Hashimoto's Women And Some Wishful Thinking

Over at σ1, Corey Wallace has a new post up about the Saturday opening of Hashimoto Toru's juku. In his post Wallace argues that the Ishin no kai movement has an Achille's heel: it seems to have only a limited attraction to women. Women candidates have had powerful symbolic force in the last two House of Representatives elections, yet fewer than 10% of the 3326 applicants for the Hashimoto juku have been women.

I am not sure I buy the argument. First, 10% of 3326 is 330, which 30 more than the total number of candidates the Ishin no kai is expected to run in the next House of Representatives election.

Second, Hashimoto, who will have final say as to the candidates, is no dummy. Where a woman candidate will have a better chance to win than man, he will select a woman to run.

Third, and this is significant, the current ruling Democratic Party of Japan is a disaster when it comes to empowering women. A glance at the current Cabinet and the sub-cabinet level political posts makes this abundently clear. It is true that former party leader Ozawa Ichiro recruited high-profile women candidates to run and win against male Liberal Democratic Party candidates. However, the association with Ozawa currently disempowers these women in intra-party politics and prevents them from receiving significant posts.

The Liberal Democratic Party, despite its reputation, did promote women -- not only to more significant posts but in greater numbers. The cabinets of Koizumi Jun'ichiro were very woman-friendly: a surprising outcome from a divorced politician with a reputation of one with an eye for, but not a commitment to, the ladies. Tanigaki Sadakazu had Koike Yuriko as his chair of the General Council; no DPJ woman has ever been anywhere near a top party post.

So if any party needs to fear its relationship with women, it is the DPJ. Contrary to misconceptions, the DPJ has historically had a greater popularity with men than with women. Given the current DPJ leadership's retrenchment on issues of special importance to women like the child-rearing allowance (E), a supposition that the DPJ will do as well among women as it did in 2009 is shaky.

As for the DPJ's views of the opening of the Hashimoto juku, the member of the party executive who states...

"Ishin no Kai's use-by date will expire in a year. If the dissolution of the lower house is moved back further, Ishin no Kai will lose its momentum."

(Link)

...is living on Fantasy Island.

The Ishin no kai will not just fade away into irrelevance like the LDP reform revolts headed by Kato Ko'ichi, Watanabe Yoshimi and Masuzoe Yo'ichi. The Ishin no kai is a popular movement with a base in the Kansai. It is not a just wooden horse from the Nagata-cho merry-go-round that has suddenly reared up and bolted away.

Stopping Hashimoto from reaching greater heights and amassing more power will require hard, hard work, with the news media colluding cooperating with the mainstream parties to hold him down. Just sitting around in the tatami room, drinking mugi-cha and swatting at mosquitoes, waiting for the Ishin no kai to fall à la Blood, Sweat and Tears, will just not suffice.

Childhood's End

Over at Observing Japan, Tobias Harris reports on Katō Kōichi's radio broadcast announcement that "YKK is over."

I may be wrong...but I sense that Mr. Harris sees the declaration as both less and more than it is.

YKK – the policy-first political alliance of next-generation politicians Yamasaki Taku, Katō and Koizumi Jun'ichirō--was far more than a footnote in Japanese political history. In the 1990s, the press dutifully covered every flick of a finger by the trio, trying to discern the future course of the LDP, which was assumed to be in their hands. That the trio intended to achieve power on their own terms, without waiting their turn in line for the revolving door of the LDP presidency, in defiance of inter-factional balancing, was a real turn-on for many in the commentariat, the LDP rank-and-file and the general public.

In the end, only one of them managed to become prime minister—but what a prime minister he turned out to be!

As to the significance of Katō's declaration of an end to their fellowship, it must be viewed through the Katō's eyes. He receives a call from his old buddies to come to a restaurant to talk shop. He looks his desk for a moment, then at the pictures on the walls and in the alcove. He reflects for a moment. Koizumi became prime minister, the most celebrated prime minister in a quarter century. Yamasaki had his time in the doghouse due to his mistress...but he is back in the saddle, a faction head who nonchalantly jets off to Beijing once a month, acting as the undisguised back channel to officials of the Pyongyang regime.

He, however, lost control of his faction after failing to topple the lamentable Mori Yoshirō from the premiership. He lost his ancestral home and his aged mother was nearly killed by a nationalist arsonist who burnt down the family's house in retribution for Katō's criticism of Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni--a huge loss for simply expressing one's opinion that nevertheless earned Katō and his family almost no sympathy from the public and his fellow party members.

Is it odd then that Katō should tell his former boon companions, "Sorry guys, I can't make it. Politics is not a game for me anymore. Unless whatever you are planning to discuss over dinner is damn serious, count me out."