A Clean Sweep for Hatoyama

Here is an interesting development: in order to promote a consistent electoral message of the Democratic Party of Japan as the party of clean politics -- a reputation the party had enjoyed until last year-- DPJ Party Leader and Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio has demanded the resignation of House of Representatives member Kobayashi Chiyomi. Kobayashi has been in danger of losing her seat ever since her former campaign accountant was arrested for campaign finance violations. She had not been forced to resign her seat before now because forcing her to step down whilst leaving Hatoyama and DPJ Secretary-General in their posts would have looked sexist. With Hatoyama resigning today as PM and Party Leader, and Ozawa apparently accepting a Hatoyama request that he (Ozawa) resign as Secretary-General due to the drag that investigations into Ozawa's fundraising organization have had on the DPJ's support numbers, Kobayashi's number has seemingly, finally, come up.

Fascinating...at the moment he stands upon the verge of his losing control of the party he founded and spent his family's fortune in building, Hatoyama is finally free to order the changes needed to restore its former good name.

Photo of Kobayashi Chiyomi courtesy the official DPJ website.

Presumptuous

So Kobayashi Chiyomi (Hokkaido #5 District) is forced to give up her Diet seat because of the arrests of four of her associates for channeling four illegal donations to her campaign from the Hokkaido Teacher's Union totaling 16 million yen...and the PM stays on despite the indictment of two of his former aides for filing false statements regarding seven years of monthly cash payments from his mother totaling 1.17 billion yen?

Amaterasu, if the Prime Minister Hatoyama, Ozawa Ichiro or others in the Democratic Party of Japan think that throwing a female junior legislator to the wolves will in some way limit the damage that has been done to the Democratic Party of Japan's reputation, they are living on another planet. I cannot think of anything that will turn off floating voters, particularly women voters, more.

Let us hope that this report of the DPJ having a glaring double standard in the way it handles campaign contribution violations was just somebody's trial balloon.

Speaking about floating trial balloons, Richard Lawless and Nagashima Akihisa have been busy trying to bull rush the Futenma replacement base selection process. Lawless, since he is out of government, does not have to care about what he is spouting...and neither do we (Nota bene: Kato-san, please stop talking to these people). Nagashima, however, is in the government and has been caught talking way above his pay grade.

Nagashima is most likely telling the truth, that the Futenma onshore option is a done deal. However, telling the truth prematurely, as Nagashima seems to have done, can have serious consequences for his continued tenure at the Ministry of Defense.

Let us keep an eye on how Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano Hirofumi handles Nagashima's sudden onset of loose lips syndrome.