The folks behind the Number 1 Shimbun, the house publication of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, offered to publish some of my musings about last month's Democratic Party of Japan leadership election.
Very, very kind of them -- and brave. (Link)
Showing posts with label DPJ strategy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DPJ strategy. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
In Review- The Abe Announcements
All in all, Abe Shinzo just gave a pretty damn spirited and sound defense of his Cabinet's economic policies. Most importantly for the PM, in response to the idiotic "Abenomics has failed" argument, Abe went straight to the nub of the problem and asked his critics, rhetorically, "If not what I am doing, what is it that you would do?"
The first of the two weak points in the whole affair was when the PM reiterated his bogus proposition that the great failure of the Democratic Party of Japan was its having violated its campaign manifesto in voting for a rise in the consumption tax without doing as he is doing, dissolving the Diet and asking the people their opinion of the change of plans first. That the DPJ changed its plans due to its having been boxed in by decades of LDP profligacy and because it could not escape the accusation from the LDP of baramaki ("throwing money around") in its own attempts at stimulus...and that raising the consumption tax was one of the few legislative items it could push through both Houses of the Diet, specifically because it was AN LDP MANIFESTO PROMISE, the PM did not...shall we say, "make clear"?
The second weak moment was when the second questioner in the Q&A called him out on his bogus proposition regarding the DPJ and calling an election. The PM became testy and wasted a good 3-4 minutes explaining why his proposition was defensible.
My grade for Prime Minister Abe's performance: A
for both substance and effort.
I admit, a bias...but in a negative direction. After hearing what he said to the Japanese press in Brisbane and his attacks on Edana Yukio and the DPJ in the Diet I had very, very low expectations for tonight's press conference.
The first of the two weak points in the whole affair was when the PM reiterated his bogus proposition that the great failure of the Democratic Party of Japan was its having violated its campaign manifesto in voting for a rise in the consumption tax without doing as he is doing, dissolving the Diet and asking the people their opinion of the change of plans first. That the DPJ changed its plans due to its having been boxed in by decades of LDP profligacy and because it could not escape the accusation from the LDP of baramaki ("throwing money around") in its own attempts at stimulus...and that raising the consumption tax was one of the few legislative items it could push through both Houses of the Diet, specifically because it was AN LDP MANIFESTO PROMISE, the PM did not...shall we say, "make clear"?
The second weak moment was when the second questioner in the Q&A called him out on his bogus proposition regarding the DPJ and calling an election. The PM became testy and wasted a good 3-4 minutes explaining why his proposition was defensible.
My grade for Prime Minister Abe's performance: A
for both substance and effort.
I admit, a bias...but in a negative direction. After hearing what he said to the Japanese press in Brisbane and his attacks on Edana Yukio and the DPJ in the Diet I had very, very low expectations for tonight's press conference.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
On The TPP Negotiations And Abe Shinzo's Sense Of America
Friend Stephen Harner finds much to harrumph about regarding the purported proposals on the steps the government of Japan can take to increase the sales of U.S automobiles in Japan made during this most recent round of talks on the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership by the U.S. negotiating team. (Link)
And yes, Harner's post does not even touch upon the anachronistic and preposterous U.S. light trucks tariff, or the ridiculous U.S. suggestions as to a timetable for its abolition.
My only quibble with Mr. Harner's piece is his ending. I am reluctant to believe Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is willing give away much to secure a deal with the U.S. on TPP. Abe probably believes that pushing hard on the construction of a Futenma Replacement Facility at Henoko in Okinawa and some sort of increase in the capacities of the Self Defense Forces to participate in international security affairs are together more than sufficient for him to pick up the big pencil and check off the "Took Care Of The Alliance" box. Making positive noises about TPP helps maintain international investor interest in Japan, particularly in the all-important Japanese equities markets. However, the decision to have Japan participate in the TPP was made by the now much-maligned Prime Minister Kan Naoto of the Democratic Party of Japan. The negotiations have dragged on -- but as a legacy, not a core, Abe Cabinet economic initiative.
Furthermore, as Tobias Harris sagely noted, TPP is, for Abe Shinzo, a part of the "second" opening of Japan (Link -- not the third one, as Prime Minister Kan insisted the trade partnership would be. (Link)
That little bit of contemporary revisionism on Abe's part tells a grand tale of his willingness or not to kowtow to America.
And yes, Harner's post does not even touch upon the anachronistic and preposterous U.S. light trucks tariff, or the ridiculous U.S. suggestions as to a timetable for its abolition.
My only quibble with Mr. Harner's piece is his ending. I am reluctant to believe Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is willing give away much to secure a deal with the U.S. on TPP. Abe probably believes that pushing hard on the construction of a Futenma Replacement Facility at Henoko in Okinawa and some sort of increase in the capacities of the Self Defense Forces to participate in international security affairs are together more than sufficient for him to pick up the big pencil and check off the "Took Care Of The Alliance" box. Making positive noises about TPP helps maintain international investor interest in Japan, particularly in the all-important Japanese equities markets. However, the decision to have Japan participate in the TPP was made by the now much-maligned Prime Minister Kan Naoto of the Democratic Party of Japan. The negotiations have dragged on -- but as a legacy, not a core, Abe Cabinet economic initiative.
Furthermore, as Tobias Harris sagely noted, TPP is, for Abe Shinzo, a part of the "second" opening of Japan (Link -- not the third one, as Prime Minister Kan insisted the trade partnership would be. (Link)
That little bit of contemporary revisionism on Abe's part tells a grand tale of his willingness or not to kowtow to America.
Labels:
Abe Shinzo,
DPJ strategy,
Japanese automakers,
Kan Naoto,
TPP
Sunday, August 05, 2012
Summer's Here! Let's All Topple The Noda Government!
According to the Sankei Shimbun, the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party is planning to submit a no-confidence motion in the House of Representatives and a censure motion in the House of Councillors on August 7, one day before the LDP and its ally the New Komeito hopes to have their members in the House of Councillors to vote in favor of bills submitted by said Noda government. The leadership of the LDP is willing to stay its hand on the two disciplinary actions, however, if the Prime Minister Noda promises to ask for a Diet dissolution before the end of this current Diet session runs out, which as of now will be on September 9. (J)
I know none of that scans.
Let us see if it makes sense in gangster-speak:
"We look forward to conducting business with you, as we have agreed, on Wednesday. However, on Tuesday, we are going to shoot you...unless, of course, you agree by Tuesday to shoot yourself sometime within the next 40 days...and we expect you to stand by that promise to shoot yourself, because if you don't, we'll shoot you."
Nonsense, of course -- but even more so because, as we know, Noda does not have a gun and the LDP, if it wants to shoot Noda, will have to borrow ammunition from the Democratic Party of Japan.
What the heck is going on here?
It seems the little visit Koizumu Shinjiro paid to LDP headquarters on August 1 with six of his fellow Young Turks has paid some dividends, as the leadership seems to be singing from Koizumi's hymnal. The seven striplings met with party president Tanigaki Sadakazu and told him had he to repudiate the June 15 agreement made with the DPJ on passing the government's reform bills, including the bill raising the consumption tax. Barring a repudiation of the agreement, the LDP had to wave a no-confidence motion or a House of Councillors censure motion in Noda's face. (J)
That the LDP senior leaders would roll over and offer up their throats to Koizumi -- who, one must remember, is in his first term -- is ludicrous. However, so is the position the LDP finds itself. It holds veto power over any non-budget legislation, due to the DPJ-People's New Party ruling coalition's holding only 88 seats in the 242-seat House of Councillors. In response, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko is sending to House only bills the LDP cannot refuse to support -- as they are drawn up based on promises the LDP made in its campaign manifesto. So while the LDP, which wants to act like an opposition party in the basest, most brain-dead way, by opposing the government at every turn, finds it has to accept what the government has been proposing.
The LDP leaders were not just pushed by Koizumi and the younger generation; the other opposition parties have presented their own threat to box in the LDP and the New Komeito. The seven opposition parties not party to the June 15 agreement met on August 3 and decided to submit their own no-confidence motion by June 8, in symbolic protest against the likely House of Councillors vote on that date raising the consumption tax. (J)
Pressed from both inside and outside, the LDP leadership is reduced to issuing absurd threats. Absurd not in the no-confidence motion's being dead upon delivery -- there is still a chance that some number of DPJ members greater than 15 will vote for the motion. Absurd in that the current government is following the LDP's policy script; a no-confidence motion cannot trigger a dissolution of the Diet; and the LDP leadership, to demonstrate it is still viable, must follow the lead of its most junior members and its pipsqueak political enemies.
I know none of that scans.
Let us see if it makes sense in gangster-speak:
"We look forward to conducting business with you, as we have agreed, on Wednesday. However, on Tuesday, we are going to shoot you...unless, of course, you agree by Tuesday to shoot yourself sometime within the next 40 days...and we expect you to stand by that promise to shoot yourself, because if you don't, we'll shoot you."
Nonsense, of course -- but even more so because, as we know, Noda does not have a gun and the LDP, if it wants to shoot Noda, will have to borrow ammunition from the Democratic Party of Japan.
What the heck is going on here?
It seems the little visit Koizumu Shinjiro paid to LDP headquarters on August 1 with six of his fellow Young Turks has paid some dividends, as the leadership seems to be singing from Koizumi's hymnal. The seven striplings met with party president Tanigaki Sadakazu and told him had he to repudiate the June 15 agreement made with the DPJ on passing the government's reform bills, including the bill raising the consumption tax. Barring a repudiation of the agreement, the LDP had to wave a no-confidence motion or a House of Councillors censure motion in Noda's face. (J)
That the LDP senior leaders would roll over and offer up their throats to Koizumi -- who, one must remember, is in his first term -- is ludicrous. However, so is the position the LDP finds itself. It holds veto power over any non-budget legislation, due to the DPJ-People's New Party ruling coalition's holding only 88 seats in the 242-seat House of Councillors. In response, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko is sending to House only bills the LDP cannot refuse to support -- as they are drawn up based on promises the LDP made in its campaign manifesto. So while the LDP, which wants to act like an opposition party in the basest, most brain-dead way, by opposing the government at every turn, finds it has to accept what the government has been proposing.
The LDP leaders were not just pushed by Koizumi and the younger generation; the other opposition parties have presented their own threat to box in the LDP and the New Komeito. The seven opposition parties not party to the June 15 agreement met on August 3 and decided to submit their own no-confidence motion by June 8, in symbolic protest against the likely House of Councillors vote on that date raising the consumption tax. (J)
Pressed from both inside and outside, the LDP leadership is reduced to issuing absurd threats. Absurd not in the no-confidence motion's being dead upon delivery -- there is still a chance that some number of DPJ members greater than 15 will vote for the motion. Absurd in that the current government is following the LDP's policy script; a no-confidence motion cannot trigger a dissolution of the Diet; and the LDP leadership, to demonstrate it is still viable, must follow the lead of its most junior members and its pipsqueak political enemies.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
The End Game
The Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito, the only three parties that matter -- a state of affairs so grating to the other parties in the Diet that the three leftist microparties and the one libertarian miniparty are joining hands to protest the "price fixing going on behind closed doors" (J) -- are putting the final touches on a final agreement on the shakai hosho zei ittai kaikaku an, the bills enabling the combined reforms of social security and tax systems. (J)
There are some hurdles standing in the way of the three parties coming to an agreement by the Prime Minister's deadline of June 15. The LDP wants the Noda government to repudiate the DPJ's 2009 manifesto pledge to rewrite pension law so as to guarantee that all pensioners receive a minimun 70,000 yen per month from the national pension plan. The LDP and the New Komeito together want Noda to repudiate the DPJ manifesto pledge to repeal the special eldercare system for persons over 75 years of age, a terribly unpopular and initially confusing program of mandatory healthcare prepayment the two parties sweated blood to pass when they held the reins of government. The three parties are also at loggerheads over what, if anything, they should do to lessen the impact of the imposition of the consumption tax on those person living at or below the poverty line.
Now according to the news noise machine, Prime Minister Noda is desperate and willing to sacrifice the DPJ's identity (E) or prepared to discard policies intrinsic to the DPJ's unity (E) all for the sake of winning the LDP's and the New Komeito's votes in favor of the passage of the bills raising the consumption tax.
Maybe. It depends on what one believes DPJ policies are.
If one takes the simplistic route, that DPJ policies are all the policies listed in the 2009 and 2010 manifestos, then the above assertions are true.
If, however, one takes the position that the policies listed in the 2009 manifesto were the ones Ozawa Ichiro tossed together trying to buy the support of every special interest the LDP, in its internal shift to becoming a modern, urban-based party, had left lying in the dust, without any concern as to whether the resulting program was internally consistent or affordable -- i.e., LIES -- then:
a) the DPJ is a party of lies and liars, and thus their promises are worthless rhetoric, not policies, or
b) the promises made in the 2009 manifesto, which Kan Naoto tried desperately to render more concrete and believable in the 2010 manifesto, were never the policies of the DPJ, just electoral dandruff clinging to Ozawa Ichiro's jacket.
When Ozawa loyalist and true believer Kawauchi Hiroshi wails about the impending deal on the sheaf of bills reforming the pension and tax systems...
That DPJ co-founder Hatoyama Yukio forgets what he used to believe and defends the 2009 manifesto as holy writ (J) is neither implausible nor particularly significant. Like the White Queen, Hatoyama can believe a half a dozen impossible things before breakfast.
What the representatives of the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito are going to be banging heads over today are the remnants of the fight. The DPJ has a rather weaker position due to the PM's having set a deadline. This prevents the DPJ from exercising its ultimate weapon of extending the Diet session, forcing everyone to just sit on their tailbones until the LDP and the New Komeito fall into bickering in between themselves over just who is preventing the passage of their favorite bits of legislation. It should surprise no one that the DPJ has chosen this moment to float a trial balloon for a radical restructuring of both the LDP's and the DPJ's plans to reform the House of Representatives which hews close to what the New Komeito has been proposing and which would mess up the proportional seat voting for the LDP (E) -- just at the moment the LDP is showing strength in that half of the ballot.
All could go haywire at the last moment. Someone could say something untoward about someone else's sister, leading to a termination of negotiations.
All indications are, however, is that what we are seeing is the end game, one where the LDP and the New Komeito will wander away from the table having agreed to have their members vote with the government on a raft of bills, with neither the promise for elections nor the Noda repudiation of Ozawa Ichiro which the two parties had been demanding.
There are some hurdles standing in the way of the three parties coming to an agreement by the Prime Minister's deadline of June 15. The LDP wants the Noda government to repudiate the DPJ's 2009 manifesto pledge to rewrite pension law so as to guarantee that all pensioners receive a minimun 70,000 yen per month from the national pension plan. The LDP and the New Komeito together want Noda to repudiate the DPJ manifesto pledge to repeal the special eldercare system for persons over 75 years of age, a terribly unpopular and initially confusing program of mandatory healthcare prepayment the two parties sweated blood to pass when they held the reins of government. The three parties are also at loggerheads over what, if anything, they should do to lessen the impact of the imposition of the consumption tax on those person living at or below the poverty line.
Now according to the news noise machine, Prime Minister Noda is desperate and willing to sacrifice the DPJ's identity (E) or prepared to discard policies intrinsic to the DPJ's unity (E) all for the sake of winning the LDP's and the New Komeito's votes in favor of the passage of the bills raising the consumption tax.
Maybe. It depends on what one believes DPJ policies are.
If one takes the simplistic route, that DPJ policies are all the policies listed in the 2009 and 2010 manifestos, then the above assertions are true.
If, however, one takes the position that the policies listed in the 2009 manifesto were the ones Ozawa Ichiro tossed together trying to buy the support of every special interest the LDP, in its internal shift to becoming a modern, urban-based party, had left lying in the dust, without any concern as to whether the resulting program was internally consistent or affordable -- i.e., LIES -- then:
a) the DPJ is a party of lies and liars, and thus their promises are worthless rhetoric, not policies, or
b) the promises made in the 2009 manifesto, which Kan Naoto tried desperately to render more concrete and believable in the 2010 manifesto, were never the policies of the DPJ, just electoral dandruff clinging to Ozawa Ichiro's jacket.
When Ozawa loyalist and true believer Kawauchi Hiroshi wails about the impending deal on the sheaf of bills reforming the pension and tax systems...
"The LDP's proposal is unacceptable. If we were to agree, the DPJ would become the LDP."...he is not only showing that he is more a courtier than a politician but also a poor student of history. Fiscal consolidation, realistic pension funding schemes and a willingness to sacrifice growth for stability are core policy positions of the original DPJ. These were the principles undergirding the August 2005 party platform, under then party leader, now Deputy Prime Minister Okada Katsuya.
That DPJ co-founder Hatoyama Yukio forgets what he used to believe and defends the 2009 manifesto as holy writ (J) is neither implausible nor particularly significant. Like the White Queen, Hatoyama can believe a half a dozen impossible things before breakfast.
What the representatives of the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito are going to be banging heads over today are the remnants of the fight. The DPJ has a rather weaker position due to the PM's having set a deadline. This prevents the DPJ from exercising its ultimate weapon of extending the Diet session, forcing everyone to just sit on their tailbones until the LDP and the New Komeito fall into bickering in between themselves over just who is preventing the passage of their favorite bits of legislation. It should surprise no one that the DPJ has chosen this moment to float a trial balloon for a radical restructuring of both the LDP's and the DPJ's plans to reform the House of Representatives which hews close to what the New Komeito has been proposing and which would mess up the proportional seat voting for the LDP (E) -- just at the moment the LDP is showing strength in that half of the ballot.
All could go haywire at the last moment. Someone could say something untoward about someone else's sister, leading to a termination of negotiations.
All indications are, however, is that what we are seeing is the end game, one where the LDP and the New Komeito will wander away from the table having agreed to have their members vote with the government on a raft of bills, with neither the promise for elections nor the Noda repudiation of Ozawa Ichiro which the two parties had been demanding.
Friday, February 03, 2012
Very Kind Of Them #7
The nice folks over at The Point have published a short piece I have written on the two main political circus events of last weekend. (Link)
[Yes, yes, the term is marunomi, not nomikomi. I will get that fixed.]
One correspondent drew an immediate corollary to the assertions made in second half of the piece, namely that the three major parties -- the Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito -- now have a strong incentive to work together in the Diet, proving to the populace that they can get things done, this in order to counter the drawing power of Hashimoto Toru's Ishin no Kai.
Already a great deal of positive movement seems to be afoot. Contrary to negative predictions of train wrecks in the Diet made prior to the opening of the regular session, including one made by yours truly, the DPJ and LDP-New Komeito alliance are cutting deals on specific pieces of legislation.
The drafts of three controversial bills have already either been signed off on or are near to closing:
- A draft of a postal counter-reform bill (E)
- The New Komeito's draft bill reducing of the remuneration of central government bureaucrats by an average of 7.8%, a draft that has the DPJ's ally, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) hissing mad (J)
- A draft revision of the law on dispatched workers in which the DPJ is following the lead of the LDP (J)
As for the crucial bill on reapportionment of Diet seats (crucial in that the current apportionment is unconstitutional), the DPJ is playing around with both LDP and New Komeito ideas in order drive a wedge in between the two opposition partners, making them both more amenable to a DPJ-proposed compromise. The DPJ has already submitted a draft bill taking the LDP's proposal to eliminate the five smallest districts in the nation (the so-called "+0/-5 solution") and bolting on to it the DPJ's manifesto proposal to cut 80 proportional seats -- a bill that if passed into law would favor the election of DPJ and LDP candidates but devastate the New Komeito. At the same time, the DPJ is listening very carefully to the New Komeito proposal to chuck the d'Hondt method of awarding proportional seats in favor of the Additional Member System (hirei daihyo renyosei), which, if it had been in use during the August 2009 House of Representatives election, would have left the DPJ still winning a majority of seats, would have more than doubled the number of seats won by the New Komeito and the Communists and would have left the LDP a skeleton. (J)
With the looming possibility of the emergence over the next few months of a third force in Japanese politics -- i.e., a non-LDP alternative to the DPJ -- a lot of otherwise unfocused LDP minds are focusing on passing an electoral reform bill sooner, rather than later.
[Yes, yes, the term is marunomi, not nomikomi. I will get that fixed.]
One correspondent drew an immediate corollary to the assertions made in second half of the piece, namely that the three major parties -- the Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito -- now have a strong incentive to work together in the Diet, proving to the populace that they can get things done, this in order to counter the drawing power of Hashimoto Toru's Ishin no Kai.
Already a great deal of positive movement seems to be afoot. Contrary to negative predictions of train wrecks in the Diet made prior to the opening of the regular session, including one made by yours truly, the DPJ and LDP-New Komeito alliance are cutting deals on specific pieces of legislation.
The drafts of three controversial bills have already either been signed off on or are near to closing:
- A draft of a postal counter-reform bill (E)
- The New Komeito's draft bill reducing of the remuneration of central government bureaucrats by an average of 7.8%, a draft that has the DPJ's ally, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) hissing mad (J)
- A draft revision of the law on dispatched workers in which the DPJ is following the lead of the LDP (J)
As for the crucial bill on reapportionment of Diet seats (crucial in that the current apportionment is unconstitutional), the DPJ is playing around with both LDP and New Komeito ideas in order drive a wedge in between the two opposition partners, making them both more amenable to a DPJ-proposed compromise. The DPJ has already submitted a draft bill taking the LDP's proposal to eliminate the five smallest districts in the nation (the so-called "+0/-5 solution") and bolting on to it the DPJ's manifesto proposal to cut 80 proportional seats -- a bill that if passed into law would favor the election of DPJ and LDP candidates but devastate the New Komeito. At the same time, the DPJ is listening very carefully to the New Komeito proposal to chuck the d'Hondt method of awarding proportional seats in favor of the Additional Member System (hirei daihyo renyosei), which, if it had been in use during the August 2009 House of Representatives election, would have left the DPJ still winning a majority of seats, would have more than doubled the number of seats won by the New Komeito and the Communists and would have left the LDP a skeleton. (J)
With the looming possibility of the emergence over the next few months of a third force in Japanese politics -- i.e., a non-LDP alternative to the DPJ -- a lot of otherwise unfocused LDP minds are focusing on passing an electoral reform bill sooner, rather than later.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Storm Clouds Gathering, But To What End?
Today the Diet opens its 180th regular session. It promises to be a murderous one, with absolutely no quarter being given by or cooperation coming from the opposition Liberal Democratic, New Komeito and Your parties.
Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko has emanated an aura of preternatural calm in advance of his policy speech today but it masks an intense amount of pressure upon him and his Cabinet. To every single piece of legislation or proposed legislation there is heated, almost hysterical opposition, not only between the ruling coalition and the opposition, but between the coalition partners and even between large segments of the Diet membership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. Even the budget, which would normally be guaranteed passage by the DPJ's huge majority in the House of Representatives, is threatened by its contents, most particularly the plan to restart construction of the Yamba Dam -- a plan that is anathema to what seems a clear majority of DPJ Diet members (just why the Noda government caved in to Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation and Tourism pressure on this issue late last year never made the pages or the programs of the mainstream media).
The Fall 2011 extraordinary session saw a miserable 34% passage rate among bills presented to the Diet, the worst rate of bill passage seen since the Heisei Era began. The upcoming regular session, with its series of extremely controversial and radical bills, may end up deadlocked at an even lower level of success.
The question on everyone's lips is whether or not a state of crisis in this upcoming session of the Diet will trigger a House of Representatives election.
Three scenarios predominate:
1) The House of Representatives refuses to consider or rejects the debt ceiling and law modification legislation necessary to implement the Fiscal 2012 budget, triggering a deadlock so tight the prime minister must call an election (a dream of the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party).
2) The Noda government negotiates a settlement with the LDP and the New Komeito whereby they will band together to pass the budget enabling legislation and the raising of the consumption tax in return for a dissolution of the Diet and an election (a dream of political journalists).
3) Internal dissension within the DPJ over the consumption tax rise grows so fevered that Prime Minister Noda, in a fit of pique, calls an election to rid the party of its of its anti-tax faction (the dream of those who believe Ozawa Ichiro is the black hand behind all of the DPJ's internal problems).
Arithmetic, Ozawa's ongoing trial and recent polling results would argue for deals being struck, possible leading to or made after the toppling of Tanigaki Sadakazu from his perch atop the LDP.
If an election were held prior to the predicted end of the regular session of the Diet and/or with no important legislation passed, the DPJ would lose a huge number of seats, particularly in the rural districts. It was a once-in-a-half-century change of heart on the part of voters that enabled the DPJ to capture these bastions of LDP power in 2009. The party would be loath to part with them.
As for the internal divisions of the DPJ, they are very much as "all bark and no bite" affair. The most loudly barking groups in the party are those most vulnerable to losing their seats in the next election (hence the volume of their barking). They know quite well that if they gum up the works on consumption tax legislation or Japan's entering into negotiations on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership so much so that Prime Minister Noda feels compelled to hold an election, they are electoral toast. The direct followers of or those ready to bend an ear to Ozawa Ichiro, who love to look around the room and admire their numbers whenever Ozawa deigns to bless them with his words of political wisdom, are also numbly aware that any breakaway party with Ozawa at its head or under his thrall will get thrashed in an election.
Furthermore, neither the DPJ nor the LDP want to go before the voters right now. In a stunning recent poll by the Mainichi Shimbun only 17% of the voters supported the DPJ and 16% supported the LDP (E). The two major parties are terrified of non-mainstream parties, either the Your Party or the proto-national party being formed by Osaka City mayor Hashimoto Toru (J). Even the normally lock-step the-LDP-is-my-party-right-or-wrong Yomiuri Shimbun is terrified of the prospects of a populist revolution and is counseling the LDP to get off its duff and cooperate with the DPJ-led government (E).
So much thunder and lightning will be evident today and through the next two weeks, as the governing and opposition parties get their turns at the rostrum.
Whether the typhoon will bear down upon the land, however, remains surprisingly uncertain.
Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko has emanated an aura of preternatural calm in advance of his policy speech today but it masks an intense amount of pressure upon him and his Cabinet. To every single piece of legislation or proposed legislation there is heated, almost hysterical opposition, not only between the ruling coalition and the opposition, but between the coalition partners and even between large segments of the Diet membership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. Even the budget, which would normally be guaranteed passage by the DPJ's huge majority in the House of Representatives, is threatened by its contents, most particularly the plan to restart construction of the Yamba Dam -- a plan that is anathema to what seems a clear majority of DPJ Diet members (just why the Noda government caved in to Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation and Tourism pressure on this issue late last year never made the pages or the programs of the mainstream media).
The Fall 2011 extraordinary session saw a miserable 34% passage rate among bills presented to the Diet, the worst rate of bill passage seen since the Heisei Era began. The upcoming regular session, with its series of extremely controversial and radical bills, may end up deadlocked at an even lower level of success.
The question on everyone's lips is whether or not a state of crisis in this upcoming session of the Diet will trigger a House of Representatives election.
Three scenarios predominate:
1) The House of Representatives refuses to consider or rejects the debt ceiling and law modification legislation necessary to implement the Fiscal 2012 budget, triggering a deadlock so tight the prime minister must call an election (a dream of the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party).
2) The Noda government negotiates a settlement with the LDP and the New Komeito whereby they will band together to pass the budget enabling legislation and the raising of the consumption tax in return for a dissolution of the Diet and an election (a dream of political journalists).
3) Internal dissension within the DPJ over the consumption tax rise grows so fevered that Prime Minister Noda, in a fit of pique, calls an election to rid the party of its of its anti-tax faction (the dream of those who believe Ozawa Ichiro is the black hand behind all of the DPJ's internal problems).
Arithmetic, Ozawa's ongoing trial and recent polling results would argue for deals being struck, possible leading to or made after the toppling of Tanigaki Sadakazu from his perch atop the LDP.
If an election were held prior to the predicted end of the regular session of the Diet and/or with no important legislation passed, the DPJ would lose a huge number of seats, particularly in the rural districts. It was a once-in-a-half-century change of heart on the part of voters that enabled the DPJ to capture these bastions of LDP power in 2009. The party would be loath to part with them.
As for the internal divisions of the DPJ, they are very much as "all bark and no bite" affair. The most loudly barking groups in the party are those most vulnerable to losing their seats in the next election (hence the volume of their barking). They know quite well that if they gum up the works on consumption tax legislation or Japan's entering into negotiations on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership so much so that Prime Minister Noda feels compelled to hold an election, they are electoral toast. The direct followers of or those ready to bend an ear to Ozawa Ichiro, who love to look around the room and admire their numbers whenever Ozawa deigns to bless them with his words of political wisdom, are also numbly aware that any breakaway party with Ozawa at its head or under his thrall will get thrashed in an election.
Furthermore, neither the DPJ nor the LDP want to go before the voters right now. In a stunning recent poll by the Mainichi Shimbun only 17% of the voters supported the DPJ and 16% supported the LDP (E). The two major parties are terrified of non-mainstream parties, either the Your Party or the proto-national party being formed by Osaka City mayor Hashimoto Toru (J). Even the normally lock-step the-LDP-is-my-party-right-or-wrong Yomiuri Shimbun is terrified of the prospects of a populist revolution and is counseling the LDP to get off its duff and cooperate with the DPJ-led government (E).
So much thunder and lightning will be evident today and through the next two weeks, as the governing and opposition parties get their turns at the rostrum.
Whether the typhoon will bear down upon the land, however, remains surprisingly uncertain.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
And Then There Was One
As noted in comments to a previous post, nine members of the Democratic Party of Japan's House of Representatives delegation have submitted their resignations from the party (E) in protest against a number of policies the government has recently rammed down the party's throat.
In a "let's all take a deep breath and wait before predicting the deluge" post at Global Talk 21, Okumura Jun noted that no House of Councillors members had headed for the exits (E).
Well, guess what? A few hours ago House of Councillors member Yokomine Yoshiro offered up his resignation from the DPJ (J).
Now Yokomine, the father of the golfer Yokomine Sakura, has been a huge pain for the party, being involved in a series of mishaps and ethical lapses since he was picked as a proportional seat candidate by party leader Ozawa Ichiro. His resignation from the party for what his political secretary called "personal reasons" may have nothing to do with the current party distress over the proposed rise in the consumption tax, the Yamba Dam restart declaration and the prime minister's hair-splitting and ultimately undone solution to winning party support for Japan's entering into discussions on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
But the timing of Yokomine's resignation is, if not suspicious, then still bad for the image of the prime minister.
I am not going to say that I warned that that fission could happen...but I warned that fission could happen.
What I got wrong was the timing: I did not think the breakup would begin before the New Year.
Later - Over at σ1, Corey Wallace goes into some particulars as to why it is appropriate to think that "this time, it's different" (Link).
In a "let's all take a deep breath and wait before predicting the deluge" post at Global Talk 21, Okumura Jun noted that no House of Councillors members had headed for the exits (E).
Well, guess what? A few hours ago House of Councillors member Yokomine Yoshiro offered up his resignation from the DPJ (J).
Now Yokomine, the father of the golfer Yokomine Sakura, has been a huge pain for the party, being involved in a series of mishaps and ethical lapses since he was picked as a proportional seat candidate by party leader Ozawa Ichiro. His resignation from the party for what his political secretary called "personal reasons" may have nothing to do with the current party distress over the proposed rise in the consumption tax, the Yamba Dam restart declaration and the prime minister's hair-splitting and ultimately undone solution to winning party support for Japan's entering into discussions on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
But the timing of Yokomine's resignation is, if not suspicious, then still bad for the image of the prime minister.
I am not going to say that I warned that that fission could happen...but I warned that fission could happen.
What I got wrong was the timing: I did not think the breakup would begin before the New Year.
Later - Over at σ1, Corey Wallace goes into some particulars as to why it is appropriate to think that "this time, it's different" (Link).
Thursday, November 03, 2011
The Black Ships Of The TPP
When Prime Minister Kan Naoto raised the possibility of Japan's participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership, he likened it a "third opening" of Japan -- on a par with the transformation wreaked upon Japan by the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry's black ships and the post-surrender Occupation of Japan.
Besides the tactical problem of trying to present the TPP in a positive, neutral light after describing it as commensurate with the two instances the United States forcefully dragged Japan into its vision of a world order (and boy oh boy, have the troglodyte nationalists and anti-American leftists gone to town on portraying the TPP as an American plot to destroy Japan...not that Japanese special interests are not slowly destroying Japan on their own without U.S. interference, thank you very much) is the question of the real value Japan can draw out of a further set of shocks to its system. What with the reconstruction of the Tohoku region, the continuing disaster that is Fukushima Daiichi (now they are finding evidence the melted fuel at the bottom of the reactor has gone critical...oh great), the soaring yen (pax Richard Katz and others who argue that the yen is not at an aberrantly high level), declining population and fertility and a looming mass of baby boom retirees landing on the pension system, the rise of highly competitive rivals in all tradeable goods, does Japan actually need any more shock treatment? The Nippon Keidanren (and when the history of the TPP fight is written, the Nippon Keidanren's complacency and sloth should be the subject of scathing criticism) and the government have not made the case that this is so.
A society can only take so much torsion before it breaks. It it should not surprise anyone that in the next week the Noda government packs it in on the TPP fight, realizing the country faces way internal challenges that only can be handled on an individual and idiosyncratic basis, rather than via a multilateral, all-encompassing template.
If the Prime Minister really believes that TPP participation is not beyond the pale, the next key date is November 8, when the Liberal Democratic Party is scheduled to release its position paper on TPP participation. Based on what the main opposition party says, the New Komeito having already come out against TPP participation, the government and the Democratic Party of Japan will map out their next moves.
Besides the tactical problem of trying to present the TPP in a positive, neutral light after describing it as commensurate with the two instances the United States forcefully dragged Japan into its vision of a world order (and boy oh boy, have the troglodyte nationalists and anti-American leftists gone to town on portraying the TPP as an American plot to destroy Japan...not that Japanese special interests are not slowly destroying Japan on their own without U.S. interference, thank you very much) is the question of the real value Japan can draw out of a further set of shocks to its system. What with the reconstruction of the Tohoku region, the continuing disaster that is Fukushima Daiichi (now they are finding evidence the melted fuel at the bottom of the reactor has gone critical...oh great), the soaring yen (pax Richard Katz and others who argue that the yen is not at an aberrantly high level), declining population and fertility and a looming mass of baby boom retirees landing on the pension system, the rise of highly competitive rivals in all tradeable goods, does Japan actually need any more shock treatment? The Nippon Keidanren (and when the history of the TPP fight is written, the Nippon Keidanren's complacency and sloth should be the subject of scathing criticism) and the government have not made the case that this is so.
A society can only take so much torsion before it breaks. It it should not surprise anyone that in the next week the Noda government packs it in on the TPP fight, realizing the country faces way internal challenges that only can be handled on an individual and idiosyncratic basis, rather than via a multilateral, all-encompassing template.
If the Prime Minister really believes that TPP participation is not beyond the pale, the next key date is November 8, when the Liberal Democratic Party is scheduled to release its position paper on TPP participation. Based on what the main opposition party says, the New Komeito having already come out against TPP participation, the government and the Democratic Party of Japan will map out their next moves.
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Trouble In TPP Land
In yesterday's post, I took a skeptical look at a Kyodo report of what seemed a supremely confident Democratic Party of Japan leadership leaking that, come what may, the Prime Minister was going to announce at the APEC conference his government's intent to become a participant in the Trans Pacific Partnership talks.
Well hold your horse, Daisy.
It seems that the government is having a hard time getting the membership of the Democratic Party of Japan, much less anyone in the opposition, to come together in favor of Japan joining in TPP discussions. At first, the government was going to halt internal discussions on November 2 (en). Then it announced that November 2 is too early but the DPJ project team will have definitely found intra-party consensus by November 4 (ja).
Well, guess what. It seems that the government has sort of had to let that November 4 deadline slide (ja). Instead there is now no deadline, save that the DPJ's leadership has to announce something by November 12, when the APEC conference starts.
Good luck guys (and why is it that you are all guys?).
Well hold your horse, Daisy.
It seems that the government is having a hard time getting the membership of the Democratic Party of Japan, much less anyone in the opposition, to come together in favor of Japan joining in TPP discussions. At first, the government was going to halt internal discussions on November 2 (en). Then it announced that November 2 is too early but the DPJ project team will have definitely found intra-party consensus by November 4 (ja).
Well, guess what. It seems that the government has sort of had to let that November 4 deadline slide (ja). Instead there is now no deadline, save that the DPJ's leadership has to announce something by November 12, when the APEC conference starts.
Good luck guys (and why is it that you are all guys?).
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Landing On His Feet; Landing On His Face
Proving that in Democratic Party of Japan Leader Noda Yoshihiko's world, failure and ill omens are not a barrier to appointment, Chairman of the Policy Research Council Maehara Seiji on Monday appointed Hachiro Yoshio the head of the PARC's project team researching Japan's possible participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (ja). This comes less than a month after Hachiro's spectacular flameout as Minister of Economics, Trade and Industry following only nine days in office.
That Hachiro has hardly had enough time to think about what went wrong the last time he was appointed to lead the government's efforts regarding the TPP and that he is still, as he was, a bizarre choice for this effort, given his connections to agricultural interests, seems to not be of litle consequence.
What qualities Hachiro possesses that he must be in charge of the DPJ's TPP strategy remain a mystery.
Meanwhile, in the House of Councillors and on the other side of the chamber, Liberal Democratic Party Caucus Leader Nakasone Hirofumi yesterday had to swallow his pride and appoint Koga faction member Mizote Kensei as his new party secretary-general (ja). Nakasone had hoped to appoint Konosuke Yoshitada as the replacement for departing secretary-general Kosaka Kenji. However, his choice of successor was opposed by the Machimura, Koga and Nukaga factions, which have been trying to improve their influence over LDP affairs as a whole.
Accepting Mizote as his deputy represents a significant blow for Nakasone. Whether the new lineup of LDP officers in the upper house means that the LDP will pull back from Nakasone's policy of saying absolutely no to every piece of legislation landing on the upper house's doorstep is now a very good question.
That Hachiro has hardly had enough time to think about what went wrong the last time he was appointed to lead the government's efforts regarding the TPP and that he is still, as he was, a bizarre choice for this effort, given his connections to agricultural interests, seems to not be of litle consequence.
What qualities Hachiro possesses that he must be in charge of the DPJ's TPP strategy remain a mystery.
Meanwhile, in the House of Councillors and on the other side of the chamber, Liberal Democratic Party Caucus Leader Nakasone Hirofumi yesterday had to swallow his pride and appoint Koga faction member Mizote Kensei as his new party secretary-general (ja). Nakasone had hoped to appoint Konosuke Yoshitada as the replacement for departing secretary-general Kosaka Kenji. However, his choice of successor was opposed by the Machimura, Koga and Nukaga factions, which have been trying to improve their influence over LDP affairs as a whole.
Accepting Mizote as his deputy represents a significant blow for Nakasone. Whether the new lineup of LDP officers in the upper house means that the LDP will pull back from Nakasone's policy of saying absolutely no to every piece of legislation landing on the upper house's doorstep is now a very good question.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
More Chess Moves
Cut your losses. If you must lose material, lose as little as possible.So Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko visited the site of the disputed Asaka government housing complex.-Bruce Pandolfini, "The Ten Commandments of Chess"
For 15 minutes.
Based on this extensive review of the project which he had greenlighted after it was cancelled by the Government Revitalization Unit, he returned to Tokyo and called Finance Minister Azumi Jun into his office, this in order to command Azumi to suspend further construction activity at the site for five years (en).
One has to admit that this prime minister, even when he is forced by circumstances to reverse himself, does not forget to dot his i’s and cross his t’s, unlike his predecessor Kan Naoto, who did a lot of his policy making on the fly, upsetting the powers that be.
One also needs pay attention to how quickly and coldly this prime minister deals with every problem he faces. Ignore the charming self-deprecation and the common touch he can summon seemingly without the least effort: the man is all business. Sentimentality is a tool to win over his audience -- or at times just a single individual -- to be deployed, not felt.
Which is not to say that Noda is insensitive. Indeed, quite the opposite: one has to be acutely sensitive of another person’s or group’s wants and needs before one can beguile them with words that move and/or influence. And he makes the concessions necessary to seal the deals.
When I first considered Noda as prime minister, I figured that he would be put through the wringer just as his five immediate predecessors have been, leaving behind a desiccated husk after only a year in office. Now I am more inclined to see him as surviving the Democratic Party of Japan’s leadership contest next September and leading his party into the next House of Representatives election
Behind that roly-poly jiggle of jolly jelly is one tough customer.
Friday, September 30, 2011
It's Not LDP Lite, It's LDP Resurrected
If you are not already a subscriber to the SSJ-Forum, you might consider moseying on over to their subscription page and joining up. Once you are a member, you can wait for Greg Noble's tour-de-force post [SSJ: 6879] Back to the (bad old LDP) future, or necessary recalibration? (hurry up and archive it, people!) on the ways DPJ Party Leader and Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko is turning the clock back to what seems to be pre-Koizumi times.
T'is a stunner...and t'is depressing.
T'is a stunner...and t'is depressing.
Taxes, taxes, taxes
One may wonder why I have not weighed in on the numerous tax proposals currently floating around the halls of the Democratic Party of Japan. This is because everyone else is talking about it.
Why add to the noise?
Economists are already claiming that the retail consumption figures are reflecting a drawback in spending in anticipation of higher taxes, as good rational choice theory would predict.
The Bloomberg piece also asks what seems to be an eternal question: do title writers at the major media outlets ever read the texts to which they are afixing their titles?
(Hat tip to The Tokyo Times)
Why add to the noise?
Economists are already claiming that the retail consumption figures are reflecting a drawback in spending in anticipation of higher taxes, as good rational choice theory would predict.
The Bloomberg piece also asks what seems to be an eternal question: do title writers at the major media outlets ever read the texts to which they are afixing their titles?
(Hat tip to The Tokyo Times)
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
The Miller Light Lite Election
Once upon a time in America, an advertising executive had an unenviable task: how to make customers feel enthusiastic about or ever remember what was, basically, watered-down beer. In a stroke of genius, the ad executive came up with a solution: have a heated showdown between two hyper-partisan groups arguing over differing attributes of the product. "Tastes great!" one side would holler. "Less filling!" the other side retort. And so it would go on, louder and louder -- "Tastes great!" "Less filling!" "Tastes great!" -- without resolution.
While nonsensical -- two sides coming nearly to blows over a product they both liked -- the campaign created an immense brand awareness. It furthermore bored into the brains of those watching the ads that there was something in this product worth the fighting for.
In Japan right now, we are seeing an echo of this strategy in the contest for leadership of the Democratic Party of Japan. The two antagonists are between Prime Minister Kan Naoto and Ozawa Ichiro, the two candidates for the party leadership. The product is the DPJ itself, with the antagonists each yelling out at each other differing aspects of the DPJ's main political and philosophical elements. "We will not lie to you!" yells one. "We will not pass the bill for our actions on to future generations!" shouts the other. "We will push decision making down to the local level!" chuffs one. "We will create a central control mechanism for coordinated national planning!" screams the other.
Normally when you have two politicians haranguing in this manner, the pair are from two different parties, each of them flinging at the public what is distinctive about his or her party's platform. However, both Kan and Ozawa are from the same party and what they are arguing over -- if you want to call it that -- is differing aspects of the DPJ.
The first element of genius of this passionate display of party disunity is that in the high-volume dispute between the two men the voices or even the existence of Japan's other parties -- the actual, real opposition -- are being smothered. No one can recall the last time anyone has asked Tanigaki Sadakazu, president of the Liberal Democratic Party -- which won big time in the July elections, thank you very much -- his opinion of anything except the exciting Kan-Ozawa battle. When was the last time anyone saw the leader of the New Komeito, the party that supposedly holds the key to the passage of legislation in the Diet, appearing on television?
The second and crucial bit of genius displayed by this campaign -- which, when one considers the amount of coordination between the schedules of the two men that is allowing them to appear together on television and in public, must be a decidedly less-than-totally-antagonistic affair -- is how deeply the policies of the DPJ are being drilled into the brains of the Japanese people. Whether it is Kan or Ozawa who prevails, the voters are going to be fully briefed on what the party hopes to achieve in the upcoming year, both in the extraordinary fall session and the regular winter-spring sessions of the Diet. With the various proposals very much in the public's mind due to this intense campaign, opposition parties may find it very difficult to oppose what the DPJ proposes, this despite opposition control of the House of Councillors. The public will be looking for action on employment, on the transfer of control from bureaucrats to politicians, on reworking the relationship between the central government and the local governments -- and largely within the binomial framework being outlined by Kan and Ozawa in their debates. For the most part, opposition will be forced to deal with the hands that the DPJ has dealt them, rather than being able to bring their own ideas to the table.
So the battle rages, with paradoxically but quite reasonably, the DPJ the big winner.
While nonsensical -- two sides coming nearly to blows over a product they both liked -- the campaign created an immense brand awareness. It furthermore bored into the brains of those watching the ads that there was something in this product worth the fighting for.
In Japan right now, we are seeing an echo of this strategy in the contest for leadership of the Democratic Party of Japan. The two antagonists are between Prime Minister Kan Naoto and Ozawa Ichiro, the two candidates for the party leadership. The product is the DPJ itself, with the antagonists each yelling out at each other differing aspects of the DPJ's main political and philosophical elements. "We will not lie to you!" yells one. "We will not pass the bill for our actions on to future generations!" shouts the other. "We will push decision making down to the local level!" chuffs one. "We will create a central control mechanism for coordinated national planning!" screams the other.
Normally when you have two politicians haranguing in this manner, the pair are from two different parties, each of them flinging at the public what is distinctive about his or her party's platform. However, both Kan and Ozawa are from the same party and what they are arguing over -- if you want to call it that -- is differing aspects of the DPJ.
The first element of genius of this passionate display of party disunity is that in the high-volume dispute between the two men the voices or even the existence of Japan's other parties -- the actual, real opposition -- are being smothered. No one can recall the last time anyone has asked Tanigaki Sadakazu, president of the Liberal Democratic Party -- which won big time in the July elections, thank you very much -- his opinion of anything except the exciting Kan-Ozawa battle. When was the last time anyone saw the leader of the New Komeito, the party that supposedly holds the key to the passage of legislation in the Diet, appearing on television?
The second and crucial bit of genius displayed by this campaign -- which, when one considers the amount of coordination between the schedules of the two men that is allowing them to appear together on television and in public, must be a decidedly less-than-totally-antagonistic affair -- is how deeply the policies of the DPJ are being drilled into the brains of the Japanese people. Whether it is Kan or Ozawa who prevails, the voters are going to be fully briefed on what the party hopes to achieve in the upcoming year, both in the extraordinary fall session and the regular winter-spring sessions of the Diet. With the various proposals very much in the public's mind due to this intense campaign, opposition parties may find it very difficult to oppose what the DPJ proposes, this despite opposition control of the House of Councillors. The public will be looking for action on employment, on the transfer of control from bureaucrats to politicians, on reworking the relationship between the central government and the local governments -- and largely within the binomial framework being outlined by Kan and Ozawa in their debates. For the most part, opposition will be forced to deal with the hands that the DPJ has dealt them, rather than being able to bring their own ideas to the table.
So the battle rages, with paradoxically but quite reasonably, the DPJ the big winner.
Friday, September 03, 2010
Does The Public Care About The 2009 Manifesto?
One of the major pillars of candidacy of Ozawa Ichiro to be leader of the Democratic Party of Japan is his stated faith that the party has lost its way. By pulling back from the promises that it made to the public in the 2009 party Manifesto, the DPJ has lost the public's trust and in such faces ruin. He insists that when he is elected party leader, he will return the DPJ to its true path of fulfilling the promises made in the run up to the August 2009 House of Representatives election, reviving the party's strength.
While the DPJ did sweep to power on a wave of public enthusiasm about what the party could do for the country, does the public really care about the exact promises made in the 2009 Manifesto?
Not according to the polls, they do not.
In the Kyodo News poll released on August 29, 2010, pollsters asked members of the public about specific programs listed in the DPJ's Manifesto - whether they felt the program should be carried out absolutely, carried out to a certain extent (aru teido ni) or not carried out at all.
The result of their questions were:
Supplemental child support payments
Absolutely 20%
To a certain extent 42%
Should not be carried out 35%
Income supplement payments to farm households
Absolutely 23%
To a certain extent 49%
Should not be carried out 17%
Removing the tolls from the nation's expressways
Absolutely 14%
To a certain extent 30%
Should not be carried out 52%
Cancellation of the temporary levy on gasoline
Absolutely 30%
To a certain extent 38%
Should not be carried out 23%
In every case except the removal of tolls from the nation's expressways (a really unpopular idea, the reason being that the expressways' outstanding debts would have to be nationalized) the indication is that the public is most often lukewarm about pretty much every one of DPJ's campaign promises and would be more happy if they were only carried out only partway.
Similarly, the Mainichi Shimbun, in its poll published on August 30, 2010, asked members of the public about the implementation of the promises made in the 2009 Manifesto. The pollsters asked:
"Inside the DPJ, in the face of a severe fiscal situation, there are those who are of the opinion that the Manifesto should be revised showing some flexibility while others are of the opinion that the Manifesto must be carried out strictly. What do you think?"
The responses were:
Should be revised showing some flexibility 70%
Should be carried out strictly 27%
So why Ozawa continues to bang on about carrying out the promises of the 2009 Manifesto when the public is not particularly interested in them is beyond me. Perhaps he cannot divest himself of the principle that a politician should above all avoid the appearance of having been lying. The public has only a moderate attachment to the promises made to them in 2009. These were promises made by politicians, after all -- and the public, after 53 years of LDP rule -- is not naive about what a politician's promise is worth.
While the DPJ did sweep to power on a wave of public enthusiasm about what the party could do for the country, does the public really care about the exact promises made in the 2009 Manifesto?
Not according to the polls, they do not.
In the Kyodo News poll released on August 29, 2010, pollsters asked members of the public about specific programs listed in the DPJ's Manifesto - whether they felt the program should be carried out absolutely, carried out to a certain extent (aru teido ni) or not carried out at all.
The result of their questions were:
Supplemental child support payments
Absolutely 20%
To a certain extent 42%
Should not be carried out 35%
Income supplement payments to farm households
Absolutely 23%
To a certain extent 49%
Should not be carried out 17%
Removing the tolls from the nation's expressways
Absolutely 14%
To a certain extent 30%
Should not be carried out 52%
Cancellation of the temporary levy on gasoline
Absolutely 30%
To a certain extent 38%
Should not be carried out 23%
In every case except the removal of tolls from the nation's expressways (a really unpopular idea, the reason being that the expressways' outstanding debts would have to be nationalized) the indication is that the public is most often lukewarm about pretty much every one of DPJ's campaign promises and would be more happy if they were only carried out only partway.
Similarly, the Mainichi Shimbun, in its poll published on August 30, 2010, asked members of the public about the implementation of the promises made in the 2009 Manifesto. The pollsters asked:
"Inside the DPJ, in the face of a severe fiscal situation, there are those who are of the opinion that the Manifesto should be revised showing some flexibility while others are of the opinion that the Manifesto must be carried out strictly. What do you think?"
The responses were:
Should be revised showing some flexibility 70%
Should be carried out strictly 27%
So why Ozawa continues to bang on about carrying out the promises of the 2009 Manifesto when the public is not particularly interested in them is beyond me. Perhaps he cannot divest himself of the principle that a politician should above all avoid the appearance of having been lying. The public has only a moderate attachment to the promises made to them in 2009. These were promises made by politicians, after all -- and the public, after 53 years of LDP rule -- is not naive about what a politician's promise is worth.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Japan's Presidential Election
Japan is a parliamentary democracy, with the Emperor as titular head of state. That being said, the country is suddenly slambang in the midst of a presidential election. There are two candidates, each with a distinct ideological cant and consequent distinct set of policy prescriptions. Both have their core supporters who will vote for them come hell or high water, leaving the pair battling, quite publicly, for the allegiance of undecided voters. Unlike battles of the old days, where intra-party clashes were solved with promises of Cabinet and party posts or even exchanges of cash, the successful candidate in this election likely have to win the affection of those with the votes capable of putting him over the 50% line. To capture these hearts and minds, both candidates are taking to the airwaves. Prime Minister Kan Naoto was on the 9 p.m. evening NHK newscast last night; tonight it will be his challenger Ozawa Ichiro's turn.
This is what political realignment a la Japonaise looks like, folks.
On the one side of the ledger is Ozawa. He leads the fundamentalist wing of the party, those who believe that the party's fate and future are indelibly written down in the party Manifesto of 2009. Either the party follows through on what it promised, or it is finished, seems to be the belief.
There is, of course, a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem here. Ozawa personally recruited many of the candidates who following the election are now the members of his camp. He was also the final decision maker on what got into the 2009 Manifesto. To what extent his supporters' faith in the Manifesto comes from Ozawa's having been the 2009 Manifesto's primary author and where Ozawa's championing of the 2009 Manifesto makes him the candidate worthy of his supporters's support, is a question nobody really wants to ask.
On the other side of the ledger are the revisionists and their standard bearer Kan, known from the very first days of the party as "the pragmatic one." Kan voters are the members of the DPJ who believed from the outset that the 2009 Manifesto was provisional - a nice collection of mutually incoherent ideas that taken together could attract enough votes to the DPJ's candidate to win the party control of the country. Seen negatively, these DPJ members saw the Manifesto as facetious, a largely cynical means of fooling traditional Liberal Democratic Party voters and the undecided into abandoning the familiar and accommodating Liberal Democratic Party and instead trying out the Democratic alternative. Once in power, however, the revisionists knew thet DPJ would have to water dowm most the promises made in the Manifesto on the grounds that they were either fiscally irresponsible or simply illogical.
Currently the revisionists control the government and the party, holding virtually all the major posts. Their hold is tenuous, or more tenuous than it should be, due to Kan's having been suckered by the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Finance into talking about raising the consumption tax -- a not terribly unpopular plan now, but a few months ago political poison -- on the eve of the House of Councillors election. When the party did unusually poorly in that election, the fundamentalist wing found themselves with the ammunition necessary to attack Kan and his followers for having sunk the party's fortunes, losing the supposedly vital prize of coalition control of the House of Councillors.
That the battle for the House of Councillors probably had been lost months earlier, at a time when the fundamentalists themselves largely held control, due to the fecklessness of their prime minister Hatoyama Yukio and his and Ozawa's myriad legal troubles, has been neatly swept under the rug.
There is much good news to be found in this new-style presidential battle.
First, the battle is between centrist views. What Ozawa and the DPJ fundamentalists are insisting must happen is not radical change -- merely a reversion to the promises that the party has already made to the voters, ones which the voters ostensibly ratified in 2009 by their voting so many Democrats into office.
The revisionists, for their part, are not asking for a complete rollback of all of the DPJ's 2009 promises. What they are requesting is that the party be realistic, fulfilling promises to the extent that is justifiable both politically and fiscally.
Second, the battle is being fought out in the open over policy rather than in the private rooms of high-class restaurants over spoils. There are two crystal clear policy platforms, with little or no prevarication over what certain words mean or do not mean in terms of the election. Furthermore, although there is no direct voting, there is a huge chunk of vote -- 300 points for the party members and 100 points for local assemblymen -- will fall one way or the other depending expressions of public satisfaction or dissatisfaction with one candidate or the other.
Third, this is not a life-or-death struggle for the DPJ. The persons who have aligned themselves with Kan, the party moderates and fiscal conservatives, survived and even thrived under three years of Ozawa's leadership of the party. They thrived under the puppet prime ministership of Hatoyama Yukio. They are not going to bolt the party just because Ozawa is in charge again.
As for the Ozawa supporters, while they are fanatical in some senses, they are not stupid. Most are from marginal districts where the voters could just as soon switch back to voting for the LDP in the next House of Representatives election, as they did in this year's House of Councillor's election. Jumping ship with Ozawa following an Ozawa defeat could easily mean a quick fall into political irrelevance and electoral defeat.
Both sides in the presidential race, both fundamentalist and revisionist, furthermore cling to a main branch of mainstream DPJ philosophy. To the fundamentalist's credit, they hold fast to the belief that promises mean must something, that a pledge to the public is not just a tool to be discarded once the election is over.
The revisionists believe, on the other hand, that promises have to be grounded in a finite reality -- that one cannot promise one's resources, both financial and political, to one interest group, then turn around and promise those same resources to another group. They believe in tradeoffs: that one must sell sacrifice and offer promises in equal measure. In this, they have the support of the vast majority of the public, who when asked about the promises in the 2009 Manisfesto, would be satisfied if they were honored "to a certain extent" (aru teido ni).
Both of these line of thought -- that one must keep one's word to the people and one must limit one's promises to the achievable -- are part of the core set of founding principles of the Democratic Party. Even now they serve a useful contrasts between the values of the DPJ and those of its predecessor in power, the Liberal Democratic Party.
So when one sees quotations about the closeness of the Democratic Party is to fissioning, one should know that it will not be along ideological lines. Some agitators within the party's ranks may talk about unbridgeable differences. Such comments, however, should be viewed as merely the individual in question stuffing whatever comes to mind into the voracious maw of the media beast.
Moreover, while the image of some of the members of the revisionist camp may seem to be rigid "my way or the highway" types, they are for the most part patient, somewhat older members of the party, willing to bid their time after a reversal of fortune. They know that in politics what goes up must come down. Ozawa's allies and followers, while numerous, are for the most part decidedly lesser politicians than those in the anti-Ozawa camp. While the pro-Ozawa partisans will be insufferably triumphant in early days following an Ozawa victory, their own shortcomings and inadequacies will soon compell the party leadership to call upon the talents of the party's competent anti-Ozawa first-stringers.
The wild card in this presidential race and its aftermath is, of course, that one of the candidates is Ozawa Ichiro, Japan's least popular politician. If Ozawa prevails in the intra-party contrast, the populace at large will feel at least a sense of letdown, if not out-and-out disgust. The election as virtual president, not of the DPJ but, as Kan relentlessly points out, the nation, of a man who is broadly mistrusted and disliked, will likely leave the populace feeling cheated, no matter how legitimately the election is carried out under party rules.
This is what political realignment a la Japonaise looks like, folks.
On the one side of the ledger is Ozawa. He leads the fundamentalist wing of the party, those who believe that the party's fate and future are indelibly written down in the party Manifesto of 2009. Either the party follows through on what it promised, or it is finished, seems to be the belief.
There is, of course, a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem here. Ozawa personally recruited many of the candidates who following the election are now the members of his camp. He was also the final decision maker on what got into the 2009 Manifesto. To what extent his supporters' faith in the Manifesto comes from Ozawa's having been the 2009 Manifesto's primary author and where Ozawa's championing of the 2009 Manifesto makes him the candidate worthy of his supporters's support, is a question nobody really wants to ask.
On the other side of the ledger are the revisionists and their standard bearer Kan, known from the very first days of the party as "the pragmatic one." Kan voters are the members of the DPJ who believed from the outset that the 2009 Manifesto was provisional - a nice collection of mutually incoherent ideas that taken together could attract enough votes to the DPJ's candidate to win the party control of the country. Seen negatively, these DPJ members saw the Manifesto as facetious, a largely cynical means of fooling traditional Liberal Democratic Party voters and the undecided into abandoning the familiar and accommodating Liberal Democratic Party and instead trying out the Democratic alternative. Once in power, however, the revisionists knew thet DPJ would have to water dowm most the promises made in the Manifesto on the grounds that they were either fiscally irresponsible or simply illogical.
Currently the revisionists control the government and the party, holding virtually all the major posts. Their hold is tenuous, or more tenuous than it should be, due to Kan's having been suckered by the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Finance into talking about raising the consumption tax -- a not terribly unpopular plan now, but a few months ago political poison -- on the eve of the House of Councillors election. When the party did unusually poorly in that election, the fundamentalist wing found themselves with the ammunition necessary to attack Kan and his followers for having sunk the party's fortunes, losing the supposedly vital prize of coalition control of the House of Councillors.
That the battle for the House of Councillors probably had been lost months earlier, at a time when the fundamentalists themselves largely held control, due to the fecklessness of their prime minister Hatoyama Yukio and his and Ozawa's myriad legal troubles, has been neatly swept under the rug.
There is much good news to be found in this new-style presidential battle.
First, the battle is between centrist views. What Ozawa and the DPJ fundamentalists are insisting must happen is not radical change -- merely a reversion to the promises that the party has already made to the voters, ones which the voters ostensibly ratified in 2009 by their voting so many Democrats into office.
The revisionists, for their part, are not asking for a complete rollback of all of the DPJ's 2009 promises. What they are requesting is that the party be realistic, fulfilling promises to the extent that is justifiable both politically and fiscally.
Second, the battle is being fought out in the open over policy rather than in the private rooms of high-class restaurants over spoils. There are two crystal clear policy platforms, with little or no prevarication over what certain words mean or do not mean in terms of the election. Furthermore, although there is no direct voting, there is a huge chunk of vote -- 300 points for the party members and 100 points for local assemblymen -- will fall one way or the other depending expressions of public satisfaction or dissatisfaction with one candidate or the other.
Third, this is not a life-or-death struggle for the DPJ. The persons who have aligned themselves with Kan, the party moderates and fiscal conservatives, survived and even thrived under three years of Ozawa's leadership of the party. They thrived under the puppet prime ministership of Hatoyama Yukio. They are not going to bolt the party just because Ozawa is in charge again.
As for the Ozawa supporters, while they are fanatical in some senses, they are not stupid. Most are from marginal districts where the voters could just as soon switch back to voting for the LDP in the next House of Representatives election, as they did in this year's House of Councillor's election. Jumping ship with Ozawa following an Ozawa defeat could easily mean a quick fall into political irrelevance and electoral defeat.
Both sides in the presidential race, both fundamentalist and revisionist, furthermore cling to a main branch of mainstream DPJ philosophy. To the fundamentalist's credit, they hold fast to the belief that promises mean must something, that a pledge to the public is not just a tool to be discarded once the election is over.
The revisionists believe, on the other hand, that promises have to be grounded in a finite reality -- that one cannot promise one's resources, both financial and political, to one interest group, then turn around and promise those same resources to another group. They believe in tradeoffs: that one must sell sacrifice and offer promises in equal measure. In this, they have the support of the vast majority of the public, who when asked about the promises in the 2009 Manisfesto, would be satisfied if they were honored "to a certain extent" (aru teido ni).
Both of these line of thought -- that one must keep one's word to the people and one must limit one's promises to the achievable -- are part of the core set of founding principles of the Democratic Party. Even now they serve a useful contrasts between the values of the DPJ and those of its predecessor in power, the Liberal Democratic Party.
So when one sees quotations about the closeness of the Democratic Party is to fissioning, one should know that it will not be along ideological lines. Some agitators within the party's ranks may talk about unbridgeable differences. Such comments, however, should be viewed as merely the individual in question stuffing whatever comes to mind into the voracious maw of the media beast.
Moreover, while the image of some of the members of the revisionist camp may seem to be rigid "my way or the highway" types, they are for the most part patient, somewhat older members of the party, willing to bid their time after a reversal of fortune. They know that in politics what goes up must come down. Ozawa's allies and followers, while numerous, are for the most part decidedly lesser politicians than those in the anti-Ozawa camp. While the pro-Ozawa partisans will be insufferably triumphant in early days following an Ozawa victory, their own shortcomings and inadequacies will soon compell the party leadership to call upon the talents of the party's competent anti-Ozawa first-stringers.
The wild card in this presidential race and its aftermath is, of course, that one of the candidates is Ozawa Ichiro, Japan's least popular politician. If Ozawa prevails in the intra-party contrast, the populace at large will feel at least a sense of letdown, if not out-and-out disgust. The election as virtual president, not of the DPJ but, as Kan relentlessly points out, the nation, of a man who is broadly mistrusted and disliked, will likely leave the populace feeling cheated, no matter how legitimately the election is carried out under party rules.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Your Constant Companion
So Ozawa Ichiro goes to it.
Do your know what I love about this story? Paragraph three.
Why do I love paragraph three so? Because it is followed by paragraph four.
Proving once again the Nagata-cho political adage that the shortest distance between two points is the distance between the tips of Hatoyama Yukio's fingers and the wheels of a bus.
Ozawa to challenge Kan in DPJ leadership race
Kyodo News
Ichiro Ozawa, one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters Thursday morning that he will run in the ruling party's leadership election next month, challenging Prime Minister Naoto Kan for the party leadership...
Do your know what I love about this story? Paragraph three.
Hatoyama told reporters separately that he will support Ozawa in the race since he had been the one who had invited Ozawa to join the party. Ozawa joined the DPJ in 2003 when he and a small party he then headed merged with it.
Why do I love paragraph three so? Because it is followed by paragraph four.
The declaration of support by Hatoyama, who leads an intraparty group of about 50 lawmakers, came after he had told Ozawa during a meeting on Tuesday that he would back Kan's reelection as DPJ leader.
Proving once again the Nagata-cho political adage that the shortest distance between two points is the distance between the tips of Hatoyama Yukio's fingers and the wheels of a bus.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Is That All You Got, Ozawa Ichiro?
At long last, have you left no other cards to play?
On Sunday, Yamaoka Kenji, a vice-president of the Democratic Party of Japan and the ring leader of the Diet members pressing hard for Ozawa Ichiro run in the September 14 party election, revealed on television the reason why members and supporters of the DPJ should hope that Ozawa Ichiro runs for the position of leader of the party and vote for him if he does:
Ozawa is better than Kan because has good relations with the New Komeito.
Ozawa, who is almost certain to be indicted on accounting fraud charges in regards a real estate deal involving land he bought for a dormitory to house members of his personal staff, a man whose very presence in the Diet is opposed by 70% of voters, is the best man to lead the DPJ and the government of this blessed land because he has a good relationship with a party that worked against DPJ in the last election, instructing its voters to vote for the district candidates of the DPJ's arch-rival, the Liberal Democratic Party and which is widely recognized as the political arm of an authoritarian religious organization.
The ruling DPJ-People's New Party are 12 seats short of a majority in the House of Councillors and 9 seats short of a two-thirds override supermajority in the House of Representatives. In either case, a hook up with the New Komeito would supply sufficient votes for the new ruling coalition to pass any legislation it may so desire. Such is the terror of a nejire kokkai -- a "twisted" Diet where a single party or coalition does not control both Houses of the Diet that it is indeed worthwhile for the membership of the DPJ to elect the fraught Ozawa so that the party may grasp the hand of the even more fraught New Komeito.
Hilarious! Twisted and hilarious!
But you cannot deny the genius of it. Here is Ozawa, with the connivance of the press that hates him, raising to the level of national threat the boogie man he himself created. For it was under his tutelage that the DPJ turned the 2007-2009 negire kokkai into a graveyard of LDP-sponsored legislation and government appointments. It was under his leadership, following his example of utter intransigence, that the DPJ pushed the prime ministers and chief cabinet secretaries of the LDP into hysterics, frightening them so that they even considered, under Fukuda Yasuo, a grand coalition with the DPJ -- a plan that fell through only when the DPJ leadership aside from Ozawa gagged, believing that, yes, there were some things you should not do in order to seize power.
Be afraid of Kan because he will be defeated by the negire kokkai? Balderdash. Ozawa Ichiro is the negire kokkai. Only he would have the stubborness, the ruthlessness, the utter disregard for national priorities and the intestinal fortitude to take his opponent to the mat, no matter how much the editorialists and TV pundits screamed how irresponsible his "No" would be.
Which is the secret that Ozawa and his allies hope that Kan and his allies never, ever unravel: that no one in the current opposition, not LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu, not LDP Secretary-General Oshima Tadamori, not LDP House of Councillors Diet Affairs Chairman Nakasone Hirofumi, not Your Party leader Watanabe Yoshimi, has the guts and the gall to vote against legislation in the nation's interest just for the purpose of injuring the DPJ. That the opposition has no Ozawa Ichiro to go the brink, and then over it, is the crack in the facade of fear. All who could block the Diet's business out of a cussed desire to do so are each and every one too nice, too intent on being liked, to push his enemies to the wall.
The negire kokkai without Ozawa as the antagonist is an annoyance, not a tragedy. He or she who realizes this will be free of fear of the negire kokkai's supposed awful power to thwart good policy and necessary legislation. He or she who has faith in the opposition's lack of will can press forward with his or her agenda, certain that by hook or by crook an able talker can cobble together alliances of like-minded legislators, incorporate the demands of opposition parties into legislation and invoke the art of compromise for the good of all.
And without the fear of a insoluably constipated Diet, Ozawa's candidacy for the leadership of the DPJ evaporates into a puff of smoke and a smear of dust.
Which is sad, because Ozawa has earned the right to go out as a dignified senior statesman, a politician who fought tooth-and-nail to win against incredible odds, who cut corners and betrayed allies with scarcely a hint of remorse, but who, when it came time for him to step aside for the good of his party and his nation, had the grace, wisdom and forbearance to do so.
On Sunday, Yamaoka Kenji, a vice-president of the Democratic Party of Japan and the ring leader of the Diet members pressing hard for Ozawa Ichiro run in the September 14 party election, revealed on television the reason why members and supporters of the DPJ should hope that Ozawa Ichiro runs for the position of leader of the party and vote for him if he does:
Yamaoka hinted on a TBS program that a Diet dissolution would not be necessary if Ozawa became prime minister. "Lower house members have a tenure of three more years," he said.Laying aside for a moment the ridiculousness of a purported clash over the fiscal year 2011 budget -- the one kind of legislation which is guaranteed to pass through the Diet without rancor due to Article 60 of the Constitution -- this is what Ozawa has, after 40 years in the Diet, the founding and breaking up of a half-a-dozen parties, a small shelf full of books published of his ideas, a huge court at his beck and call and leading underdog parties to national victories not once but four times.
Asked why the lower house would have to be dissolved if Kan kept his post, Yamaoka pointed to the divided Diet, with the ruling parties holding the majority in the lower house while the opposition parties control the upper house.
He said Ozawa, who has strong connections with New Komeito, can surmount difficulties in the divided Diet, but under Kan's leadership the Diet would be completely deadlocked until spring, when the ruling and opposition camps are sure to clash in the Diet over the fiscal 2011 budget.(Link)
Ozawa is better than Kan because has good relations with the New Komeito.
Ozawa, who is almost certain to be indicted on accounting fraud charges in regards a real estate deal involving land he bought for a dormitory to house members of his personal staff, a man whose very presence in the Diet is opposed by 70% of voters, is the best man to lead the DPJ and the government of this blessed land because he has a good relationship with a party that worked against DPJ in the last election, instructing its voters to vote for the district candidates of the DPJ's arch-rival, the Liberal Democratic Party and which is widely recognized as the political arm of an authoritarian religious organization.
The ruling DPJ-People's New Party are 12 seats short of a majority in the House of Councillors and 9 seats short of a two-thirds override supermajority in the House of Representatives. In either case, a hook up with the New Komeito would supply sufficient votes for the new ruling coalition to pass any legislation it may so desire. Such is the terror of a nejire kokkai -- a "twisted" Diet where a single party or coalition does not control both Houses of the Diet that it is indeed worthwhile for the membership of the DPJ to elect the fraught Ozawa so that the party may grasp the hand of the even more fraught New Komeito.
Hilarious! Twisted and hilarious!
But you cannot deny the genius of it. Here is Ozawa, with the connivance of the press that hates him, raising to the level of national threat the boogie man he himself created. For it was under his tutelage that the DPJ turned the 2007-2009 negire kokkai into a graveyard of LDP-sponsored legislation and government appointments. It was under his leadership, following his example of utter intransigence, that the DPJ pushed the prime ministers and chief cabinet secretaries of the LDP into hysterics, frightening them so that they even considered, under Fukuda Yasuo, a grand coalition with the DPJ -- a plan that fell through only when the DPJ leadership aside from Ozawa gagged, believing that, yes, there were some things you should not do in order to seize power.
Be afraid of Kan because he will be defeated by the negire kokkai? Balderdash. Ozawa Ichiro is the negire kokkai. Only he would have the stubborness, the ruthlessness, the utter disregard for national priorities and the intestinal fortitude to take his opponent to the mat, no matter how much the editorialists and TV pundits screamed how irresponsible his "No" would be.
Which is the secret that Ozawa and his allies hope that Kan and his allies never, ever unravel: that no one in the current opposition, not LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu, not LDP Secretary-General Oshima Tadamori, not LDP House of Councillors Diet Affairs Chairman Nakasone Hirofumi, not Your Party leader Watanabe Yoshimi, has the guts and the gall to vote against legislation in the nation's interest just for the purpose of injuring the DPJ. That the opposition has no Ozawa Ichiro to go the brink, and then over it, is the crack in the facade of fear. All who could block the Diet's business out of a cussed desire to do so are each and every one too nice, too intent on being liked, to push his enemies to the wall.
The negire kokkai without Ozawa as the antagonist is an annoyance, not a tragedy. He or she who realizes this will be free of fear of the negire kokkai's supposed awful power to thwart good policy and necessary legislation. He or she who has faith in the opposition's lack of will can press forward with his or her agenda, certain that by hook or by crook an able talker can cobble together alliances of like-minded legislators, incorporate the demands of opposition parties into legislation and invoke the art of compromise for the good of all.
And without the fear of a insoluably constipated Diet, Ozawa's candidacy for the leadership of the DPJ evaporates into a puff of smoke and a smear of dust.
Which is sad, because Ozawa has earned the right to go out as a dignified senior statesman, a politician who fought tooth-and-nail to win against incredible odds, who cut corners and betrayed allies with scarcely a hint of remorse, but who, when it came time for him to step aside for the good of his party and his nation, had the grace, wisdom and forbearance to do so.
Friday, August 13, 2010
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.
_______________________
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
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.
_______________________
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
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