Some Nice Things About the Minshinto

This past weekend the Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) and the Ishin no To (Japan Innovation Party) merged, forming a new named party, the Minshinto (which in English could be "the Democratic Progressive Party”but in order to avoid confusion with the Taiwan ruling party of the same name is being called the "Democratic Party"). The so far mild public reaction to the event has prompted the small English language Japan commentariat to offer only a tiny burst of mostly negative reviews. Yuki Tatsumi at Stimson is the most scathing, dismissing the new party as merely the old party, with all the same negatives as before (Link1). Tobias Harris, writing for the Sasakawa Foundation, is a bit nicer but still dwells upon the lack so far of a positive public reaction to the new party’s formation. (Link2)

As hard as it may be to believe, there are some nice things one can say about the Minshinto.

1) DP leader Okada Katsuya headed off a potentially catastrophic split of his own party prior to a House of Councillors election. DP conservatives/Matsushita Seikei products (often both) like Maehara Seiji, Nagashima Akihisa and Hosono Goshi are unhappy at the Okada secretariat's steps toward electoral collaboration with the Japan Communist Party. They have been threatening to leave, joining members of the rump Ishin no To in a new conservative opposition party. With brought their JIP conservative buddies now in their party, the DP conservatives are less likely to depart. The price for this unity was accepting a stupid name change.

2) Japan's largest opposition party got larger, not smaller. That alone is something. DP has 96 seats in the House of Representatives; 60 seats in the House of Councillors. Not bad.

3) The party secretariat is the DPJ's secretariat with a few tweaks. Tatsumi sees reappointment of the DPJ leadership as a weakness, with too few new faces to generate excitement (the one new face in the bunch, attack dog Policy Research Chair YAMAO Shiori, has been slapped back with a financial scandal). One could also turn the analysis around and see a merger where one team's members kept all the important posts and the other team's members, including some with titanic egos (Eda Kenji) got essentially nothing as a pretty sweet deal for that first team.

Representative
OKADA Katsuya (DPJ)

Acting Representatives
EDA Kenji (JIP)
NAGATSUMA Akira (DPJ)
RENHO (DPJ)

Secretary-General
EDANA Yukio (DPJ)

Policy Research Chair
YAMAO Shiori (DPJ)

Elections Council Chair
GEMBA Koichiro (DPJ)

Diet Affairs Council Chair
AZUMI Jun (DPJ)

House of Councillors Chair
GUNJI Akira (DPJ)

4) With the Will They/Won't They/Why Don't They phase completed, the opposition can now turn to the important business of coordinating Diet and electoral actions against the still immensely powerful but increasingly less likable Liberal Democratic Party of Abe Shinzo.

Ozawa Ichiro At Twilight: He Did It His Way

And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
I traveled each and ev'ry highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way...

- Revaux, Francois, Thibaut and Anka, "My Way" (1969)

Yesterday, Ozawa Ichiro dropped by the Foreign Correspondents' Club and answered questions for two hours, an oddly languid bit of scheduling for a presumed ultimate political animal whose tiny, extremely unpopular party has five candidates running in district elections on Sunday.

That the People's Life Party is expected to win zero seats may have something to do with Ozawa's willingness to spend some time with the foreign press, who as a group influence exactly zero Japanese voters.

Meanwhile in Aomori, the prefecture next door to Ozawa's home prefecture of Iwate, the People's Life district candidate is still waiting for Ozawa to make a campaign appearance. (Link - J)

Long and far has been Ozawa's fall, from the man who in March 2009 was the presumed next prime minister to this, diffident, shrugging denouement. It is tempting to ascribe the collapse to The Establishment, the permanent-powers-that-be in this blessed land who found a way, through the corruption of the justice system, to knock out the political secretaries, present and former, of Ozawa on pretend crimes to first hobble and then smash the challenge Ozawa represented to the existing order.

But it was clear from the answers Ozawa gave yesterday that a not insignificant part of his current diminution was self-inflicted. He was asked, after he had opined that the forces in opposition to Abe Shinzo and the Liberal Democratic Party had not had the time to work together to oppose the ruling coalition's message, whether he did not not find a fundamental disconnect between this complaint and his stage managing the breakout of his followers from the Democratic Party of Japan, deeply wounding the first party to in and of itself prevail against the LDP. Ozawa replied with gobbledygook about parties being filled with contesting voices. "Well they were," the voice inside my head said, "Until you either snuffed them out by disbanding the DPJ's Policy Research Council or took them out by having your followers leave the DPJ."

To the follow-on question, "Do you now feel regret for having broken up and weakened the DPJ?" the self-confident Ozawa adopted a "I did what I did and I stand by what I did" tough guy stance, declaring, "If you look back over my record, you will see that I have no regrets for what I have done."

"But Ozawa-san," the little voice in my head continued, "having regrets is what one should have, at least when one really messes up. Regrets are the instigators of caution and the search for better answers next time. Did you never hear the tale of the businessman, who after an injury to his brain, could not longer feel anger or sadness? After his convalescence, he tried to go back to work but was soon urged to quit because he felt no anxiety about the company's losing money, or, after the company had lost money due a bad decision he had made, regret over what he had done?"

At the session, I also learned what it was that led so many otherwise level-headed folks to swoon when Ozawa would pay attention to them. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of policies, bills and platforms, making a conversation with him on matters of substance probably the most entertaining one  a wonk can have with a major politician. Toss any policy-based ball in his direction and he will hit it out of the park.

For the policy lover, Ozawa's interest must have been like an effervescent bath.

That a superstructure for Ozawa's policies scarcely existed -- that at the end of the day nearly every position was tactical -- either cobbling together as coalition of convenience around a single topic or simply opposing the position of anyone holding more power than he -- was not apparent to Ozawa's allies until Ozawa was, like kuzu vines, in, around, on top of and all over their gardens.

Ozawa goes into what his final battle this weekend. Yes, Seikatsu has 2 seats in House of Councillors not up for reelectoin and 7 seats in the House of Representatives. Imminent demise does not stalk the party like it stalks Fukushima Mizuho's Social Democrats (faint is their hope of survival -- another once mighty force facing the twilight). Nevertheless, a second, devastating defeat in a national election will bury the myth of Ozawa magic -- the seeming uncanny ability to read the electorate and pull victories from out of thin air. After a run of 20 years, the show will be over.

But for possibly the price of a few regrets...


Later - This post has been edited for increased clarity.

Photo image credit: MTC

That Mountain In My Eye

Below is the graph of the support levels for the various major parties over the last six months, according to the monthly NHK public opinion survey:


Click on image to enlarge.

The House of Councillors election is less than two months away.

Somebody please tell me what the opposition parties could possibly hope to accomplish...and what the strategy would be to achieve that end...and please do not tell me it is "winning over the undecided voters."

Source: NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute