Do The Forces Of Constitutional Revision Have A Chance? (1)

Though campaigning on constitutional revision has died down, except for the noises emanating from the candidates of the Japan Restoration Party and fringe rightists in the pro- and the Japan Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party in the anti-camps, commentators outside Japan are still talking about a post-election push for constitutional revision by a radically empowered Abe Shinzo.

Assuming the desirability of actual revision (If the opposition is annihilated and the constitution changed, who then can be blamed for continued failure and drift?) is such an outcome even technically possible? Do the forces for revision have the technical means of achieving their seat targets -- i.e. do the parties in favor of revision have enough candidates in the right places?

First, how many seats do they need? Mathematically, 2/3 of 242 is 161.333…. Ostensibly, the three parties would have to end up with 162 seats.

However, the Speaker of the House and Deputy Speaker, who are selected from the two largest caucuses, are under extreme pressure to behave in a non-partisan fashion. Symbolically, they take leave from their party membership during their terms in office. The Speaker in particularly would almost certainly abstain from a constitutional vote.

[Sorry MTC - but that the Speaker of the House would abstain would increase, not decrease the number of seats needed. The constitutional requirement is 2/3rds of the members of a House, not 2/3rds of those present at the vote. 162 is the number and will always be the number, at least until such time as the number of seats in the House of Councillors gets changed - Ed.]

So the actual number of seats the parties must have is 161 162.

The three major parties on record in favor of revising the Constitution are the JRP, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Your Party. They currently hold seats 61 not up for reelection this cycle:

Seats Not Up For Election: District

LDP 38
JRP 0
Your 3

Seats Not Up For Election: Proportional

LDP 12
JRP 1
Your 7

So in this cycle the three parties need to win 100 101 seats to have the barest minimum of the seats necessary for changes to the Constitution.

In the raw numbers, the three parties have sufficient candidates -- 78 for the LDP, 44 for the JRP and 34 for the Your Party.

Candidates For Seats Up For Election: District

LDP 49
JRP 14
Your 17

Seats Not Up For Election: Proportional

LDP 29
JRP 30
Your 15

However, are these candidates dispersed in meaningful or effective way?

To simplify matters, let us assume that all of the district candidates of the LDP all win election. T'is not an unreasonable assumption, in light of the election of all the LDP candidates in last month's Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election. The assumption of dominance glosses over the potential for bastions -- where particular opposition parties cannot lose due to long time support of particular political families. However, given the the overwhelming national support (>40% in most polls) for the LDP, the viability of any of these bastions is called into question. Furthermore, since we are calculating the total number of seats in favor of constitutional revision, if the winner is the JRP or Your Party candidate then the LDP loss is irrelevant to the total.

So after all the LDP district candidates win, how many district seats are left?

Normally, one would say 24 (73 totals seats - 49 LDP wins = 24). However, the LDP's coalition partner, the New Komeito, which is chary of constitutional revision, is running candidates in 4 multi-seat prefectures: Saitama, Tokyo, Kanagawa and Osaka. These candidates will win handily, meaning there are 20 open seats for opposition parties, in the following distribution:

Hokkaido 1
Miyagi 1
Ibaraki 1
Saitama 1
Chiba 1
Tokyo 2
Kanagawa 2
Niigata 1
Nagano 1
Shizuoka 1
Aichi 2
Kyoto 1
Osaka 2
Hyogo 1
Hiroshima 1
Fukuoka 1

Now here is that same list, with competition between the candidates running on pro-revision JRP and Your Party tickets and the anti-revision Democratic Party of Japan ticket.

Hokkaido 1 (YP, DPJ)
Miyagi 1 (YP, DPJ)
Ibaraki 1 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Saitama 1 (YP, DPJ)
Chiba 1 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Tokyo 2 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Kanagawa 2 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Niigata 1 (JRP, DPJ)
Nagano 1 (YP,DPJ)
Shizuoka 1 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Aichi 2 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Kyoto 1 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Osaka 2 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Hyogo 1 (JRP, YP, DPJ)
Hiroshima 1 (JRP, DPJ)
Fukuoka 1 (JRP, YP, DPJ)

Your Party leader Watanabe Yoshimi made a great show of breaking off election cooperation with the JRP after JRP co-leader Hashimoto Toru's idiotic remarks as regards the sex slaves of the Imperial era and the need for U.S. Marines to frequent Okinawan sexual services establishments. However, despite the acrimonious breakup the two parties largely do not work at cross purposes in eastern Japan, which is Watanabe's region. They do get in each other's way a lot though, in western Japan. The three parties are locked in a death struggle in over a single seat in Chiba, Shizuoka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka prefectures.

The DPJ, despite its severely weakened state, will win a few of these remaining district seats. The Japan Communist Party has also a decent chance, given its strong showing in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections, to win a seat in Tokyo. A tiny number might go to independents and other parties.

If the DPJ can win 5 of the 20 seats and the Communists, other parties and independents win 2, the opposition forces in favor of revision walk away with 13 district seats. When added to the 49 wins by the LDP, the running total is 62.

Which means the LDP, the JRP and Your Party have to win 38 39 seats in the proportional votes to reach the magical 100 seats level.

How realistic is 38 39, out of the total 48 proportional seats up for elections?

(to be continued)

Skilled At Improvisation?

There is a reasonable debate about what the Japan Restoration Party (Nippon Ishin no Kai) represents. For most commentators the JRP is a haven for the detritus that the Liberal Democratic Party coughed up as unpalatable (for the latest on that score - Link). For others it is the vehicle for a refreshing form of anti-politics. This was certainly the view former LiveDoor CEO Horie Takafumi expressed last Wednesday. (Link)

I was firmly in the former camp. After Sunday, I am not so sure.

On Sunday, Your Party candidate for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government assembly Fujii Kaoru was plugging the crowds outside of Hikarigaoka Station in Nerima City. Dressed in a white suit (a trademark, it seems: Fujii is a dentist) she roved back and forth about the plaza, cheerfully seeking out passersby for a mutual bow or a handshake.

By mutual agreement or through mutual antagonism, Fujii had to quit the scene at noon, awkwardly ripping her microphone and headset off her head as she did. For even as she was gamely trying to engage the potential voters (who are, understandably, not terribly interested in the upcoming June 23 assembly election) a young woman with a keyboard and a bass player set up next to her, launching, in their first number, into as swinging a version of Duke Ellington's Satin Doll as one will ever hear.

So what? A Sunday afternoon concert sent the politician packing.

Well, no.

The young woman on the keys, giving the Duke his due and more? She was Matsuoka Rika, the JRP's Nerima candidate for the Tokyo assembly.

How long Matsuoka held court on the plaza, delivering cool jazz to the multitudes on sunny, lazy afternoon, I do not know. All I know is that four and a half hours later, when I came back to the station, she was still playing, calling out "Hello, good people of Nerima Ward. I'm the Nippon Ishin no Kai’s Matsuoka Rika!" every so often -- but letting the music do most of the talking.

Now I have seen my share of campaign stop performances…but this one was one for the history books.

Whether Matsuoka's unorthodox approach to campaigning comes at the encouragement of open-minded JRP executives -- "Go ahead, play. Do what works for you!" -- or out of a personal "Oh, well, what the hell" defiance of the odds, the JRP having fallen, according to Kyodo's latest poll, to fourth place among the parties with 4.8% of the voters supporting it (and to only 1.5% support in the latest NHK poll) -- the result was a refreshing departure from the usual practice of politics here.

That the candidate Matsuoka pounded out of the plaza was the one from the newly arch-enemy Your Party (Link) made the notes sound all the sweeter.


Later - Broken links in the above have been fixed.

Photo: Nippon Ishin no Kai candidate Matsuoka Rika. Nerima City, Tokyo Metropolitan District on June 9, 2013.

Photo courtesy: MTC

Kyodo Poll Results For The First Week Of June 2013 - Am I Up?

Monday saw the release of the results latest Kyodo News poll, conducted on June on 1-2. The numbers reflect the political atmosphere after Japan Restoration Party co-leader Hashimoto Toru's appearance at the Foreign Correspondents' Club but before the weekend talk shows analyzing and passing judgment on said appearance. The numbers in parentheses are the numbers from May 18-19, five days after Hashimoto's disastrous musings about military life and sexuality:

Which party do you support?

LDP 48.1 (48.5)
DPJ 7.0 (5.9)
JRA 4.2 (4.8)
New Komeito 5.2 (3.2)
Your Party 3.6 (4.4)
JCP 2.0 (2.8)
SDP 0.8 (0.5)
People's Life Party 0.5 (0.4)
Green Breeze 0.1 (0.9)
Other political parties, groups 0.2 (0.3)
None of the above 28.3 (28.3)

More important: Which party are you likely to vote for in the House of Councillors proportional vote?

LDP 44.6 (44.4)
DPJ 7.9 (6.8)
JRA 4.5 (5.7)
New Komeito 6.4 (4.4)
Your Party 4.0 (5.2)
JCP 2.6 (3.1)
SDP 0.8 (0.5)
People's Life Party 0.3 (0.3)
Green Breeze 0.1 (0.8)
Other political parties, groups 0.5 (0.4)
D/K+N/A 28.3 (28.4)

Key takeaways

- Time for members of the opposition to start looking for a new job

It is June 4. The Diet session ends on June 26. Prime Minister Abe has no interest in extending the Diet session. This means an election on July 21 (Link - J ). Forty-five percent of the electorate wants to vote for the LDP. The electoral system is designed to perpetuate LDP rule in the single-seat districts and LDP equality in the multi-seat districts even when the LDP is deeply unpopular. The proportional seat distribution is weighted in favor of big parties.

Why are members of the opposition absenting themselves from House of Councillors plenary sessions in order to go out and campaign, earning a tut-tutting from the news media in response? (Link - J)

A will to fight with every gram of one's strength is laudable. However, there comes a point where one should just shrug one's shoulders, finish up what one has been doing (for SIX YEARS - Ed.) and start calling up old friends.

- The damage is done for the JRA

While Hashimoto's comments have severely injured the Japan Restoration Association, the bleeding from the wounds he inflicted has largely stopped. Hashimoto's mendacious and wily defense at the FCCJ press conference may indeed win him and his party a few percentage points of support over the next few weeks.

That said, the JRA has little future as an institution for change. It will be a micro-party in the House of Councillors, meaning that it will have little attraction as a coalition partner for the LDP. In the House of Representatives, its members will be the face of revisionist thuggery, making it a wonderful foil for the LDP, which will appear sane by comparison.

- "Support" clearly does not mean what I thought it means

48.1% of the respondents support the LDP. 44.6% say they will vote for the party in the House of Councillors election. This means 3.5% of the population believes it can go up to an LDP Senator and say, "You know, I support you -- but I sure as heck won't vote for you."

- Where will you go Ozawa Ichiro?

The People's Life Party (Seikatsu no to) leader Ozawa Ichiro called a press conference yesterday, unveiling his party's manifesto for the July election. The news networks covered the announcement as if it were an actual event. (Link -J)

The PLP has six of its eight House of Councillors seats up for reelection. If the party holds onto a single seat, Ozawa should throw a celebratory bash.

One seat will leave Ozawa with three Senators and six Representatives under his authority.

He has been down before -- but never like this.

What a price he (and the country) has paid for his hubris in the fall and winter of 2009-10.

* * *

The really interesting number in the Kyodo poll? Support or not for revision of Article 96, the article mandating a two-thirds majority of all members of both Houses of the Diet for any proposed changes to the Constitution.

Do you agree with a loosening of the requirement for a two-thirds majority to only a simple majority in both Houses of the Diet?

Yes 37.2 (41.5)

No 51.6 (48.6)

Don’t know/Can’t say 11.2 (9.9)

You read that right. 48.1% of the respondents said they are supporters of the LDP and 44.6% said they are ready to vote for the party in July. However, only 37.2% of the respondents were in favor of lowering the bar in order to facilitate (some would say eliminate all restraint on) constitutional revision.

The LDP cannot even get all of its own (self-identified) supporters in line to eliminate the constitution's key bulwark against mob rule. As the shift in the numbers since mid-May indicates, public opinion seems to be moving in favor of retaining Article 96 as is. Any wonder why the talk of revising Article 96 and/or the Constitution has died down to a whisper since Abe Shinzo's coy little little bit of number play* on his ceremonial Yomiuri Giants uniform on May 5 (above image)?

--------------------
* Abe Shinzo is Japan's 96th prime minister. His donning of a uniform with the number 96 on it could have been innocent. However, the PM did nothing to discourage speculation he was broadcasting a message of strong support for revision of Article 96.

Original image courtesy: China.org

The Ruling Coalition Double Dares The Supreme Court

Holding over his head a piece of paper with the words "+0/-5" written on it, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo runs out into a rainstorm saying, "I'll be fine with this!" A flash of light marked "Unconstitutional" zigzags down. In the distance, figures holding umbrellas cry out to the PM, imploring him, "Wait!"

The punning caption: "More than the opinions (iken - 意見) of the opposition, he fears unconstitutionality (iken - 違憲)."]

Yesterday, with a vote that went along party lines, Abe Shinzo and the ruling coalition threw down the gauntlet:

Constituency reform bill gets green light

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill to rezone single-seat constituencies that would reduce the number of lower house seats by five to address vote-value disparities.

The bill is expected to be enacted before the current Diet session ends June 26.

The bill to revise the Public Offices Election Law was passed at a plenary session with a majority support mainly from the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito. Five opposition parties--the Democratic Party of Japan, Your Party, the Japanese Communist Party, the People's Life Party and the Social Democratic Party--voted against it. Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) lawmakers were absent. The bill was then sent to the House of Councillors...

(Link)

The Yomiuri Shimbun is being fastidious with its "(t)he bill is expected to be enacted" phrasing. The LDP and the New Komeito hold a 2/3rds majority in the House of Representatives. The Diet is in session until June 26. If the House of Councillors does not take action on the bill over the next 60 days, the House of Representatives will override the upper house's inaction.

There is, of course, an infinitesimally small chance of the ruling coalition allowing the passage of a rival bill through the House of Councillors, setting up a joint conference of both Houses to craft a compromise bill.

For all intents and purposes, yesterday's bill is the law, unrepentant and unmodified.

Opposition parties tried to get the LDP and the New Komeito to see reason. The opposition boycotted both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors committee sessions examining the new electoral district map, the +0/-5 solution having been declared insufficient by more than one high court judge in March. The opposition parties hoped their show of unity would demonstrate to the ruling coalition parties that whatever may have transpired in the past, the +0/-5 solution was no longer viable.

The boycott ended up being futile and what was worse mystifying, none of the leaders of the opposition managing to make clear what it was that they were trying to do.

After boycotting the committee meetings, almost all the opposition parties returned for the full plenary vote. Only the Japan Restoration Association failed to show up for the defeat.

The Democratic Party of Japan had a decent enough reason for showing up at the massacre. DPJ leaders wanted to demonstrate that the DPJ was not disinterested in the legislation but indeed actively opposed to it. Unfortunately this admirable attempt to clarify the party's stance on electoral district reform got drowned in a cacophony of catcalls. It is just too easy to point out that yesterday the DPJ voted against the bill fleshing out the +0/-5 plan despite having voted for the +0/-5 plan in December (Yes Secretary Kerry, they were for it before they were against it).

By boycotting both the committee and the plenary votes the JRA walks away from the fight with a clean record. When and if the JRA wants to join hands with the LDP, it can excuse itself, saying, "Look, we may not have voted for your odious little electoral district reform bill...but we did not vote against it either."

The new map is unconstitutional, de facto if not de jure. Using the results of the October 2010 national census, districts in the new map have been drafted so that the maximum disproportionality ratio is 1.998. This number is so ridiculously close to the unconstitutional ratio of 2.0 that one suspects the compilers were just trying to finish up and go home. Analyses by various news organizations have found that when one plugs 2013 population figures into the new map there are districts already above the 2.0 limit.

Had the ruling coalition taken the March decisions of the high courts to heart, showing contrition for disproportionality in the 2012 election, and making concerted effort at real reform in 2013, the Supreme Court could tut-tut about the 2012 results but exonerate all with a "Go forth and sin no more" decision later this year. By staying stubborn and selfish, by insisting upon the +0/-5 framework despite its non-resolution of the disproportionality the Supreme Court finds objectionable, the ruling coalition is daring the Supremes to find the 2012 House of Representatives election unconstitutional and invalid.

The justices of the Supreme Court would love to step away from this fight. They may find they cannot if they want to protect the Court's constitutional stature.

A storm is indeed coming...

Source of image: Sankei Shimbun, 19 April 2013
Artist: Yamada Shin
Click on the image for a larger version in a new window.

And In The End The Budget Passes Without Them

On April 9, Osaka City mayor and Japan Restoration Association co-leader Hashimoto Toru presented himself at the Prime Minister's Residence for a meeting with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. During the meeting, the PM asked Hashimoto for JRA support of the Fiscal Year Heisei 25 budget bill.

As I pointed out yesterday morning, this request was superfluous and as such, rather peculiar.

The attempt to win the JRA's support was also, as it turned out, unsuccessful. The bill passed on the  greater-that-two-thirds majority the ruling coalition holds in the House of Representatives. The JRA and all the other opposition parties voted against the bill. (Link - J)

Housekeeping items of note:

1) No matter what the House of Councillors does with the bill -- and given yesterday's vote the chances are good that upper house will reject the bill -- the bill will become law on May 15 (see Article 60, Constitution of Japan).

This is the first time in 17 years that a budget bill will have been sitting in the Diet until May. The last time a budget kicked into gear this late was in 1996, when the Diet and indeed the country was torn asunder over the bailing out of the housing cooperatives (jusen) -- a battle over so little that was so bitter it delayed the much needed and much larger bank bad loan cleanup for half a decade.

No controversy so divisive prevents the Abe Cabinet and the ruling coalition from proceeding according to their needs -- indicating that the Abe II revolution, if that is what we are in, is not so much a movement as a dearth of movement.

2) Rather than seducing Hashimoto and the JRA into joining a winning team, Abe's odd courtship of last week seems to made them more ornery. Yesterday, the JRA joined the Your Party in offering a revised budget bill in plenary session -- the first time any party has tried that maneuver in sixty years. (Link - J)

The House of Representatives voted down the JRA-Your Party revised budget bill as well as Democratic Party of Japan's simple motion for a reconsideration of the budget.

Abe and the LDP can still pin their hopes on anti-liberal forces in the Diet joining hands in revisions of the Constitution. Hashimoto has been making all the right noises about a melding of minds on that score. (Link - J video)

However, Hashimoto's program is one of comprehensive and expansive revision, going after not just Article 96 and Article 9 -- Abe and the LDP's big bugaboos -- but also Article 59 (Hashimoto wants a unicameral legislature or at least a change of the 2/3rds majority requirement for a House of Representatives override - Link - J) and most if not all of Chapter VIII ("Local Self Government"). (Link - J)

Hashimoto tends to be a "my way or the highway" absolutist, making the prospects for LDP-JRA cooperation dim even after the dust clears following this summer's House of Councillors elections. A fragile Ishihara Shintaro (yesterday a Diet staffer helped guide Ishihara's hand toward the right ballot collector) will likely not be much of a restraint on Hashimoto's uncompromising love of the totality of his own ideas.

Popularity Of Constitutional Revision, As A Concept

One of the reliable, longtime "Yes...but" caveats has been that while Japan's politicians, particular the Diet members of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Restoration Association, are essentially unanimous in their desire for revisions of the Constitution, the general populace does not share their enthusiasm.

Last week's public opinion polls seem to drive a spike into this chestnut. While the data still finds that the general public is not as enthusiastic about constitutional reform as the denizens of the Diet, a clear majority of respondents would still like to the election of a House of Councillors where more than two-thirds of the seats are held by pro-revision Senators -- 2/3rds majority in that House being the only real road block to constitutional revision.

The Kyodo News poll of March 30-31 had the following question and answers:

Currently, in the House of Representatives, 2 out of 3 members wish to revise the Constitution. In reality, in order to initiate a revision of the Constitution, 2/3rds majorities are necessary in both Houses of the Diet. What do you think would be the best outcome for the House of Councillors election?

That 2 out 3 members of the House of Councillors are in favor of constitutional revision
65.1%

That the number of members of the Councillors in favor of constitutional revision be less than 2 out of 3
27.4%

Don't know/Don't care
7.5%

In the NHK News poll April 4-5(Link – J video) the question is and answers are:

In the results of the House of Councillors election taking place this summer, would you find it desirable or undesirable that political forces in favor of constitutional revision come out holding 2 out of 3 seats?

Desirable 20%

If I had to choose, I would say desirable 37%

If I had to choose, I would say undesirable 20%

Undesirable 12%

The public opinion polls will likely be revisiting this question. A rephrasing of the question may shift a few percentage points in either direction -- but probably not by much in the negative direction.

In the aggregate, a clear majority of the electorate is ready, or at least wants the House of Councillors ready, to revise the Constitution.

As to what about the Constitution the voters want to change most, that question is largely left up in the air. The NHK polls does find that voters have not been convinced by the Abe-led LDP's hard sell of a revision of Article 96, the article that mandates revision by 2/3rds majorities in both Houses and a majority in a national referendum:

As regards constitutional revision, Article 96 requires first of all that over 2/3rds of the members of both the House of Representatives and House of Councillors be in favor of a revision. Are you in favor of a lowering of the threshold for constitutional revision, such as is proposed by Prime Minister Abe?

In favor 28%

Opposed 24%

Cannot say either way 42%

That big undecided chunk of voters means real opportunities for political entrepreneurs to ply their trade over the next few months.

Kaieda Banri's Chanting For Inner Peace

You may have missed this little tidbit from the tail end of last week -- but Democratic Party of Japan leader Kaieda Banri revealed at a press conference that he chants sutras to quell his anger, such as the rage he felt at Hirano Tatsuo’s defection. (Link – J)

As a general principle, there is nothing wrong with revealing one engages in religious practice as a means of handling stress. However, one has to choose the right venue. Had Kaieda told a gathering of the Japan Buddhist Federation of his chanting, both believers and non-believers could accept the revelation. Believers could take heart in Kaieda's confession of need and his subsequent sense of deliverance while non-believers could say, “Oh c'mon...Kaieda is just fishing for Buddhist votes."

By talking about his religious practice at a general press conference, Kaieda leaves no space for the cynics to breathe. They have to take him seriously...and Amaterasu knows they do not want to.

I agree with those who argue that Kaieda is in a difficult position, hemmed in between a largely hostile news media, a fashionably irresponsible Liberal Democratic Party, the crazies and flunkies of the Japan Renewal Association and the DPJ’s own cohort of DINOs who acquiesced to Kaieda's election as party leader only because a) they themselves ran the party into the ground in 2012 and b) Kaieda will have to resign after the party gets wiped out in the House of Councillors election this summer.

That being said, Kaieda does himself and the DPJ no favors. He simply seems unaware of how his behavior is seen by a mocking press, his peers and the public.

However, for writers in need of a cheesy opening to a story about the downfall of the DPJ -- "They thought that the party didn’t have a prayer...but boy were they ever wrong!" – Kaieda is a godsend.

[Cue the starts-out-with-sweet-but-slightly-embarrassing-sincerity-ends-in-Spike-Milligan devotional music from George Harrison.]

Landslide In The Making

From Kyodo's latest public opinion poll:

Which party or candidate from which party will you be voting for in this summer's House of Councillors election?
(all numbers are %)

LDP 48.2
DPJ 6.7
JRP 10.4
New Komeito 3.9
Your Party 4.5
Communist 3.2
SDP 1.6
Livelihood 0.5
Green Breeze 0.4
Other party 1.3
No preference 19.2

T'is a funky question, since the two ballots choices are separate -- one for a prefectural district candidate, one for a party in the proportional seat vote.

Still, the numbers are daunting for any of the opposition parties. Simply put, unless there are district spaces set asides, such as the Liberal Democratic Party may do for its ally the New Komeito, the LDP could basically win all the district seats and two-thirds of the proportional seats.

Perversely, the 48.2% of voters who say they are voting for an LDP candidate in July is lower than the party allegiance numbers. In this latest poll 50.6% of respondents identified themselves as LDP supporters.

Try to figure that one out, over coffee, preferably.

The Second Coming Of Abe Cabinet - The First Opinion Polls

Go figure:

Do you support/not support the Second Cabinet of Abe Shinzo?

Kyodo [Dec 26-27]

Support 62%
Do not support 22%
Don't know/no response 16%

The Asahi Shimbun [Dec 26-27]

Support 59%
Do not support 24%

Mainichi Shimbun [Dec 26-27]

Support 52%
Do not support 26%
No feeling 21%

The Kyodo finding of a 62% support rate is stunning, with The Asahi Shimbun result in the same neighborhood. We will have to see if later polls, when the electorate will have a better sense of just who is in the Cabinet and how radical the New Paradigm Liberal Democratic Party is, will be closer to the Kyodo or the Mainichi findings.

If the 60% level holds, the Abe Cabinet will be starting out with a level of support commensurate with the best of support levels of the six Cabinets preceding it – a remarkable outcome, given the small percentage of the electorate that voted for the Liberal Democratic Party and its candidates on December 16.

Just why the people support the Cabinet tells an interesting tale of salesmanship, voting strength in the Diet and voter desperation.

Why do you support the Cabinet? [Top four answers]

Kyodo

Hope for measures spurring the economy 30%
Nobody else is appropriate 27%
I believe in the prime minister 11%
Is an LDP-New Komeito government 10%

The Asahi Shimbun

Is able to enact policies 30%
Is an LDP cabinet 25%
My reason is indescribable (nan to naku) 18%
Abe is prime minister 17%

As for party loyalties, a noticeable shift has occurred toward some of the top performers of the December 16 election.

Which party do you support? [Results of Dec 17-18 poll in ( )]

Kyodo

LDP 34% (30%)
DPJ 13% (8%)
Restoration 13% (17%)
New Komeito 5% (4%)
Your Party 6 (6%)
Future 2% (3%)
JCP 4% (2%)
SDP 1% (1%)

None 25% (22%)

The Asahi Shimbun

LDP 36% (31%)
DPJ 9% (11%)
Restoration 8% (9%)
New Komeito 2% (3%)
New Party 6% (3%)
Future 2% (2%)
JCP 2% (2%)
SDP 1% (1%)

None 29% (29%)

The odd persons out from the story are the Japan Restoration Party (Association) and the New Komeito. New Komeito voters hiding their true numbers is nothing new. However, the decay in the popularity of the JRP(A) is surprising. The party did, after all finish second in the party proportional section of the ballot, burying the third place Democratic Party of Japan 12.2 million votes to 9.6 million votes. The Mainichi finds support for the JRP rising – but it is as compared to a poll from a month ago, so the results may not be comparable with the Kyodo and Asahi Shimbun findings.

The depth of the hole the DPJ has dug for itself can be grasped from the responses to the questions about expectations for the party and its newly elected leader, Kaieda Banri:

Do you expect anything from the election of Kaieda Banri as the head of the DPJ?

Kyodo

Have expectations 36%
Have no expectations 54%
Don’t know/no response 9%


The Asahi Shimbun

Have expectations 29%
Have no expectations 61%


Do you have any expectations of the rebuilding of the DPJ?

Mainichi Shimbun

Have expectations 29%
Have no expectations 64%


Sources:

Kyodo
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/News/Sp201212280052.html

The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/1227/TKY201212270894.html

Mainichi Shimbun
http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20121228k0000m010068000c.html

Where The Crazies Are

In the weekly The Tokyo Diplomat (subscription service) Michael Penn points out that fretting over Abe Shinzo's provocative foreign policy and economic prescriptions ignores the other elephant in the room: the return or accession to the Diet, via the protest and regional pride vote for the Japan Restoration Association, of a coterie of radical revisionists too hard line for even for the Liberal Democratic Party.

Ishihara Shintaro
Nishimura Shingo
Yamada Hiroshi
Nakayama Nariaki

Add to the above the Democratic Party of Japan's Matsubara Jin, returned to the Diet via his double listing on the proportional list and a close second-place finish to Ishihara's "other son" Hirotaka (What the blazes is going on in Tokyo District #3?) and you have as fine a bag of nuts as can be acquired at Yuletide.

Once the presidential contest in South Korea ends, the South Korean news media will turn their gaze upon the incoming Diet.

Ignition. Combustion. Explosion.

Janne Morén, in one of his sadly too infrequent posts on politics, this week expressed concern that the arithmetic of Japanese elections, where a party can win 61% of the seats in the House of Representatives with the support of less than 25% of the electorate in the district vote and 16% of the electorate in the proportional vote, means that "a populist, far-right xenophobic party could well capitalise on the same political weakness." (Link)

Herr Morén, your fear has already been realized.

Final Tally

The seat totals in the House of Representatives, as confirmed by national broadcaster NHK at 5:04 a.m.

Oops! I Did It Again 294
New Sentinel 31

Deservedly Chastized 57
You're Scaring Me 54
Politics Is So Icky 18
No Future 9
Cash Burn 8
Left Behind 2
Post Office Players 1
Great White North 1
Anonymous #1 0
Anonymous #2 0

Independents 5

Key points:

- The OIDIA and NS have a supermajority of 325 seats. They can ignore the House of Councillors in all matters except appointments. This is a great gift; it is also a great burden. Given the power to deliver on domestic and international promises, the alliance has to produce results.

- 10 million voters who had participated in the last two House of Representatives elections stayed away from the polls this time. The result was the lowest voter turnout for a general election in the postwar era.

Kyodo Annoys With Incomplete Polling Results

Latest polling data:

Kyodo Trend Poll conducted Dec 12-13 (Dec 8-9 responses)

Who will you vote for in the proportional seat vote?

LDP 23% (21%)
DPJ 11% (10%)
JRP 10% (10%)*

Who is more appropriate as prime minister, Abe Shinzo or Noda Yoshihiko?

Abe 34%
Noda 29%

(Link)


Kyodo News poll of Dec 11-12 (reading on Dec 4-5)

Have not yet decided upon a district candidate

43% (56%)

Have not decided upon a party in the proportional vote

40% (48%)

Cheesily or cheekily, Kyodo is playing around with newshounds, releasing its polling results only in disparate bites. The news service is predicting that the LDP and the New Komeito will win enough seats for a supermajority in the House of Representatives. However, Kyodo has offered no hint as to its methodology or its assumptions in its calculations. What are we to make of the lack of releases of the Don't Know numbers for the party votes or the "neither of them" number for the two front runners in the non-existent popular vote for the prime minister?

What we can say is that more voters have made their decisions as to candidates and parties. Funny how the numbers for the top three parties account for only 3 points of the purported 10 point drop in the number of undecided.

Give us all the numbers Kyodo!

-------------------------------------

* The party name translates as "Japan Restoration Association." However, the convention has become to call it the Japan Restoration Party, possibly to avoid confusion with the Japan Racing Association.

Fear And Loathing In The Polls

A new, probably final set of polls are out, indicating that after 3 weeks of gadding about in the hinterlands and in the big cities, the political situation is just about where it was when this whole rigmarole started.

1) Proportional seat voting

From out of the archives, a Kyodo poll of June 26-27 on the choices of the voters as regards the House of Representatives proportional party election:

DPJ 13%
LDP 22%
Osaka Ishin no kai 13%
Your Party 4%
JCP 3%
New Komeito 3%
Other parties 2%

Don't know/don't care 37%

Now the results of The Asahi Shimbun poll of December 8-9:

DPJ 14%
LDP 22%
Nippon Ishin no kai 8%
Your Party 2%
JCP 4%
New Komeito 5%
Tomorrow Party 2%
Other parties 3%

Don't know/don't care 40%

Yep, six months on, and we have gotten exactly nowhere.

2) Voter priorities

More interesting than the party proportional vote are responses to the question, "What is the issue you think most important?" from the latest NHK poll (December 7-9):

Economic measures 33%
Social welfare and pension reform 22%
Energy policy (including nuclear) 11%
Administrative reform 9%
Recovery from the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami 8%
Foreign policy 6%

A few notes:

- While the parties are full of ideas regarding stimulating the economy out of recession and stagnation, most of them unorthodox, one hears little about stabilization of the pension system. Too hard to tackle?

- What explains the eternal presence of the popularity of administrative reform (gyosei kaikaku) in the top five? Resentment of local government public servants leaving their offices at 5:05 pm every day, receiving their huge retirement bonuses and government-guaranteed pensions, all from out of the pockets of the tax payers?

- Looking at the last two numbers, can we put to rest the just-so stories of the election's being in part a referendum on the DPJ's response to the Tohoku disaster and Japan's turning right in response to a growing sense of Japan's security being threatened from all sides?

3) Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko

The basic strategy of the DPJ is sound--let the electorate take a tour of the policy prescriptions and personalities of the other parties. In comparison, the DPJ seems an island of sanity.

However, it seems the voters have a deep mistrust/dislike of the prime minister.

NHK

Do you support the Noda Cabinet? (figure from a week ago)

Support 20% (21%)
Do Not Support 64% (62%)

Between Noda and LDP president Abe Shinzo, which is the appropriate person to be prime minister?

Noda 19%
Abe 28%
Neither of them 47%

The Asahi Shimbun

Do you support the Noda Cabinet? (figure from a week ago)

Support 21% (20%)
Do Not Support 61% (59%)

The above indicates we have the basis for a deal here. If the good citizens of Chiba District #4 can promise the rest of the country they will unseat Noda, the rest of the country can vote for the DPJ candidates and for the DPJ in the proportional bloc elections, secure in the knowledge they would not be empowering the DPJ's duplicitous Undear Leader.


Sources:

NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20121210/k10014092741000.html

The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/1210/TKY201212100247.html

China Acts Out Of Self-Interest

The news today has reports that the DPRK rocket test has been postponed (Link). This makes last week's hysterical full deployment of the Self Defense Forces anti-missile capacity (Link) a very nice, robust rehearsal for an actual crisis.

There were important technical arguments for the DPRK scientists not attempting to launch a large, liquid fuel rocket from an outdoor pad in mid-December.

It seems, however, that the DPRK's decision was political rather than technical. Consider this remarkable statement from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs' December 6 press conference:

Q: The DPRK has completed the installation of its rocket and is likely to launch a satellite next week. What is China's comment?

A: The Chinese side has made clear its position several times on the DPRK's plan to launch a satellite. As a sovereign country, the DPRK has the right of peaceful use of the outer space. However, given the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the restrictions of relevant UN Security Council resolutions, the Chinese side hopes that the DPRK could act prudently with the larger interests of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula in mind. We also hope that other parties to the Six-Party Talks can take a long-term and calm approach and avoid taking actions that may further escalate the situation.

(Link)

Translated into plain speech, that would come out:

"We maintain that the DPRK has the sovereign right to shoot off rockets until, of course, it should ever try to exercise that right. As for you other participants in the Six-Party talks, you owe us for this, big time."

I hope that despite the election-enervated state of this blessed land, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sends the Chinese Embassy a nice bouquet, a big box of Belgian chocolates or a culturally sensitive equivalent.

As for how this turn of developments will play out on the campaign trail, I do not think it likely that either Liberal Democratic Party president Abe Shinzo, Japan Restoration Association leader Ishihara Shintaro or Democratic Party of Japan leader Noda Yoshihiko will be yelling, "Hey! Thank you, China!" to the crowds.

I do not think the PRC government expects them to do so either.

A hat tip to Chris Nelson for pointing out the relevant passage in Hong Lei's press conference.

Us And Them

"Although I have made this blog one of my daily reads, I still do not quite understand the purpose of some of the points you make.

What is the purpose of this post, other than to troll?"

- Anonymous commenter to "Eleven Party Leaders: By This My Hand Revealed"

A journalist once told me, "There is only way to look at politicians...and that is down."

Such a view puts one in a perilous position. One is likely to fall and hit the ground hard.

However, the journalist's quip does point somewhat in the right direction: when dealing with politicians, one should certainly not look up. Keeping the subject at a level with oneself is safest. If a politician in his or her insecurity finds equal treatment demeaning, that is his or her problem, not the critical viewer's.

An individual's pursuit of a position of power in a free and democratic society carries with it an implicit bargain: in order to be respected by the people, the power-seeker must be respectful of the people. He or she cannot just do or say whatever he or she wants, expecting the people to nod and bow in respect for the office or the seriousness of the issues.

If this election is any way historic, it is in the depth and height of the violations of the implicit bargain the political classes have with the populace. Never before have politicians treated the voters with greater contempt, thinking them stupid and easily swayed by slogans. Never before have the politicians offered a greater amount of policy choice without policy substance.

As Michael Penn and Okumura Jun have pointed out, the only political alliance with a sensible partner in it and a certain majority in both Houses of the Diet is a Liberal Democratic Party/Democratic Party of Japan coalition. Nevertheless these two parties are ripping each other to shreds on the campaign trail, diminishing the popularity of both and making their joining hands post-election improbable. Even if the politicians agree amongst themselves to put the election campaign behind them, the poisonous atmosphere they have created will make it difficult for the public to accept LDP-DPJ collaboration.

The chances of a workable government emerging out of the December 16 election are further clouded by the imminence of the 2013 House of Councillors elections. Even if a government with even a smattering of commonality in between its variegate parts emerges from out of the mess left on December 17, the clock immediately begin ticking for the start of the campaign for the July 2013 election.

When do the parts opt out of cooperation -- with the passage of the budget and its enabling legislation? That would be what, April?

All of the above would be bearable if there were, amongst the leaders of all the various parties, a single person with whom one could trust with the premiership. When a duplicitous serpent with funny ideas about the sex slaves of the Imperial Forces is the best of the bunch, however, one has to wonder why bother voting.

Which brings up the non-existent problem of the undecided voters. In elections held in democratic countries, the undecided voter is usually the idiot voter – a person who either does not know what he/she wants or has been too lazy to find out which party or politician promises what he/she wants.

In this election, with the party manifestos having been compiled in a rush and not one leader with a shred of credibility, being undecided with two weeks to go is a mark of distinction, not failure. A person who is aware of the issues and in possession of a modicum of intelligence should be asking, “How can I vote for any of these clowns and superannuated children?”

And they are asking, if the senryu (topical comic verse) submitted to and published by my hometown rag are guides:

出馬せず
出馬するより
喜ばれ

Shutsuba sezu
Shutsuba sure yori
Yorokobare

Not running for office
More than running for office
Brings joy

前貼った
ポスター今日も
貼り直し

Mae hatta
Posuta kyo mo
Hari naoshi

I pasted up just now
The poster that
I have to replace

公約は
ちゃんぽん候補者
じゃんけんぽん

Koyaku wa
Champon kohosha
Jankenpon

The manifesto
A plate of chopped up vegetables—candidates
Decided by “Rock, Paper, Scissors”

The first senryu needs no explanation. The second is a reference to the bewildering formation and merging of parties which has now, with today's opening of the official election season, come to a merciful, if temporary, close.

The last one plays on the rhyme words champon -- which is a dish of soup stock and chopped up vegetables, used as derogatory metaphor for all kinds of things that do not belong together all mixed up and piled on top of one another (such as champon nihongo – Japanese that is a mix of traditional words and pretentious loan words) – and jankenpon, the name for the hand game "rock, paper scissors." This latter word is a reference to Japan Restoration Association leader Hashimoto Toru's infamous offer to Your Party leader Watanabe Yoshimi to come to a decision on which of their candidates will run in a district by the two of them playing "rock, paper, scissors."

The ultimate message of the last poem is clear: we will begin to take you seriously when you begin to take us seriously.

Later - This post has been edited to fix a kanji error at the suggestion of a reader.

Going Down In Flames

A little less than two weeks ago, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko decided to cut short the debate on the bond issuance and the electoral reform bills, accepting from the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito the votes for the bond issuance bill they had already agreed to give him. In return, he gave away a one-in-a-decade chance to reform the electoral districts, forcing his party to contest the election in LDP-designed districts. He also received the verbal promises that the LDP would be serious about the advisory commission on welfare and pension reforms and the submission in the regular Diet session of a bill cutting the number of Diet members.

The wisdom of this decidedly unbalanced exchange has yet to manifest itself.

This morning'g public opinion poll results are dismal for the prime minister and his party. Despite the public's having had two weeks to think seriously about the horror of a second Abe premiership -- bolstered by the release of an LDP manifesto showing that the "Friends of Shinzo" have learned exactly nothing in the five years since their being hoisted from power -- a flow from the LDP to the Democratic Party of Japan is nowhere in sight.

For the all important "Which party do you intend to vote for in the proportional bloc half of the ballot? question, the reported results of this weekend's polling and the results from a week ago are:

Kyodo

LDP 19% (24%)
DPJ 8% (11%)
JRA 10% (8%)*
New Komeito 4% (4%)
Your Party 3% (2%)
People's Life First 2% (1%)
Don't know 45% (43%)


The Asahi Shimbun

LDP 23% (22%)
DPJ 13% (15%)
JRA 9% (6%)
New Komeito 4% (4%)
Your Party 3% (1%)
People's Life First 2% (0%)
Don't know 41% (46%)


Yomiuri Shimbun

LDP 25% (26%)
DPJ 10% (13%)
JRA 14% (13%)*
New Komeito 6% (4%)
Your Party 2% (2%)
People's Life First 2% (2%)

The results are a big pick-me-up for the Japan Restoration Association. We shall see if Hashimoto Toru's indelicate unveiling of his unserious approach to politics -- suggesting to the Your Party's Watanabe Yoshimi that districts where the JRA and the Your Party are both hoping to run candidates be divvied up by the two of them competing in "Rock, Paper, Scissors" -- represents a lasting hiccup or just another Monday morning's tempest in a coffee mug.

The poll numbers are a mixed bag for the LDP. It still has its on its two-to-one edge in most surveys but dropped by 5 points week-on-week in the Kyodo poll.

However, it is the chins of DPJ Diet seat holders that will be sunken today. A negative trend is visible across the board, bolstering the veracity of anecdotal accounts of DPJ big wheels speaking before tiny, unenthusiastic crowds.

Of course, these national trend polls mask significant variation in the regional bloc numbers. The DPJ remains viable in the Northern Kanto Bloc and to a lesser extent the Tohoku Region. The LDP dominates in the Southern Kanto, Joetsu, Tokai, Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu regions. The JRA is powerhouse in the making in the Kinki Region, while remaining a decidedly minor force inside Tokyo (no surprises there).

There is still no consensus as to just what the prime minister thought he was doing when he challenged Abe Shinzo two weeks ago during party leader Debate Time. For those inclined toward conspiracy theory, Noda, sick of the leftist and anti-free trade elements in the DPJ, called the election so that the center left would be erased in a rightward wave. Equally plausible is the assertion that Noda, like Abe in 2007, had a mistaken faith in the voters' appreciating his policies. The calling of the election was thus a simple miscalculation, a dooming of the DPJ to death from policy wonkery.

I am partial to both explanations.


Later - No, I do not believe the "just so" story that Prime Minister Noda called the election in order to short-circuit a party revolt against his leadership whilst he was away attending the ASEAN summit. Noda is not an African potentate, for Amaterasu's sake.

------------------------------------

* Totals for Japan Restoration Association are sum of JRA and Party of the Sun for November 17-18 surveys

--------------------------------------

Sources:

Kyodo poll:

Tokyo Shimbun of 26 November 2012

The Asahi Shimbun poll:

http://www.asahi.compolitics/update/1125/TKY201211250550.html

Yomiuri Shimbun poll:

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/feature/fe6100/koumoku/20121126.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/feature/fe6100/koumoku/20121118.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/feature/20080116-907457/news/20121125-OYT1T00993.htm

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Holidays in this blessed land and the United States are arguments against posting.

However, a while back -- a very long while back -- I wrote a post on House of Representatives member Kobayashi Koki's departure from the Democratic Party of Japan. I was unkind toward the little-known (well, outside of this blessed land, at least) legislator. I wrote in conclusion:

So long you Tokyo University Faculty of Law graduate, former Ministry of International Trade and Industry bureaucrat, former Liberal Democratic Party district seat holder, expelled from the LDP by Koizumi Jun'ichiro for opposing postal reform and stripped of your seat by Koike Yuriko, only to be returned to the House of Representatives as a proportional list seat winner for the DPJ -- you will most certainly not be missed.

A commenter asked for a rationale for my vehemence:

huh?

opposing postal system "reform" and the consumption tax hike on the middle class doesn't seem to be worthy of such animus.

what am I missing?

I admit, calling Kobayashi "one of the total wastes of human skin Ozawa Ichiro brought into the Democratic Party of Japan for possibly no reason other than to make himself look better" seems an inordinate investment of invective for someone who is a minor character -- and not a particularly nasty one, either.

However, Kobayashi, the uncrowned king of the retreads, is the gift that keeps on giving, back in the tiny print for his boundless opportunism.

Kobayashi, a proportional seat holder -- i.e., someone who has a seat because of his party, not himself -- defected from the DPJ in August, ostensibly in opposition to the bill raising the consumption tax -- a vote that took place in the House of Representatives in June. Kobayashi quickly started a political cohabitation with Kawamura Takashi's Tax Reduction Japan (Genzei Nippon) proto-party -- helping the Nagoya mayor and irrepressible buffoon in gathering under one umbrella the five Diet members he needed for TRJ to register as a party eligible to run candidates in the proportional seat races (Link).

Earlier this week the anti-tax Kawamura went a-courting Hashimoto Toru's Japan Restoration Association, a party which advocates a raising of the consumption tax to 11% -- a wooing that earned Kawamura a scornful tongue-lashing from Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko all the way from Phnom Penh.

Kawamura went away not only empty-handed, but minus Kobayashi, who dropped off his letter of resignation from TRJ. Kobayashi had taken a gander at the JRA and decided he wanted a piece of Hashimoto's action.

Kawamura, bereft of a fifth former Diet member for TRJ, went running yesterday into the arms of Anti-TPP, the anti-nuclear power/anti-Trans Pacific Partnership proto-party of Diet pinup boys Kamei "Pavarotti" Shizuka and Yamada "Mr. No To Everything" Masahiko. The trio agreed to a merger, giving their new party the catchy moniker of the "Tax Reduction Japan - Anti-TPP - Withdraw From Nuclear Power Party" (Genzei Nippon - Han TPP - Datsugenpatsuto).

Anti-TPP, which Kamei and Yamada founded on November 19, sets the new gold standard for party lifetimes. It bests the record set by Ishihara Shintaro's Party of the Sun, which, by lasting 4 1/2 days before merging with Hashimoto's JRA, had set a seemingly unbreakable record for brevity of a party's earthly existence. (Link)

Getting back to Kobayashi, it turns out that he did not, prior to handing in his letter of resignation from TRJ, actually talk to anyone at JRA about his joining that party. Lo and behold, when asked about Kobayashi's desire to switch parties, JRA party secretary-general Matsui Ichiro replied, "We have not discussed it. And we are not going to."

Zing!

Cue Kobayashi returning, hat in hand, to TRJ. Asked about Kobayashi's letter of resignation, Kawamura replies, "I am going to hang on to it." (Link - J)

As I admitted, Kobayashi is not an enemy of the people. However, he is, despite his education and training, a raging mediocrity, a lurid illustration of how badly led and cheated -- a member of the House of Representatives costing the taxpayers, in total, about 100 million yen per year -- the good citizens have been.

Later - Reviewed some of my previous posts on Kobayashi. I had forgotten all about the Paul McCartney montage.

Ah, the Koizumi years...

Hatoyama Steps Down In Anger

A long, long time ago I listened to a rambling lecture by a famed professor of African Studies. Almost nothing remains of that lecture (my notes vanished long ago). I cannot even remember the name of the course.

All has evaporated save one phrase. The professor had interviewed insurgents who had fought the British colonial establisment in the Mau Mau Rebellion. He had asked them what they had thought they were doing, killing so many of their own. "We were just purifying the tribe," one informant responded.*

Noda Yoshihiko has been peacefully Mau Mauing the Democratic Party of Japan, purifying it of its anti-market liberalization, anti-contractionary policy dissidents. Yesterday the purification drive bagged its biggest target yet: former Prime Minister and DPJ co-founder Hatoyama Yukio.

Out of preening arrogance and an inability to sense a change in the political winds, Hatoyama had expected to run as a dissident. The second-generation DPJ leaders currently in control of the party told him that there was no way they could allow him to run as a non-adherent to the party's platform. They insisted that he, just all the other candidates, keep a pledge to the party manifesto ("How about you? Do you promise to follow the party manifesto for as long as your term lasts?" would be a proper smart-aleck response).

Hatoyama has balked. His former political secretary Nakayama Tomoyasu (Link – J) a DPJ member of the Hokkaido Prefectural Assembly, denounced the DPJ leadership's enforcement of a loyalty oath, saying:

When was it that the DPJ turned to the politics of terror? It is normal that a person cannot not become a candidate, when confronted with a fumie-like request. (Link – J)

Calling something a fumie is a provocation of the first order. The practice of ferreting out Christians during the Edo Period by having suspected believers step on images of Christ or the Virgin (or both, as is the case of the Pietà fumie above) is code for the worst sort of repression of freedom of conscience -- the Meiji to Early Showa Eras' ferreting out of Communists, Socialists, Sokka Gakkai and other unapproved religious organization believers being still largely off-limits as a source of political metaphors for oppression (though "just like the Kempeitai" seems to be an acceptable construction).

Expect Nakayama and the DPJ to part ways soon.

The departure of Hatoyama Yukio was not inevitable, of course. He had founded the party with Kan Naoto in 1996. It was his money and the money from his mother, heiress to the Bridgestone Tire fortune, which had bankrolled the party in its early years and kept the wheels greased until the party's big electoral win in 2009.

If Hatoyama had kept his mouth shut, signed the pledge, only to repudiate it after the election, he would have had seniority and history backing up his wish to have a say in the selection process of Noda Yoshihiko's successor.

Indeed, waiting to pick up the pieces after an electoral wipeout seems to be Kan's strategy. Having indicated that he did not support an early dissolution of the Diet prior to Noda's taking the plunge during the Diet Party Leader debate, Kan has remained out of sight and out of hearing.

Hatoyama has sworn he will not run for reelection (Link – J). Given his record, chance are good that he will reverse himself in a few days' time, saying that he cannot not abandon his political support group (koenkai).

Prime Minister Noda's rapid fire announcements of a DPJ commitment to Japan's entering into negotiations for accession into the Trans Pacific Partnership and a Diet dissolution without the DPJ winning a deal on electoral reform has driven out prominent dissidents like Yamada Masahiko (Link – J and Ozawa Sakihito (Link – J).

The departure of a double handful of lawmakers from the DPJ since the TPP announcement has dropped the DPJ-People's New Party alliance below the 50% mark in the House of Representatives even before the expected electoral drubbing. It has also destroyed, as the Nakayama Tomoyasu quote above indicates, the image of the DPJ as the big tent party of the center-left, an electoral counterweight to the big center-right tent of the LDP.

"Purifying the tribe" – forcing out those who would oppose the leadership's sharpening of the DPJ’s policy message – may bear electoral fruit, especially as LDP leader Abe Shinzo flounders in his defenses of his party's promises (Link). Though the final LDP manifesto has yet to be uploaded to the party’s website, the details that have leaked out so far are sure to be sending shivers up the spines of voters (See the first footnote to Corey Wallace's post on the Japan Restoration Association/Party of the Sun merger agreement -- Link).

With the dissidents gone, Noda can offer a believable pro-market liberalization/strong defense/reinforced social safety net policy platform in contrast to an unrealistic (and lengthy) LDP wish list.

Noda has another reason why he should choose unity of message over unity of party: the House of Councillors. As Shingetsu News Agency head Michael Penn pointed out in his Monday report to clients, in response to my predictions of a post-election LDP-Third Pole tie-up:

In a 242-member chamber, it takes 122 seats to pass legislation...On their own, the LDP and New Komeito, even should they win big with a majority in the House of Representatives, will still be a minority of roughly 103 seats in the House of Councillors.

If they tie up with the "Third Pole"—including both the JRP and Your Party—they would reach the agonizing number of 121 seats, meaning that they would still need to cobble together some support from a microparty like New Party Daichi or Green Wind in order to pass legislation. **

Noda has most likely been looking at this arithmetic and concluded that the LDP will have to come knocking at the DPJ's door. Having a unified party will strengthen his hand (or the hand of a successor, should DPJ losses be so great that Noda’s position becomes untenable) in negotiations with the LDP over a common policy program. LDP Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru confirmed yesterday that his party's plan is to work with the DPJ for at least the first few months of next year, until the run-up to the House of Councillors election ends their collaboration (Link – J -- this link comes courtesy Michael Penn)***.

The math is indisputable. It is not clear, however, that the LDP has the flexibility to enjoy a temporary dalliance with the DPJ. True, the parties post-Noda announcements and post-resignations are close in terms of core policies – if one ignores, of course, what the crazies seem to have produced as an LDP election manifesto. An NHK poll over the weekend furthermore found that of all the post-election arrangements, an LDP-DPJ grand coalition was the most popular choice (Link - J). Nevertheless, it would seem easier for the LDP leadership to explain a hook up with a plethora of mini- and micro-parties and independents than the party's choosing its primary rival as a partner.

What the voters think of all these expulsions and extended hands depends a lot on the messenger -- and this election is notable for the lack of a single likable party leader.


Later - A more discombobulated view of the above, from the Yomiuri Shimbun, coincidentally using the same language. (Link)

Even later - Hatoyama has had a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Noda announcing his retirement from politics. (Link - J)

We are being asked to believe that the two spoke thusly to each other:

Hatoyama - "At the end of a long process of reflection, I have decided to not be a candidate in the upcoming election. I wish to withdraw from the political world and begin my walk through the third stage of life."

Noda - "I wish to express my heartfelt thanks for the numerous contributions you have made."

I would prefer to believe that the pair reenacted Art Buchwald's version of the note exchange in between JFK's French White House chef René Verdon and President Lyndon Baines Johnson:

Verdon - Mr. President, I am leaving (Je m'en vais).

LBJ - I am so sorry to hear this (Je m'en fous).


------------------------------

* The "purification" did nothing for the Mau Mau in terms of winning themselves or their sympathizers power in post-colonial Kenya. Even though the first president Jomo Kenyatta had been falsely accused and tried for being a leader of the Mau Mau, his government was comprised largely of persons who had collaborated with the British authorities. A ban on public discussion of the Mau Mau in Kenya remained in place until 2003.

** Since New Party Daichi and Green Breeze (Midori no Kaze) are left-wing micro-parties, Penn is being facetious.

*** As predicted Ishiba and Abe have been talking at cross-purposes. We shall see how long it is before Abe offers a revised version of Ishiba's statement as regards a grand coalition.

Image courtesy: Kyushu National Museum (Kyushu Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan)

Thoughts On The Post-Election Landscape

While there is much talk of the Liberal Democratic Party winning the next election and Abe Shinzo becoming the next prime minister, one should be keep in mind what "winning" will likely mean. If the "Third Pole" parties agree on a significant degree of coordination -- and a sufficient number of voters turn up at the polls (and that is a big "If") -- the results on election day will have the LDP and its ally the New Komeito winning under 50% of the seats in the House of Representatives. In order for Abe to win election to the premiership, and for the government to have a working majority in the House of Representatives, he and his party will have to form a coalition with either the rump Democratic Party of Japan, led by....someone not named Noda Yoshihiko, or the Third Pole forces not being led by Hashimoto Toru, who, while being the Third Pole's most legitimate and charismatic leader, has declared he is not leaving the Osaka City mayor's office. Since this election is ostensibly a referendum on three years of DPJ rule, the LDP and Abe could not endure the public and party faithful scorn at an alliance with the DPJ. Abe would begin his premiership under a cloud and low popularity ratings, with nowhere to go but down.

The basic working assumption then is that an LDP-New Komeito-Third Pole coalition will be in nominal charge of the country as of December 17 -- nominal because the negotiations on a common policy program are likely to be protracted. A person wishing to offer a guess as to the plan of action for the next government would be advised to find the points of commonality in between the policy platforms of the LDP, the Your Party and the Japan Restoration Association, with the LDP defering to its coalition partners in three key areas: subsidies, trade liberalization and the reduction of bureaucratic control over policy.

Ishihara Shintaro Is A Waste Of My Time

Go to all the trouble of explaining the allusions and references in the name of his new party (Link) and Ishihara Shintaro goes ahead and pledges to disestablish it in order that the membership might join Hashimoto Toru's Japan Restoration Association. (Link - J)

Can we please go back to talking about the maneuvering of Ishihara the Younger, the real politician in the family, rather than the blinking dilletante?

With the absorption of the New Party Kizuna into Ozawa Ichiro's People's Life First and the disappearance of the Party of the Sun, we are down now to a mere thirteen parties vying for the attention of the voters.