusations come from a misreading of my characterization of Ozawa's responsibility for a particular political situation. In my post of the other day, I seemed to be intimating that the Liberal Democratic Party learned from Ozawa its knee-jerk and unpatriotic automatic naysaying to any proposal of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, its constant calling for new elections and its criticism of every act of the governments of Kan Naoto and Noda Yoshihiko.

If this were the takeaway from my assertion, the result would be a gross misrepresentation of history. Ozawa did repeatedly call for elections during his tenure as party leader of the DPJ. He also used his party's majority in the House of Councillors to stymie government initiatives, particularly the renewal of the dispatch of Maritime Self Defense Forces ships to the Indian Ocean as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom and the renewal of the temporary tax on gasoline.

These positions were based not on an unthinking saying of "no" to every government act or policy but on fundamental principles.

After the Koizumi years, the LDP was a spent force. Execrable notions -- such as Japan could be revived as an economic and political power through the reimposition of pre-1945 respect for authority and enforced patriotism -- were not laughed out of the room but the foundation of national policies. The party's last three pre-August presidents were either the sons or grandsons of prime ministers.

After Koizumi, the LDP had no business being in power.

As for the Indian Ocean dispatch and the gasoline tax, the first challenged the constitutional limits of MSDF actions. The dispatch may have been indispensible for the maintenance of the Japan-U.S. alliance -- but it should have been explained as such, not painted over with a cavalcade of nonsense. The gasoline tax had been imposed at the height of the 1973 Oil Crisis. It had been renewed without explanation or justification for over thirty years.

In all three instances, the crucial issue was government accountability. The DPJ was demanding it because the LDP was not providing it.

However, in the basic running of the government, the DPJ, despite being the opposition party, worked with the LDP, or at least did not impede the government's delivery of basic government services. In part, this cooperation was due to the DPJ's having only limited powers, the LDP and the New Komeito together having a supermajority in the House of Representatives which could override any action or inaction of the House of Councillors, where the DPJ had the upper hand. However, the DPJ also understood that at loyal opposition had to be loyal, not just an opposition.

Once and only once did the DPJ use its legal powers to oppose the government. This was on the selection of the successor to Fukui Toshihiko as governor of the Bank of Japan. The DPJ told the LDP from the outset it would not accept as candidate an alumnus of the Finance Ministry. Out of purest contempt, the LDP sent not just one, but two alumni of the Finance Ministry as its candidates. These candidates the House of Councillors rejected. Finally, out of exasperation, the LDP proposed the academic and incumbent governor Shirakawa Masaaki, who was quickly confirmed.

What the LDP learned from these episodes were the most childish of lessons: a centrist political party had had the temerity to oppose the LDP. If the LDP is ever were in the opposition, it will oppose everything that that centrist party would propose.

Which is why we are where we are where we are today. The number of bills the government can push through during a Diet session is risible. A DPJ prime minister, in order to secure the support of three major bills (the limit it seems the LDP is willing to accept), one of which is the bill on bond issuance necessary for the government to pay its bills, must offer to resign. It happened to Kan; it is happening to Noda.

In a sense, it would be to the country's benefit for the DPJ to lose its majority in the next election. The DPJ at least has some sense of how to behave as an opposition party with some semblance of a conscience.

Of course, the LDP is even more spent as a force than when it was when it was tossed from power in 2009. It has nothing to offer to anyone, even its traditional constituencies in protected industries, big business and the rural areas.

That we are in the predicament we are in is in no small part due to Ozawa Ichiro's personal failings. His sense of entitlement, his obsessive need to be in charge, his inability to nurture talent, his incapacity to accept others as equals all contributed to his betrayal of the revolution he worked so hard to bring about. Whatever the political scientists may say about inevitable things happening inevitably, personality and individual decisions matter. Had Ozawa, when Hatoyama Yukio offered him the position of secretary-general of the DPJ in the giddy days after the August 2009 wipe out of the LDP, turned Hatoyama down with a "It's time for someone else, someone with less political baggage, to secure the gains we have made," our political today discourse would be richer and more meaningful.


Later - For a report on what looks like another episode of Ozawa's spiteful pettiness getting the best of him, please read Okumura Jun's latest, "Assassin for Kikawada? Is Ozawa Crazy? But Will the DPJ Miss a Golden Opportunity? over at GlobalTalk 21.

Winning Leaves the LDP in a Quandary

One of the great prizes lost, possibly the greatest prize, in the Democratic Party of Japan's House of Councillors election defeat on July 11 was the ability of the ruling coalition make appointments to governmental and quasi-governmental entities without consulting the opposition. Unlike budget legislation which becomes law 30 days after the House of Representatives passes it, or regular legislation, which can be passed by a two-thirds majority override in House of Representatives should the House of Councillors either vote down or not act on a bill for 60 days -- bills of appointment become null and void without the approval of the House of Councillors. The DPJ's losing so many seats on July 11 means that Japan has reentered an era where the parties out of formal power become the gate keepers for non-bureaucratic government appointments.

Nullifying appointments is the one real power the House of Councillors. The DPJ, in the "Twisted Diet" (nejire kokkai) period of July 2007 to August 2009, used this power 28 times to stymie the appointments plans of the then ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The most famous appointment's struggle occurred in 2008 over Fukui's Toshihiko's replacement as Governor of the Bank of Japan. The DPJ-led House of Councillors first rejected one, then a second nominee for the post, claiming that the LDP's nominees' connections to Ministry of Finance made them incapable defending the Bank of Japan's independence. The LDP, unable to push forward one of its favorites, relented and approved a third, non-BOJ tied nominee, the then Deputy Governor, BOJ lifer Shirakawa Masaaki.

This fight over the appointment of the governor of the BOJ, which left the country without BOJ governor during a three week span of the global financial crisis, has become engraved in LDP lore as the proof of just how grubby the DPJ is at its core -- that the DPJ is so low it would be willing to put the country's and the world's financial stability at risk. LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu has promised that no matter what powers the LDP may now have in the House of Councillors, never again will Japan will be without a Governor of the Bank of Japan.

What of other posts though? What is the point of having a power if one is not willing to use it? The desire to do unto the Democrats as the Democrats did unto the LDP must be overwhelming, particularly among the younger LDP members of the House of Councillors.

There are currently 13 vacant posts requiring Diet approval before they can be filled, including the heads of the Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan and the Securities Exchange and Surveillance Commission. Another 30 posts are to become vacant by the end of this year. Where if anywhere will the LDP choose to make its stand, or make its point, and reject a DPJ-supported appointee? Of course it can reject the occasional one, but how many is too many? At what point will the media turn against the LDP, denouncing it for torturing the DPJ using the same tactics the DPJ used to torture the LDP?

Of course, the problems of what strategy to pursue in the House of Councillors regarding appointments is a part of the larger problem for the LDP of how it should behave in opposition in general. Confrontation on every level, such as the DPJ used against the LDP in the 2007 to 2009 period, is enticing. However, despite its recent electoral victory in the House of Councillors, the LDP is still a secondary level force as compared to the DPJ nationally. The LDP's support numbers are only two-thirds those of the DPJ, and they have been falling, both over the long and the short term. When the Yomiuri Shimbun asked whether the LDP should return to power as soon as possible, only 16% of respondents thought this desirable. Organizationally, the party is in no way ready for a general election, with sources inside the party saying that one third of the House of Representatives districts lack even an LDP election office head.

With the LDP unprepared for a sudden House of Representatives dissolution, the outlook would for cooperation rather than confrontation in the resolution of upcoming appointments -- and perhaps other Diet business as well. This is almost the exact opposite of the situation of the DPJ in the 2007-2009, when the DPJ was in the position to demand, on a daily basis, the dissolution of the Diet and a general election

It seems that almost exactly one year after the LDP's fall from power, after significant failures and disappointing behavior on the DPJ side, and the sudden acquisition of an ability to halt virtually all Diet business thanks to the results of the July elections, the LDP still has not acquired significant leverage in the Diet nor developed a clear strategic path to use the powers it has in opposition.

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Sources:

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/politics/policy/100728/plc1007282151022-n1.htm
http://www.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20100811/t10013287461000.html
http://mainichi.jp/select/seiji/news/20100813ddm002010074000c.html
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/politics/news/CK2010081302000035.html
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/news/20100809-OYT1T00727.htm

Everything He Touches

Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Chaiman Tanigaki Sadakazu still had, as of this Saturday, problems with the law on appointments to the Bank of Japan...and with the Constitution:

"Is it all right for the Bank of Japan Law to be this way? When in this twisted Diet one thing after another gets rejected...it just cannot go on this way! This kind of thing will simply repeat itself unless one takes into account the predominance of the House of Representatives, which the Cabinet has its base in. It is terrible!"

Now I repeat - Tanigaki is the LDP's Policy Research Council Chairman, the person in charge of directing the crafting the laws and regulations so that they are coherent with the Constitution, the existing code and the LDP's policy goals.

What the Constitution says about the membership of the Cabinet:

Article 68:

The Prime Minister shall appoint the Ministers of State. However, a majority of their number must be chosen from among the members of the Diet. 2) The Prime Minister may remove the Ministers of State as he chooses.

"The House of Representatives, which the Cabinet has its base in" (naikaku no kiso o oite iru shūin)?

Maybe this one. Maybe all of the postwar cabinets. But de jure? Sorry but no--unless he is using o oite iru to mean something other than what I think it means. Legally, the entire Cabinet could be comprised of House of Councillors members.

Can the Democratic Party of Japan pay Tanigaki enough for the damage he must be wreaking inside the LDP's policy councils? And how can he be considered a princeling, an heir apparent by anyone except an airhead?

At the Kosaka Kenji's fundraising party a few months back, Tanigaki introduced me to a sound that I had never heard before. As he took his turn at the microphone, he was greeted by a round of applause.

Not just any applause mind you. HOSTILE applause.

"Wow, is this guy unpopular," thought I.

In the brief, off-the-cuff remarks that followed, Tanigaki, in almost a Herculean effort, managed to make matters worse. The trite calls for firmness in the face of DPJ intransigence, the inappropriate bashfullness and attempts to ingratiate himself with the assembled...only made the attendees more stone-faced.

It was too awful to watch, too horrible to listen to without doubling over. It was like being forced to watch video of a child's athletic competition where you know that two childen will smash into each other at full speed over possession of a ball.

At last the ordeal ended. As Tanigaki bowed and walked backwards away from the microphone, I turned to my conservative companion and asked:

"How could anyone, anyone see in him a candidate for prime minister?"

My companion, without hesitation, responded in the flintiest of monotones:

"He will never be prime minister."

Kenryoku no Ranyō - Lest My Head Explode

Today's papers all highlight Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo's chastizing Democratic Party leader Ozawa Ichirō for an abuse of his constitutional powers (kenryoku no ranyō) in opposing the nominations of Mutō Toshirō, Tanami Kōji and Watanabe Hiroshi as Governors or Vice Governor of the Bank of Japan.

Oh thank you, Prime Minister Fukuda, for admonishing Ozawa and rightly scourging him for the constitutionally specious path he has chosen!

Because we all remember your vigorous denuciations of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, his Cabinet and the LDP/New Komeitō coalition when last year they shut down committee debate and public discussion of legislation and appointments, choosing instead to railroad every single bill introduced, reducing the opposition to hopeless gestures of despairing defiance.

We all remember your vociferous criticism of Abe and his minions, the way you stood in the doorway of the House of Representatives chambers yelling:

"No! No! This is not over! You will give these people a chance! There has to be a public debate! You will not just do whatever you want! This is an abuse of constitutional power!"

We are remember your intellectual courage then.

Don't we?

Later - Tobias Harris over at Observing Japan finds even more ridiculousness to become irate over.

Emergency Rules

Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo was just on television giving a hastily organized press conference, outlining a new last-minute proposal regarding the road tax and other expiring legislation.

He outlined a seven point program, the main change being a shift of revenues to the general fund after one year, down from the three years previously discussed.

The PM looked shaky, stumbling over the words of his text and seemingly unsure of what to do with his face. He tried to look grim but succeeded only in looking frightened.

What is he thinking? It is way too late for this kind of political theater to change the Democratic Party's stance. It is a repeat of the Tanami nomination - a sudden, unexpected, hurried announcement of not terribly much, topped off with a plea to the opposition to cooperate.

He cannot go on like this.

For filling a vacancy, a crazy idea

Why not Ōta Hiroko for Bank of Japan Governor?

She is an academic with tons of government experience, is considered an independent thinker in favor of economic reform, knows her macro and her micro and if not famous, is at least a recognized figure in overseas economic circles.

How about it, Prime Minister Fukuda? How about shattering the glass ceiling in order to shock your moribund administration back into life?

Click here for her cv in English, complete with unflattering photo image.

Statureless in Nagata-chō

No, no, no, no!

(Sound of head pounding on table)

The Liberal Democratic Party's leaders didn't clear the nominations of Tanami Kōji and Nishimura Kiyohiko with the Democratic Party leadership before the 11 a.m. announcement.

(Vocalization. Sounds like "AAaaaaargh!")

I think we can safely say that the Democratic Party is exonerated. Off the hook. In the clear. The failure to name a replacement for the post of Governor of the Bank of Japan is now 100% the fault of the LDP.

(Wiping of the hands gesture)

By not vetting the nominations with the Democratic Party aforehand, the LDP has proven itself incapable of anything but vengeance.

Bloody moronic, near-sighted, knee-biting attack Chihuahuas. Vamos!

Nobody's Home

Governor of the Bank of Japan Fukui Toshihiko's term ends tomorrow.

This is what Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo said last night, on the subject of finding a replacement for the head of Japan's central bank during what marker cheerleader Alan Greenspan has called the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

「与党だけ、政府だけで決められない。民主党がどう考えているか分からないこともある」

"The ruling coalition, the government cannot decide this unilaterally. There are things we don't know about what the Democratic Party of Japan is thinking."

Dear Prime Minister,

Stop delegating.

Stop hoping beyond hope that the deadbeats, lunatics, fanatics and sycophants about you are going to buckle down and do the jobs you have been asking them to do since September.

It will not happen.

Phone. Receiver. Call. Speak.

If no one answers, try another number.

Repeat until you have talked to Ozawa Ichirō, Kan Naoto and Hatoyama Yukio.

Find out, this morning, yourself, what the opposition is thinking.

You have a newspaper journalist as your finance minister. You have no central banker. The dollar is at 97 yen. The stock market is flopping about like a fugu on pavement.

Later - Nikkei Online is reporting that a new nomination bill will be presented to a joint meeting of the steering committees of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, with a finalization vote on the bill taking place tomorrow. No word on who is doing the presenting of this bill or who the new nominee might be. Heck, there is no indication that there even is a new nominee.

One would assume that the announcement has the DPJ's blessing...

Even later - And the winner is...Tanami Kōji (田波耕治) of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

Thank you all for playing along.

Nagata-chō's Other Game of Chicken

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The DPJ-led House of Councillors' smacking down the Mutō Toshihirō nomination for Governor of the Bank of Japan yesterday does not end the mutual face-slapping over the management of the movement of legislation through the Diet.

Sadly.

In an unfortunate compromise worked out after the July 2007 election between the Democratic-led majority and the LDP-Kōmeitō ruling coalition, the Liberal Democratic Party received the chairmanship of the Budget Committee. That chairman, on orders from party central, is now tying up the passage of the budget and budget related bills. He is insisting that the government's versions of the budget and ancillary bills, including the infamous renewal of the gasoline levy for road building only, be first on the committee's schedule. The Democratic Party and its allies, eager to demonstrate their ability to promote legislation as well as kill it, are fighting to have a rival DPJ-crafted gasoline levy bill, one that would direct revenues into the general fund, debated first.

In the end, no budget-related bills may make it to a vote in the House of Councillors before the April 1 start of the new fiscal year, unless the DPJ-led majority can figure out a way of opening up an alternate route for legislation to escape via the Finance Committee, which has a Democrat as its chairman.

If no budget bills get through:

1) the gasoline levy disappears - vaya con Dios, arrivedercci, kwaheri - even for use in the general fund, and

2) the budget will go into effect without the legislation necessary to fully fund outlays.

This is high stakes chicken.

The LDP is throwing everything it can muster at bringing the DPJ to heal, on the one hand negotiating toward a deal of some kind regarding Mutō's candidacy...

(a) Why did the ruling coalition not negotiate before sending Mutō's appointment to the House of Councillors?

(b) Is it constitutional to submit a person's name as a candidate for a post twice in the same Diet session?

...and on the other with a railroading of the absurd 10-year, 59 trillion yen mid-term road construction plan through the construction committee of the House of Representatives.

Lawmaking is all about pride and position, it seems.

In Praise of Ozawa Ichirō and the DPJ

At the moment when the world is primed to heap opprobrium or just scalding disgust upon Ozawa Ichirō's head for his irresponsible brinkmanship, I would take a moment to praise him and his party for sticking to a vow to sink the nomination of Mutō Toshirō as Governor of the Bank of Japan.

Despite a blast of invective and advice from Serious Persons everywhere, predicting dire consequences for the stability of Japan's economy should the governor's seat be open but a single day, Ozawa and the DPJ showed they possess spine and tactical smarts. They were not bullrushed into accepting the Liberal Democratic Party's unilateral choice for the BOJ governor. They have established the principle that parliamentary cooperation is of a piece--that the LDP cannot choose to slap the DPJ around using the override provision for the budget, then expect the DPJ to deal on the BOJ appointment.

When the DPJ LDP-led coalition panicked and passed the budget and the gasoline levy renewal on February 29 with nary a Democrat in the room, the DPJ returned the insult by throwing the LDP's best boy into the fire.

Tit-for-Tat: the optimum strategy for multi-round games play that seeks to encourage cooperation.

And cooperation is precisely what the LDP still has not mastered.

What did the LDP leadership and Mutō believe--that the Deputy Governor just rises up, up, up like a helium-filled balloon into the Governor's chair--as if the promotion were one of the inescapable consequences of physics? What presumptuous, arrogant rot! Dealing means dealing--it means a sales job, it means offering special discounts, it means proving to the customers that the product is not just something nice but something each and every one of us needs.

Which the LDP most pointedly did not do.

Instead, in utter reprehensible laziness, it relied on some purportedly innate sense possessed by every citizen to comprehend, without explanation, that Mutō was indeed the sober, steady and independent-minded person his advocates claimed he was...that from the fact that he had been a financial specialist for a long, long time he was obviously a great candidate for BOJ Governor.

Yes sir, an iron keister--the ultimate proof of personal excellence.

And as for the looming vacancy--excuse me, but what about the job in question is so bloody difficult? How vital is it that a human being be sitting in the chairman's chair, when all he or she will be called on to do is hold off on raising interest rates until economic conditions improve or stabilize? As one acerbic observer has noted, ASIMO can do that.

[That the twin U.S. deficits and the sub-prime loan crisis seem to be prima facie evidence that really smart, pro-active central bankers are a positive menace to a balanced global financial system is a whole other avenue of analysis I will not attempt to tackle at this time....but is a concept worth bearing in mind anyway.]

In fairness, the inability for the politicians to get their act together and nominate someone for the post of BOJ governor puts a black mark on everyone. Just do not not be hornswaggled into believing it was Ozawa and the DPJ that set up this outwardly idiotic-looking game of chicken.

Today's rejection was a proper response to the petty thuggery of the smug, anachronistic and self-deluded leadership of the LDP.

Obligatory Chocolate

Served without enthusiasm.

Courtesy: Tokyo Shimbun
February 16, 2008

A pleased Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo receives a chocolate "Vice Governor of the Bank of Japan Mutō Toshirō" from a harrumphing woman, demonstrating the parallel between the unenviable Valentine's Day custom and the unenthusiastic surrender to the seeming inevitability of Mutō's selection as BOJ Governor.

Later - Oh hell's bells! Okumura Jun points out in comments that the "woman" in question is supposed to be Ozawa Ichirō in drag.