What I Want For Christmas Is A Train Set, Among Other Things

The Okinawa Prefectural Government (OPG), in what is looking like an end game move in the longstanding battle over approval of the plan to begin destroying habitat for the critically endangered dugong landfill at the Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF) site at Henoko, released a wish list on Tuesday of the projects and programs it would want the central government to pay for prior to Governor Nakaima Hirokazu's authorization of the landfill permit.

The list of requests is long and presumptuous:

1) Termination of operations and swift return of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within 5 years;

2) Total return of Camp Kinser within 7 years;

3) Revision of the Status Of Forces Agreement between the US and Japan including

- On-site investigations from the viewpoints of environment and excavating cultural assets by Okinawa, inside the military facilities three years before their returns,

- On-site investigations by experts in the Okinawa Prefectural Government inside both existing and new facilities, in cases where environmental pollution is suspected,

- Application of tighter environmental regulations, those of either the U.S. or Japan, to the US military facilities;

4) Deploying about a dozen of the Ospreys currently deployed in Okinawa out of the prefecture

- Relocating of the majority of Osprey training exercises

- Removal of Ospreys from Okinawa after the termination of operations of MCAS Futenma.

In addition:

1) a budget allocation for FY 2014 of about 340.8 billion yen to be used for enhancing the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) [the fast developing technology center where the honorable Janne of Janne in Osaka hangs his hat], etc.;)

2) 300 billion yen by 2021 for the second runway of Naha airport, etc.;

3) funding for the a railway system and for the recovery for commercial use of the land returned land from the US military bases;

4) the implement tax reform (preferential tax treatments for investments in Okinawa) in FY 2014.

Source: Okinawa Prefectural Government

Demanding sweeping changes, including swift alternations to the Status Of Forces Agreement (Oh, you do so not want to go there!) could be Governor Nakaima's way fending off Abe goverment pressure to OK the necessary permits. More likely though Nakaima is simply following the rule of thumb of negotiating where if you are only going to get 70% of what you ask for, you should ask for 140% of what you want.

The Okinawa list does not include a casino license, despite the rumors that such a license is high on the prefectural list of economic development priorities. Since such a license does not yet exist, seeing as how casino gambling is still illegal, the prefectural government can hardly demand one from the national government.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, the U.S. government responded to the Nakaima requests by declaring it will not acquiesce to any changes in the SOFA (Link) -- demonstrating that when it comes to Okinawan face, there is just no stopping the USG's trampling upon it.

Governot Nakaima and his advisors know that Okinawa's options are much more limited now than they were when Nakaima won reelection in 2010. Chinese activities in the Senkakus, which are in the OPG's jurisidiction, have skyrocketed. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's ruling coalition owns whopping majorities in both House of Diet. If Nakaima does not sign the permits by the end of the year -- his time limit on a decision regarding the first phase of construction for the Henoko FRF -- then the Abe government will simply submit a bill to the Diet authorizing the work, bypassing the prefecture's objections. If A Diet vote takes place, Nakaima's capacity to request compensatory action and budget allocations for the presence of U.S. bases on Okinawa will evaporate.

The pressure on the hospitalized Nakaima (the atmospherics of the hospitalization are great: Nakaima is in Tokyo but the prime minister and the chief cabinet secretary can only visit him at his convenience, not theirs) and the OPG is immense. Asking for the construction of a train line (Uh, where are the rights-of-way for a railroad going to come from on an island with such severe land use constraints that the FRF has to be built out over the ocean?) shows that the Okinawans, for all their happy-go-lucky, let's dance libidinous reputations, remain up to the mainland challenge.

What To Call The New Order

I was asked a few months back what we should be calling the Japanese political order in the aftermath of the July House of Councillors election, whether it is indeed the return of the "1.5 Party System" of old. The phrase "1.5 Party System" is a demeaning* and easily apprehended international version of what was domestically called "the 1955 System," after the year the two factions of the Socialists on the left and the Liberal Party and the Japan Democratic Party on the right merged to form two large left/right divide parties, with the right dominant due to the left's division into Socialist and Communist camps. I responded that a better term for the current situation would be a 1.0 Party System. Under the 1955 system, the Socialists could tie up Diet business in a serious way and had to be paid off to an extent the term "1.5 Party System" leaves unclear. "1.5 Party System" indeed undersells the political threat that the Socialists posed (which the LDP neutralized in a whole host of shoddy ways, including absurd levels of disproportion in between rural and urban voting districts). However, the "0.5" in the "1.5" does give the Socialists at least some heft -- which they had.

After last year's House of Representatives election and the July election the rump opposition parties in the Diet are little more than confused noise machines without any power to foment change. Hence my suggestion of a "1.0 System" moniker.

The image of an utterly powerless opposition (the 0 in the 1.0 expression) is obviously an exaggeration. The general concept is not, however, entirely without merit. Leadership of Japan's small but dogged anti-nuclear power and anti-secrecy bill forces, the current most prominent movements challenging the government's attempts to sweep problems under the rug and move on, comes almost entirely from outside the Diet.

I have been and will continue using the 1.0 System expression, having possibly coined it. However, one sees in the news media the indigenous expression ikkyo tajaku (一強多弱 - "one strong, many weak"), an expansion of the standard expression ikkyo meaning "dominant." I have seen the four character compound used on NHK and I think TBS network broadcasts. Here is a letter to editor of The Asahi Shimbun that uses the phrase, though the first character is replaced by the Arabic numeral 1.

When written in kanji the expression ikkyo tajaku is both visually arresting and easily understood. However, what is/would be the elegant and succint English translation?

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

* Speaking of demeaning, why did the author insert a denigration of Japanese tech praxis in this article on South Korean reverse engineering of U.S. military technology?

On Abe Shinzo And Yasukuni - The It's OK, I Don't Want To Talk To You Either Edition

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's chief courier Hagiuda Ko'ichi has clocked in with what the press are interpreting as a prime ministerial promise to visit Yasukuni by year's end. (Link)

Hagiuda's rise to prominence (TBS had him on their morning roundtable talk show as the representative of the government) over the past ten months has been spectacular. He is only 50 years of age and in only his third term as a member of the House of Representatives. Until December of last year he had been cooling his heels in the hallways of Nagatacho, having lost his seat in the 2009 massacre (Fun fact that Hagiuda displays on his personal website: more folks voted for him in his loss in 2009 than voted for him in his win in 2012 -- Link - J). Yet now he is Abe's government's unofficial mouthpiece.

Wild.

As for a promise/threat to visit Yasukuni before the year is out, can there be a more blunt way of making sure nothing good happens in the near future in Sino-Japanese or South Korea-Japan relations? Why would anyone in the Chinese or South Korean governments, much less President Xi Jinping or Park Geun-hye, want to be caught dead in a photo frame with a member of the Japanese government, with an Abe pilgrimage to Yasukuni impending?

Then again, in terms of ex post facto ratiocination, there is genius in the giving of advance notice. Abe has been trying and failing to secure even a short conversation on the sidelines of a multilateral summit with either Xi or Park. Being shunned by the leaders of the two other big regional powers, even after the LDP's thumping win in the July House of Councillors election, has been humiliating for the PM.

Now, however, rejection by his peers can be explained away with a breezy:

"Of course I want to talk to Xi and Park. But they know I am going to visit Yasukuni by year's end. Meeting with me right now could get them in hot water at home. So I understand their being unwilling to be seen in public with me. I don't take their standoffishness personally."

A brilliant pivot, if the above is indeed an accurate description of Team Abe's transformation of a lemon into lemonade.

The Eternal Sunshine Of Noda Yoshihiko’s Spotty Recollection

The DPJ's Gang of Six

Former Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko, who inexplicably called an election last December which led to his party's extirpation, is now doing P.R. for himself under the Bold, Mature and Sober labels.

Noda 'chose tax hike over being premier'
The Japan News

Former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in a recent interview that he placed more importance on raising the consumption tax rate than remaining prime minister when he decided last August to approve the increase.

As head of the then ruling party, Noda agreed with the then two opposition parties on comprehensive social security and tax system reforms, including the consumption tax hike.

[Snip]

Noda said he had intended to resign from his Diet seat if he could not pave the way for raising the consumption tax.

"At the time I thought I might have to choose between the consumption tax hike or my post as prime minister," Noda said. "After also considering that I would have to choose between the tax increase and my own party [many members of which opposed the increase], I said I was willing to bet my political life. I meant that I intended to resign as a Diet member."

During the meeting of the leaders of the three parties last August, Noda was urged by then LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki to specify when he, as the prime minister, would dissolve the lower house. At the time, the LDP wanted the lower house election to be held soon as it expected to score a major victory in the election, while the DPJ leadership wanted to delay the election as much as possible.

Noda said he replied: "I'll use an abstract expression but in a way that is as clear as possible. Both 'in the near future' and 'sometime soon' are all right with me."

After Tanigaki said, "I prefer 'sometime soon,'" Noda agreed to use that expression to describe when his administration would call an election, he said in the interview.

About the meaning of "sometime soon," Noda revealed that he had been determined to dissolve the lower house by the year-end.
“The only choice was [dissolution] by year-end. That was the bottom line. It was better for the nation considering the effects on preparing and implementing the budget," he said.

(Link)

No.

No, no, no, no and no.

That Abe Shinzo with his assault on the Bank of Japan and his profligate budgets would be reviving the animal spirits of the Japanese economy in 2013 was not something Noda could even vaguely foresee in mid-2012. Abe Shinzo was not the president of the LDP at the time. Noda was negotiating with Abe's hapless predecessor Tanigaki Sadakazu -- a mark demanding a double cross* if there ever was one -- whose economic policies were as no more expansionist than the DPJ's were. "LDP president Abe" to whom Noda would ultimately surrender, was still only a gleam in the eyes of revisionist and fantabulist members of the business establishment.

As for the excuse Noda makes for a November dissolution followed by a mid-December election, it does not hold water. An orderly process of compiling a budget is important, yes. However, is a sideshow if the DPJ has, as it did, a majority in the House of Representatives. The Constitution makes it clear that whatever the hell else happens, Japan's budget cannot be held hostage to a minority (the relevant passages are in Article 60, in case you are wondering).

What Noda did achieve, through his sobriety and iron-willed determination, was the electoral destruction of his party, the upending of a two-decade long process of building up a two-major-parties-alternating-as-the-party-of-government system and the short-circuiting the redrawing of the House of Representatives electoral map so as to reflect the Supreme Court's rulings on disproportionate representation -- all this, into the dumpster, in order to get the LDP to vote in favor of an LDP policy manifesto item. Furthermore, by calling the election in December, Noda made sure that the DPJ would suffer a huge cut in its 2013 government subsidy, making the financing of a return to power any time soon all the harder. Had Noda simply waited until January 2 for his announcement, his party, even if it lost a lot of seats in the subsequent elections, would still be on a decent financial footing.

Noda did not twist the LDP's arm, they twisted his, and his mind too. Snapping the spine of the DPJ was their job and Noda did it for them. If, as Noda indicates in this interview, it was either win the LDP's and the New Komeito's support for raising the consumption tax or resign from the Diet, I can think of hundreds if not millions of persons ready to cry, "Why the heck did you not resign from the Diet then?"

Furthermore, the Democrats cannot rid themselves of their portly DINO. He won his district handily last December by a greater margin than in August 2009. In addition, of all the members of the so-called "Gang of Six" of neither-entirely-cooperative-nor-entirely-helpful center-right leaders of the party (Noda, Edano Yukio, Azumi Jun, Okada Katsuya, Gemba Ko'ichiro and Maehara Seiji - Link - J), only Noda was able to bask in the glow of a DPJ candidate winning a seat in his home prefecture this past July.

Since the Democrats (and the rest of us) are stuck with Noda, the least we can ask for is that news organizations assign reporters willing to corner him on his dunderheaded management of the DPJ.

---------------
* How hapless was Tanigaki Sadakazu? He could be lulled into a debate over whether the House of Representatives should be dissolved "sometime soon" or "in the near future" and into choosing one of the two alternatives, allowing him to walk out of the building thinking he had extracted a concession from out of Noda.

Original image courtesy: Sankei Shimbun

Very Kind Of Them #16 (Special Edition)

Entrepreneur Yoshito Hori and his Globis University were the most terrific of hosts last month, allowing me to attend their Globis 1 Summit. They also allowed me to participate in a panel discussion (bravery defined) on the outlook for policy and politics in the aftermath of the July 2013 House of Councillors election.

My fellow discussants were Your Party Secretary-General Asao Ken'ichiro and Liberal Democratic Party maverick Kono Taro. Jonathan Soble of the Financial Times was our talented and forgiving moderator. In the debate Asao-sensei defended the honor of the opposition while Kono-sensei worried about the momentum of his party being frittered away by special interests.

I displayed my usual gallery of mannerisms and tics.

The pace was leisurely, allowing each of the panelists time to make his points. The discussion was in English.

(Video)

For those wishing to hear the views of incredibly smart folks like Robert Feldman, MAFF Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa, Shawn Baldwin and Matsumoto Oki and, yes, the always entertaining Jesper Koll, the videos of their sessions are on the Globis television website.

Image courtesy: Globis TV

One Simple Answer To A Complex Question / A Momentary Lapse Of Reason

A Nagging Question: How is it that Japan's opposition parties, particularly the Democratic Party of Japan, are now so moribund? Did not the DPJ win a landslide victory in 2009? How can these once high fliers now be so irrelevant?

Something Like An Answer: Holding aside the New Komeito, which is an entirely different genus of political beast from anything else out there, there are only two parties in Japan with deep bases -- the Liberal Democratic Party and the Communist Party. Commitments to these parties are reliable, in the first case thanks to personal ties, self interest and a recognition of the durability of power elites, in the second in a faith in an ideology and notions of the family.

For the other parties, loyalty is largely a matter of the head, not the heart. In the specific case of the DPJ, its support, save among members of the Rengo league of labor unions, was at its height a kilometer wide and a centimeter deep. When the going got tough, public support evaporated.

As Pink Floyd asked:

Was it love?
Or was it the idea of being in love?

(Link)

During the DPJ's rise in popularity to where its leaders cobbled together a surrogate, but supposedly honest and trustworthy, big tent center-right party, public support arose from out of the latter: the idea of an opposition rather than the actual opposition party in question. The same seemingly holds true for the backing for the other non-Communist opposition parties -- their supporters are not in love with them, they are in love with the idea of being in love with them.

Reviving the DPJ (Link) is thus unlikely on a technical level -- for the most part, its supporters had a crush on it, not a relationship with it.

Threatening Nonsense

You may recall Suzuki Nobuyuki, the radical right winger who managed to capture 74,000 votes in the Tokyo Metropolitan District on July 21 (introduced here, with the look at how he might have been a sponsored spoiler candidate here).

The frighteningly well-spoken Suzuki holds forth in a new video report from Michael Penn: "Japan Grapples With The Rise Of Hate Groups."

If you have 12 minutes, it is worth a watch.

I would take exception to the statement in the report that the noisy, threatening ultra-right is a new phenomenon. All kinds of things were yelled out at political events in the 1960's (the audio to the video of the assassination of Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma demonstrates how out of control the audience was - Link). However, it is true that threats of death and other violence have been beyond the pale for the past 40 years.

I also worry about misinterpretation of the statement that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo shares many of the ideological beliefs of the radical fringe. Rather than sharing ideology, it is probably better to say that Abe-san and his friends in business, academia, and the media have same the data points and talking points in their arsenals as one finds in the speeches and online drivel produced by the fringe groups and politicians like Suzuki.

The claims of radical parties like Suzuki's Restoration New Wind and organizations like former air self defense forces general Tamogami Toshio's Ganbare Nippon are outlandish in their paranoia. They would not have any attraction, though, if they did not in some way provide a template for understanding actual events. The intrusion of Chinese coast guard ships into the territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands (Link) or the erection of monuments to the comfort women -- the women (and some boys) trafficked by the brothel network established to serve the troops and officers of the Imperial Army -- on public land in the United States (Link) provide Japanese hate groups all the evidence they need of a vast global anti-Japanese conspiracy encircling and strangling the nation. These groups do on their own then layer on farcical claims, perhaps out of theatricality, perhaps as ornamentation in order to disguise the poverty of their intellectual wares.

That the relationship between Chinese and South Korean patriots and right wing fringe groups in Japan is symbiotic, each side providing the other with the justification for festering hatred and provocation (possibly providing a comfortable living for some of the participants) rarely makes the news anywhere.

A Win Is A Win Is A Win Is A Win

They call it the Miracle in Miami (Maiami no kiseki).

On 21 July 1996, the under-23 teams of Japan and Brazil faced off in the first round of the Olympic soccer tournament. Brazil, which had won every major crown except an Olympic gold medal, sent to the Miami pitch what was essentially its national team. To a side that had Bebeto at forward and Rivaldo at mid-field, the Brazilian coach added the maximum three overage players, inserting Roberto Carlos, Juninho and Ronaldo.

Japan, which was not expected to advance, put its actual under-23 squad on the pitch. Japan's indeed was the only team in the Olympic tournament composed entirely of players under 23 year of age. Only two of the players on the Japan side of the pitch had played for the national squad.

It was a hopelessly unfair contest of legends against kids.

The match began, with Brazil pressing from the start. The difference in individual skill levels was clear and humiliating. The ball almost never left the Japan side of the field, the Brazil players passing it around amongst themselves. From left, right and center, the Brazilians unleashed a fusillade of shots-on-goal.

But the strangest thing happened. Despite running the Japanese ragged and firing away without restraint, the Brazilians were failing to put the ball in the goal mouth. Sometimes the shot sailed wide; sometimes it struck the post. Desperately lunging Japanese players blocked others. A multitude bounced, glided or rocketed into the gloved hands of Kawaguchi Toshikatsu, who had what the Brazilian coach later called "the match of a lifetime."

The crowd, which was composed almost entirely of Brazil supporters, began to get frustrated. A Brazilian fan ran on to the pitch, disrupting play.

Halftime came, the players switched sides. The ball still never left the Japan side; the Brazilians still could not get a goal.

Then, in the 73rd minute of play, a long clear from the sidelines sailed toward the penalty area in front of the Brazil goal. Two Brazilian defenders and two Japanese attackers rushed to meet it. In what was a scene replayed a million times afterward, Brazil national team goalie Dida abandoned his position in a flying attempt to wrest the ball away from the four. What he managed to do instead was crash into one of the two Brazil defenders, wiping out Brazil’s line of defense. The ball, with excruciating slowness, bounced toward the empty net. Midfielder Ito Teruyoshi, who is still playing professional soccer today (Lifetime J1/J2 record: 636 appearances/36 goals. International record: 27 appearances/ 0 goals), gave it a final, perverse tap.

The freak goal made the Brazilians mad. They went to a full press, no defenders back. The action on the pitch began to get ugly, with scrambles and kicking fests in front of the Japan goal familiar to anyone who has watched six year olds play.

Still the ball refused to curl Brazil's way.

After what was the longest 17 minutes in any of the Japanese players’ lives, the referee blew his whistle.

Final score: Japan 1 - Brazil 0

The Brazilians had taken 28 shots on goal. The Japanese were generously credited with 4 -- but their only real shot had been Ito's toe tap.

* * *

Why bring up what many Japanese fans consider the greatest match in Japanese soccer history -- and the most improbable victory?

Keeping in mind the result on that crazy afternoon in 1996 might help curb the tongue when the subject of conversation turns to the implications of voter turnout in the December 2012 House of Representatives election or last month's House of Councillors election. There have been a lot of well-meant analyses pointing out that the majority of folks did not vote for the Liberal Democratic Party in the last two national elections, with the implication that the Abe government's mandate to rule based on control of both House of the Diet is somehow less than legitimate.

It ain't.

As to voter turnout, if the voters do not show up to vote, and the LDP benefits, do not blame the LDP.

As to the district first-past-the-post system and a fractured opposition's meaning an awful lot of anti-LDP votes get nullified, do not blame the LDP. Be thankful for the positives: first-past-the-post gives the most popular party at least a chance at forming a stable government.

Yes the gearing of the first-past-the-post system is inequitable. So is the electoral college system for choosing U.S. presidents. Most of the time, with U.S. turnout rates the way they are, only ¼ of the U.S. electorate has voted for a U.S. president.

Do not blame the LDP also for claiming a mandate from the elections. What would you want the party to do instead? Shrug and mumble, "You know, most folks did not vote for us so we really should not presume to take any action"?

Voter turnout is the significant number in terms of making good choices as regards candidates. It should not be seen as significant as regards the right to govern...

[For the record, given

a) historical downward drift in voter turnout,
b) the reality that the outcome in the House of Councillors election was never in doubt and
3) the many horrible candidates of the opposition

voter turnout for the 21 July 2013 election was fantastic.]

The significant number for governance is Cabinet popularity. With high levels of public support, a prime minister can lead the country and his Cabinet can provide stable government.

Lose support, and the election results of a few months ago become meaningless. Just ask Hatoyama Yukio how this happens.

As long as Abe Shinzo can keep himself from creating international incidents and Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide can keep in the air all of the dozens of balls he is juggling, Japan will have the possibility of effective government. There are going to be some real crisis points -- whether to go forward with 3% rise in the consumption tax, whether or not to wave the white flag in the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations. That the folks who won election under the banner of Abe's leadership of the LDP may not see as the party secretariat does regarding these and other issues mean huge problems.

The LDP and the New Komeito won last year and last month, ostensibly according to the rules. That the Supreme Court might decide in the autumn to toss the results of the December 2012 House of Representatives in the trash can will be a judgment on the validity of the rules, not on the victory.

To somehow imply that the LDP is on shaky ground making decisions because it does not have the support of 50% + 1 of the voters -- no.

If it is according to the rules and within regulation, a win is a win is a win is a win -- no matter how ridiculous.


Later - Thanks to reader DS for catching the error.

The Spoilt Democratic Vote (Nut, Meet Bags - A Reprise)

Thanks to the many who left comments on my last post on the depressing published number of persons voting for Suzuki Nobuyuki, a candidate for a Tokyo Metropolitan District seat in the 21 July 2013 House of Councillors election. Your attempts to put me at ease or encourage me to have a little perspective kept me looking at the impossible-to-believe purported 74,465 Tokyo voters who were so driven by intense xenophobia as to write down on their ballot papers the name of a candidate whose main proposal is the closure of Japan's borders to citizens of South Korea.

In my heart, I knew, just knew that that number had to be wrong -- that 1.4% of Tokyo residents could not be so marginalized and filled with blind, ethnic hatred as to vote for such a man.

As it turns out, I was right: the number is wrong. Provably so. The question is only to what extent.

Alert readers probably noted my awkward insertion in the first paragraph of two past participles: "published" and "purported." It is right to ask what is up with that.

A look at the actual results of the votes counted on election night shows that Suzuki Nobuyuki was not credited with having received 74,465 votes, as the news agencies reported. The Tokyo Metropolitan Election Committee credited Suzuki Nobuyuki with having won 74,465.376 votes.

Yes, you read that right.

According to the TMD's electoral authorities, Suzuki Nobuyuki received a non-whole number number of votes.

What?

By any chance did anyone else receive a non-whole number number of votes in Tokyo in this last election?

Yes. One candidate is credited with having received 552,714.570 votes.

Who?

The candidate for the Democratic Party of Japan: Suzuki Kan.

Same surname?

Same surname.

When two candidates share a name, whether it is a surname or a given name, ballots marked with that one name alone are set aside, rather than being destroyed as invalid (for those wondering, in this month's House of Councillors election 3.15% of district ballots nationwide were deemed invalid, 2.24% of district ballots in the TMD). These set-aside ballots are then counted up, with the total then divided and a proportion of the votes given in equal measure to the candidates sharing the name. This is true even when the number of these ballots not divisible by the number of eventual recipients, meaning that a last vote has to be divided into fractions of a vote.

So we know, based upon the official count, that persons wishing to vote for either of the two Suzukis on election day failed to fill out their ballots in a manner that clearly indicated which Suzuki -- the DPJ candidate or the xenophobe -- they were choosing. As a result they had their votes split up by the election committees.

Just how many folks wrote just "Suzuki" - in hiragana, in katakana, in kanji or some combination thereof -- and had their votes set aside and divided up equally between both Suzukis? One would have to ask each and every one of Tokyo’s election committees for their particular total of set aside vote totals.

All 62 of them.

That is a lot of phone calls (Professor Steven Reed of Chuo Daigaku, a project for one of your students).

The gist: for an unknown number of DPJ voters, writing down the surname and just the surname of their candidate would lead to their votes being divided in between their man and a far-right nightmare candidate.

Suzuki Kan's campaign tried to avoid this outcome by asking, not with a great deal of fervor, mind you, that voters write down his full name in hiragana -- i.e., すずきかん .

To his credit -- and credit is in very short supply here -- Suzuki Nobuyuki's campaign posters had his name in kanji - i.e. 鈴木信行. So some attempt at differentiation was made, even though, if only the surname was on the voter's ballot, the ballot would get tossed into the bin of set aside ballots no matter what the writing system used.

One problem is, of course, that writing a person's full name in hiragana feels wrong, especially when the surname is one as common as "Suzuki." Another is that Kan is a really, really, odd given name -- the mind rebels when even thinking about it, much less writing it.

Confusion of identical surnames was further heightened by proximity. By the most perverse of coincidences, the two Suzukis drew successive slots, #14 and #15, on the Tokyo district candidate list. This meant that on the campaign poster boards and in the voting areas, the two candidates out of the 20 on the ballot with two most similar names were right next to each other.

So there were two potential sources of the bleeding of votes from one candidate to the other:

a) ballots where the voter put only the surname and
b) ballots where the voter managed to put a full name down, only it was not the Suzuki he or she wanted but the full name that seemed right.

In the latter case, assuming that voters made personal name switching errors at a constant rate (i.e., setting aside the reality that Nobuyuki sounds pleasanter to the ear than Kan), for every vote Suzuki Nobuyuki lost to a mistaken vote for Suzuki Kan, he received over 7 votes in return (552,714 / 74,465 = 7.422).

How many hundreds or, in my estimation, tens of thousands of votes switched sides is not knowable. Just random error or not realizing there was another Suzuki on the ballot would lead to a significant flow of votes from Suzuki Kan to Suzuki Nobuyuki.

Detractors could point out that 2013 was not the only time the two Suzukis faced off against each other. Indeed, the two were on the ballot in the 2007 House of Councillors election. In that year, Suzuki Kan was credited with having received 780,662.470 votes, while Suzuki Nobuyuki was credited with 21,548.472 votes. The difference, a detractor could say, is that in 2007, Suzuki Nobuyuki was up against Tojo Yuko, the granddaughter of Tojo Hideki, for the maudlin, Japan-is-a-victim vote. With Tojo gone to meet her beloved grandfather, Suzuki was the one choice nut on the ballot.

Point accepted.

The two elections are not entirely commensurate, though. Suzuki Kan in 2007 was the beneficiary of awareness and coverage of DPJ candidates, making it harder for voters to vote for Suzuki Nobuyuki in error. The candidates were also not adjacent to one another, though at #13 and #15 on the 2007 list, they were still in general proximity of one another.

Whether one believes the resulting flows of votes great or insignificant, the presence of two Suzukis certainly means ballots were cast for the wrong Suzuki.

Funny thing about Suzuki Nobuyuki. Even though he was present at the creation of the Isshin Shimpu Party in 1995, was named leader of its Tokyo branch in 2005 and has been supreme leader since 2010, he seems to have run for public office only twice: in the 2007 and 2013 House of Councillors elections. He did not run for a seat in 2010. Indeed, Isshin Shinpu did not have a candidate in the 2010 election.

It seems the only times Suzuki wanted to run is when the DPJ's Suzuki was an incumbent seeking reelection. Hmmm...

Any guesses as to which party, or the supporters of which party, would pay encourage the Isshin Shinpu party to run a candidate capable of stealing votes away from the DPJ's candidate? Could it be the same folks who kicked in some cash encouraged the Isshin Shimpu to run a Matsumura in 2004, when the Communist candidate's name was Imamura?

The one bright, shining aspect of this narrative: unlike the alternative, a Tokyo where legions of subterranean xenophobes now lurk, the Tokyo of dirty electoral tricks -- the hiring of candidates to run in order to confuse voters regarding the identity of rivals -- is the Tokyo I know. It is the same Tokyo that in the 2010 House of Councillors election had two district candidates with the same surname, with fractional results in the end for both, where one of the candidates was an unknown independent and the other was...wait for it...a DPJ House of Councillors member seeking reelection.

I can live in city of silly confusion and trickery. A city of prejudice and jut-jawed ignorance (Suzuki Nobuyuki is a high school dropout) -- that I find hard to bear.

Nut, Meet Bags

Over at the East Asia Forum, Professor Daiki Shibuichi introduces the Zaitokukai, the xenophobic haters who have been harassing Korean enclaves within the major cities, including the students and teachers at the North Korean schools (Link) These Web-enabled and organized miscreant losers are a brand new phenomenon, unpredictable and dangerous due to their lack of links to organized crime and/or politicians.

Whilst on the subject of depressing facts regarding xenophobia, Shinpu Party leader Suzuki Nobuyuki, whose rancid and somehow entirely legal campaign posters called for the expulsion of Koreans from Japan, received 74,465 votes in last Sunday's House of Councillors election for the Tokyo District -- more than even the Green Breeze party's candidate (Link - J). The concept that 1.4% of voting age adults in Tokyo would be willing to vote for a person declaring open war upon residents of Korean ancestry has still failed to find its place inside my head.

Very Kind Of Them #15

Eeeek!!! (Link)



I am such a morning person. This panel discussion started way too late in the day for me.

Gratitude to network for arranging the conversation. Pity for the viewers of my part in it.

The 21 July 2013 Elections - In Case You Haven't

In case you haven't seen or had a chance to look at the numbers from Sunday's election, a random trio of tables:

Vote totals, nationwide, in district and proportional voting



Look at the shift of vote totals in the district and proportional columns for the LDP and the New Komeito. In past national elections, the ratios of the shifts has been one-to-one, with the increase in the numbers for New Komeito in the move from district to proportional equal to the decrease in the numbers for the LDP between the two columns. This year, the numbers for LDP district candidates is 600,000 voters short.

So who did those 600,000 New Komeito voters cast their ballots for in the district elections?

Later - I am open to the possibility that 600,000 non-regular New Komeito voters gave up their proportional votes to the New Komeito

a) out of disgust with the opposition parties and/or

b) to give the New Komeito some extra leverage in its coalition negotiations with the LDP.


% of the District Vote Versus % of Seats



a) Is the system geared? You bet it is. The LDP gets 42.7% of district votes and walks away with 64.4% of the seats.

b) Imagine how many more ballots would be spoilt if not for the proportional voting!

c) Look at the near perfect efficiency of New Komeito district voting. Wow, wow, wow.


Japan Restoration Party: Loved in the Kansai but Not Hated in the Kanto



Predictably, the Japan Restoration Party did exceptionally well in the Kansai region. Some 30% of its national totals came from the 6 Kansai prefectures, where the party captured from 14%-29% of the proportional vote in each.

However, the party did OK in Tokyo, winning 10% of its total vote there, pretty much in line with Tokyo's slice of the national voting age population.

Who Do You, Tell Me, Who Do Love?

When one is talking about the candidates on the proportional list for the 2013 edition of the reconstituted umbrella Liberal Democratic Party, the one you love will be the candidate representing your industry or profession or an archetypal super-patriot.

Rank of the LDP proportional seat winners in the election of 21 July 2013, with their former job descriptions and annotations:

1) Tsuge Yoshifumi
Chairman of the national association of private postmasters

2) Yamada Toshio
Executive director of the national association of agricultural cooperatives

3) Sato Masahisa
Colonel in the Ground Self Defense Forces
(Sato was one of the three Diet members turned away from Gimpo Airport by South Korean authorities in August 2011)

4) Ishii Midori
Board director of the Japan Dental Association

5) Hashimoto Seiko
Olympic speed skater and bicycle racer

6) Hanyuda Takashi
Vice chairman of the Japan Medical Association

7) Sato Nobuaki
Former director for roads in the Ministry of Construction

8) Akaike Masaaki
Former dean of the Japan Aviation Professional Training College
(Akaike was a speaker at The Other Sovereignty Day Commemoration of 28 April 2013)

9) Santo Akiko
Actress
(Santo served as the go-between for Ishihara Shintaro and the private owner of the three Senkaku islands during the period Ishihara was trying to purchase the islands)

10) Eto Sei'ichiro
Member of the Oita City Assembly

11) Ishida Masahiro
Secretary-general of the Japan Nursing Federation

12) Arimura Haruko
McDonalds Japan headquarters employee and part-time Ph.D. student of Aoyama Gakuin

13) Miyamoto Shuji
Chairman of the Youth Division of the Central Federation of Societies of Commerce and Industry and sake brewery CEO

14) Maruyama Kazuya
Lawyer, television personality and author

15) Kitamura Tsuneo
Reporter for the Sankei Shimbun

16) Watanabe Miki
Founder and CEO of the restaurant management corporation Watami

17) Kimura Yoshio
Senior executive of Sumitomo Bank

18) Ota Fusae
Governor of Osaka Prefecture

Those who argue that Japan is insufficiently democratic are clearly mistaken. All the industries and professions get a Senator to call their own.


Based upon an original observation that Dr. Ehud Harari posted to the SSJ-Forum.

Call Waiting

OK, So I Am Surprised, I Really Am

Hey,

Hirano Tatsuo, my apologies, you really do know Iwate Prefecture.

When you quit the Democratic Party of Japan in April, I thought the decision daft or at least confused (Link). However, when the smoke cleared from the circular firing squad this Sunday night, you were the one still standing. Omedeto!

You in Iwate and Itokazu Keiko (running with Social Democratic, People's Life, Green Breeze and Communist support, of all the lefty things) in Okinawa kept the Liberal Democratic Party from sweeping all of the single seat constituencies.

May the LDP send more former college rugby coaches to run against you in the future.

Democratic Party of Japan, congratulations. Seriously.

Everyone knew you were a goner in the single seat districts. Everyone knew you were in dire straits in the proportional seat voting.

However, in the two- and three-seat districts, your candidates toughed it out.

This was a bad election for you, the party garnering fewer votes in the proportional side of the ballot than the New Komeito. Still, third place is far from a full blown catastrophe. With a new leader (Yes, Mr. Kaieda Banri, your time, though brief, is up) and some decent candidates, the party can revive to serve as an honorable opposition.

[An aside, but the most wicked bon mot of the morning? The commentator on the Asa Zuba! wide show who cheerily suggested to DPJ bigwig Nagatsuma Akira, "Well, now that there are fewer of you, it should be easier to smooth over differences of opinion."]

Your Party and Japan Communist Party, what happened to your supposed juice? You, the opposite ends of Japan’s economic policy prescription spectrum with your shared contempt for the bureaucracy, you were supposed to be the havens of protest votes forced to run screaming from out of the wreckage of the DPJ.

In the end though, you both came up short, with 4.7 million and 5.1 million votes, respectively.

This was your big day, your opportunity to do some damage on the proportional side. Your performance, however, was only OK, with strong district candidates bailing you out in the end.

Social Democratic Party, you live! Of course, by losing one of the two seats you were defending, you are now down to five seats, meaning that while you are still considered a party in Diet, you are at the five member limit.

So you live to die another day.

Anti-nuclear activists Kira Yoshiko (JCP) and Yamamoto Taro (independent), you not only won district seats in Tokyo, but shoved Takemi Keizo, an LDP Washington insider running as the representative of the health care industry into the fifth and final slot. You both now have six years to harass the nuclear industry and its supporters from the inside, rather than cacophonously from without.

Zing! No, Double Zing!

[How can anyone resist having a young (she’s only 30) Communist woman senator whose name is pronounced “Killer”?]

Japan Restoration Party, they must like you in the Kansai. They must really, really like you. At 6.3 million proportional seat votes, you are effectively half as popular nationally as you were seven months ago. With everyone was writing you off, though, winning six proportional seats must feel good.

It has been hard not to notice, though, that your two top vote winners in the proportional vote were:

1) a professional wrestler close to the Pyongyang regime and an eager participant in that regime's propaganda actions and

2) the militant anti-Pyongyang former finance ministry bureaucrat who has fought, fought, fought to win freedom and justice for those abducted by the DPRK

That these two are your #1 and #2 in the proportional vote reflects what we can only call awesome party message coherence.

Abe's Constitutional Revision Refrain

One clip from last night's NHK interview of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo getting a lot of airplay has the PM, when the subject of revising the Constitution is raised, explaining:

「国会で発議した後、（国民投票で）国民の皆さんの過半数の賛成がなければ憲法改正はできない...その意味においては、憲法の議論をしっかりと広く深くしていく必要があるとまだあると思う。」

"Even after revisions of the Constitution have won the approval of the Diet, they cannot be enacted without the agreement of over half of you the citizens....In that regard, I believe the debate over the Constitution still has to be carried out firmly, broadly and in depth."

It would seem that the Prime Minister is still gung-ho about revision despite the inconvenient truth that the forces of revision failed yesterday to secure the 101 seats they needed for a 2/3rds majority in both Houses of the Diet. The Liberal Democratic Party, the Japan Restoration Party and the Your Party captured 81 seats (65 + 8 + 8, respectively), waaaaayy, waaaayy short of the goal.

Indeed, in the interview, the prime minister pointed out that whatever his feelings constitutional revision, realizing a dream is not a matter of willpower alone:

「まずは私としては96条（の改正）ということでお話をしてきた。維新の会の皆さまも同じ考えだ。その中において、（国会で）３分の２を形成できるかどうかということについてさらに議論を進めていきたい」

"As for myself, first of all the subject of (the revision of) Article 96 came out. I have the same thoughts as you of the Japan Restoration Party. In regards to that, whether or not we can achieve the cobbling together of a 2/3rds majority (in the Diet) I would like to go on further advancing the debate."

(Link - J)

Rather than a pledge to keep fighting, the two quotes together sound like the bugling of an honorable retreat. Does Abe have a 2/3rds majority in the House of Councillors? No. Does he have the 50% +1 majority of citizens behind any particular revision? No. So what does he promise? A whole lot of additional talking, with the revisionist parties and with the citizens.

But actually submit revisions? Abe's words may sound bold to his base supporters, telegraphing that the goal is still within reach. However, the awake and aware anti-revision or undecided citizen cannot miss the message: "Sorry, despite my desire and efforts, I do not have the votes for my signature project at this time. I'll be getting back to you as soon as conditions improve."

Bang On - Congrats To NHK And The Electorate

All's well that ends well: the responses to the NHK poll question trying to get some sense of whether or not the voters will show up on House of Councillors election day provided a precise, if not very accurate, answer.

Immediately prior to the 2010 election, 71% of voters told NHK they would be voting. 57.92% eventually did.

Subtract the 13% who were kidding themselves and you get the right answer.

Immediately prior to this election, 66% of voters told NHK they would be voting. 52.61% [Link] eventually did.

Subtract the 13% who were kidding themselves and you get the right answer.

Congratulations to NHK for yanking out a response that is consistently and reliably wrong as regards voter turnout.

Congratulations also to the voters. Despite an an underwhelming ruling party's holding an overwhelming and unchanging lead for months, making Sunday's election more of a coronation than a contest, they still turned out. At the third worst rate in history, to be sure, but well above the nadir number of 44.50% recorded in the 1995 House of Councillors election.

It takes a special sort of discipline and commitment to show up when the outcome is not in doubt and one person's vote, statistically and realistically, cannot count.

Bless the absurdly believing populace of this blessed land.

Where The Opponents Of The LDP Lose Me

In intellectual sparfests these past few days I have faced not a few persons asserting that the citizens of Japan deserve (and, according to Ozawa Ichiro, want) an organized, progressive umbrella party as an electoral alternative to the Liberal Democratic Party.

To which I reply, "And what would this alternative party's policy axis be?"

Let us look at the posters of the current five strongly anti-LDP opposition parties, i.e.

- The Democratic Party of Japan

- The People's Life Party

- The Social Democratic Party

- The Japan Communist Party and

- Green Breeze (Midori no kaze)


DPJ - "We Will be the Power to Protect People's Ways of Life"


People's Life Party - "We Will Protect Livelihoods!"


DSP - "Rather Than A Strong Country, A Kind Society"


JCP - "Stop TPP: Agriculture, Employment, Medical Care and Food Safety
The Party That Loves This Country"

Green Breeze - no official poster (that I know of) but a lot of the same kind of messages

Give the JCP credit for its opportunistic seizure of a national emblem at a time when Mt. Fuji is very much in the news, and for its unabashed expression of a love of country. Way to go, JCP (whose name is, by the way, the NIPPON Kyosanto) -- this is how a progressive party should muscle in on right wing nationalist territory!

Nevertheless, the similarity of the messages, rather than being a source of hope (hey look, all these different parties are saying about the same thing -- we have the ingredients for a united front here!) is instead incredibly depressing*. Each party is asserting that globalization and its effects can be resisted, that competition and market forces can be stopped at the border, and that even as the world changes, Japan can stay as it was.

I am sorry. If a crabbed, timid and backward-looking vision is what you have on offer, then you have lost me.

For all its many faults, the policies of the ruling LDP-New Komeito coalition, which are in every area risky as hell, at least acknowledge the premise that the important work of government is the management of change, not desperate, lunging attempts to keep change out.

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

* That the DPJ, People's Life and Green Breeze should have near identical policy platforms is hardly surprising, as all are led by either Ozawa Ichiro or one of his proteges.

Not Among The Undecideds

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo filling out his absentee ballot for Sunday's House of Councillors election on Tuesday, July 16, 2013.

Have the secretary post a photo image taken with a mobile device on the Facebook page to remind the true believers and only the true believers of the absentee ballot option.

Smart.

Image courtesy: Abe Shinzo page on Facebook.

Are The Voters Set To Surprise The Cynics?

According to the NHK poll of July 13-15, 66% of the voters are expressing either a strong commitment to or an interest in voting in Sunday's House of Councillors election -- a surprisingly high figure. (Link)

Polls on intentions tend to overshoot actual voting by about 10%. For example, the NHK poll figure in the week before the 2010 election was 71%. The actual turnout rate was just under 58%.

With a 13 point drop off, the voter turnout this year will be around 53% -- a much better figure than the one I have projected.

Persons arguing for a decent turnout rate can also point to positve early voting figures. Over 4.5 million voters have already cast ballots in early voting, a 12% increase in early voting from only 3 years ago. (Link - J)

Higher rates of voting are usually seen as favoring non-machine parties over the voting machines of the LDP, the Communists and the New Komeito -- though given its current broad base of support, it is probably not accurate to refer to the LDP as a machine party.

Just which non-machine parties are set to benefit from increased voter participation is a BIG question. The support numbers or likely-to-vote-for numbers for the Democratic Party of Japan, the Japan Restoration Party and the Your Party are all over the map.



To be fair, the figures for the LDP and the Communists are all over the map too.

So what happens in the case where, let us say 53% of the electorate shows up and votes in the proportional race slanting in the way the crazy Asahi Shimbun figures indicate, with me doling out the undecideds proportionately (with a little boost to the SDP for old times' sake)?

According to the d'Hondt calculator highlighted the other day, the proportional seat wins will be divided up thusly:

LDP 25
New Komeito 6
DPJ 4
Your Party 4
JRP 4
JCP 4
SDP 1
Other parties 0

While this result along with projected district wins gives the ruling coalition a safe majority in the House of Councillors, it still leaves the forces of constitutional revision out of luck -- unless, of course, there are sleeping constitutional revisionists in the ranks of the DPJ members of the House of Councillors just aching to join forces with the LDP, the JRP and the Your Party. The above distribution would, however, put the LDP over the 72 seats its needs to say hasta la vista to its coalition partner the New Komeito -- assuming that the LDP wins every district seat it is contesting, of course.

Getting back to the issue of turnout, there is another reasons to doubt it will be even close to what the NHK intentions figures indicate, in addition to history showing the predictions to be inflated. The 65% response rate to the July 13-15 telephone survey is way up from the normal 50%-55% response rate. Intuition tells us that a large number of respondents in the intentions survey were role playing, demonstrating interest in the political process because they feel they should be doing so. While demonstrating the proper respect toward democracy is laudable in a society where a faux contented conformance with the current operative reality is rewarded more strongly than it is in other societies, responding because you feel you should will skew results toward recent changes in momentum and atmospherics rather than reveal significant changes in voting decisions.