Cry If I Want To

You would cry too if it happened to you.

- Gluck, Gold and Weiner, "It's My Party" (1962)

It is a great time to be a political opposition entrepreneur in Japan. The official opposition parties, aside from the Communists, are busily killing themselves off.

First the Democratic Party of Japan turns on its founders for the crime of demonstrating that their successors lack principle, communication skills or party building nous (Link). Then the founder and chief lieutenant of Your Party go at each other, resulting in the firing of the lieutenant as the executive charged with maintaining discipline and unity (Link). On Sunday, former Socialist Party leader and Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi declared the currently headless (Fukushima Mizuho resigned as Social Democratic Party leader after the July 21 election but the remaining SDP MPs have failed to choose a successor) party "without a way forward." He advised a merger of anti-LDP forces in a new party. (Link - J)

Feeling left out from the circular firing squad jamboree, the Japan Restoration Party (Nippon Ishin no Kai) -- whose co-leader Ishihara Shintaro had an intimate dinner with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo on Saturday at the PM's villa in Yamanashi -- seemingly yesterday set out to divide the party into pro-Ishihara and anti-Ishihara splinters.

Or at least, that is what logic would tell a person of average intelligence.

In terms of party leadership, JRP co-leader and Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru has been a man of two hats. He is co-leader of the national party, which only has Diet members as full members. He has also remained the leader of the Osaka Restoration Party (Osaka Ishin no kai), the regional party whose members are prefectural and municipal elected officials of the Kansai region.

Yesterday at the JRP convention came the announcement that up to 16 Osaka-area JRP members of the Diet have been invited to re-register themselves as members of the ORP. If all 16 indeed re-register, the ORP would become a force in the national debate. It would be able to introduce its ideas, particularly regarding devolution of power from Tokyo, direct elections of prime ministers and the merger of the prefectures into larger and fewer units of regional governance. The ORP would also become eligible for public funding -- an important issue for a party whose private funding is likely to diminish steeply as the old dominating, big tent Liberal Democratic Party has reassembled itself. (Link - J)

What was and is weird is the response from JRP Secretary-General and Osaka Prefecture Governor Matsui Ichiro to this development. Knowing full well that a Diet member cannot be a member of two parties at once, at least not two parties competing for public funding, Matsui told the assembled, "The (Diet members) are boon companions who have come to this point together. It is desirable to receive their inclusion in the Osaka Restoration Party. The JRP does not have a whiff of schism in it." (Link - J)

Ummmm...

Matsui-san, I can understand you are in denial about the rapid diminution of your national status whether you stay an acolyte of Hashimoto or seek your fortune with Ishihara as he plays footsies with the securely Abe-led LDP. Nevertheless a lack of emotional preparation does not preclude you from acknowledging reality.

To be fair, Matsui has probably been feeling out of the loop ever since Sakaiya Ta'ichi, Hashimoto's chief advisor on administrative restructuring, accepted absorption into the Abe advisory team (Link). Prior to the Sakaiya appointment, Matsui had probably convinced himself that come what may, the Abe Cabinet would be approaching him (Matsui) rather than the more problematic Hashimoto at deal-cutting time.

As for the grander picture, one cannot escape the impression that the unstable opposition parties are at the event horizon of the grand black hole of the renewed LDP. Not a few members of the opposition, such as former Sunrise (Tachiagare Nippon - literally, Get Up, Japan!) Party chief Hiranuma Takeo, whom Koizumi Jun'ichiro expelled from the LDP in 2005, would love nothing more than to march, head held high, into LDP without conditions. Others in the JRP, the Your Party and the DPJ are ideologically and temperamentally indistinguishable from LDP members. Why retain the artificial boundaries in between the Diet members, save out of a pathetic, anachronistic respect for the will of voters as expressed oh, when was it? Oh, yes, last month.

With undoing of the bonds knitting the opposition party members, a fair number of Diet members are likely to be sucked into the black hole. The rest are likely flung out into the cold, their hopes and parties identities shattered.

Last month, a few days after the election, I was asked an Economist Conference event about the possible re-emergence of a 1.5 party system, this after the seeming failure of the 15 year-long experiment in an emerging 2 party system. My response was typically pedantic, long-winded and contrarian. The gist, though, was that a 1.5 system would be a pipe dream for the current opposition. What we have to talk about after 21 July 2013 is a 1.0 party system, with no appreciable opposition at all.

Would I be far wrong in dropping the qualifier "appreciable" from my late July assessment?

Original image courtesy: Yomiuri Shimbun

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.

A Lack Of Self-Esteem Has Never Been His Problem

This is my world
And I am
World Leader Pretend
This is my life
And this is my time
I have been given
The freedom
To do as I see fit...

- REM, "World Leader Pretend" (1992)

You and I, given the chance to make a difference, would not self-indulgently name a political party after our first commercial success.

You and I are not Ishihara Shintaro.

Today, Ishihara unveiled his brilliant idea for the name of the party he is borrowing from Hiranuma Takeo: Taiyo no To, the Party Of The Sun. (Link)

There is cleverness -- of an old-man-tell-joke flavor. Hiranuma called his party for superannuated geriatrics Tachiagare Nippon -- "Stand Up Japan!" -- which gave wags a thousands gag lines of the sort, "Yes, for the members of this party, that would be an achievement." Rather than suffer the slings and arrows of English language speakers making fun of the party name (that ship has sailed, my friend) Hiranuma chose "Sunrise Party" as Tachiagare Nippon's official English moniker.

Of course Hiranuma, a revisionist history buff and adopted sun son of executed Class A War Criminal Hiranuma Kiichiro, is not making any reference to Amaterasu Omikami, whom one reviewer notes I call upon in my moments of frustration, for that would be a gross appropriation of the Imperial Family's official divine ancestor.

Ishihara could have , of course, just translated Hiranuma's choice of an English name back into Japanese, the result being Hinode no To. In what would have been an auspicious coincidence, the Crown Prince walked down from the Mitakesan summit to the top of Mt. Hinode today.* (Link)

Ishihara could have just called the new party Taiyo To (The Sun Party) -- except, of course, that Taiyo To was the name of Hata Tsutomu's short-lived breakaway from the Shinshinto, Ozawa Ichiro's greatest feat of opportunistic political grafting.

Besides, when there is an opportunity for gratuitous self-promotion -- or any self-promotion at all -- Ishihara Shintaro is there. Taiyo no To echoes Taiyo no kisetsu (Season of the Sun) -- Ishihara's first published novel, set in the author's home town of Zushi (Kanagawa Prefecture). Below is a photo of the monument in the book's honor on the beach at Zushi. The location is, as the inscription on the monument explains, the backdrop of the book's opening scene.

Yes, the calligraphy on the monument is Ishihara's. No, I don't think he paid for the monument's erection.

The self-referential act would have attained apotheosis if the symbol of the new party were the sun found on the monument. Luckily, the party sun image on the podium today was a cheery smiling sun rather than the monument's glaring one.


Later - Commenter Fernando points out that there is another "Taiyo no To." Following that thread takes one on a journey that still ends up on the beach at Zushi.

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* The Asahi Shimbun reports that today's hike was the Crown Prince's first visit to Mitakesan in 35 years -- which for an avid hiker living in the Tokyo Metropolitan District is a minor miracle -- Mitakesan being the default summit of the Okutama Region.

Photo credit: MTC

Laboring To Retrieve Some Semblance of Relevance

When Yamaoka Kenji dropped off the 40 resignation letters from Democratic Party of Japan members of the House of Representatives at the DPJ secretary-general's office on Monday, the curiously round number of 40 raised some eyebrows. Suspicions were reinforced by the odd coincidence that 40 was precisely the number of likely defectors being batted around in press reporting immediately prior to the delivery of the letters.

No matter how good their reporters are, no paper or television station ever gets the numbers spot on. Close, sure. But on the money? A damn rare occurrence.

It was not outside the realm of conjecture that former DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro and Yamaoka had asked some of those who wanted to quit the DPJ to remain behind, to become sleepers, poised to resign from the DPJ in dramatic style when the new Ozawa-led breakaway party came into being.

However, so botched was the Monday breakout, with 3 of the 40 asking to have their resignations rescinded and a fourth becoming an independent, that a drastic change the narrative was in order. The story was becoming one of laughable oafishness and presumption rather than menace.

So it seems that Ozawa chose to burn one of his presumed sleepers.

Kato Gaku (Nagano District #5, freshman) was one of the 17 DPJ members of the House who had voted against the bill raising the consumption tax to 10% by 2015 but who elected to stay on the in the party. On Tuesday the DPJ executive tagged Kato with a two-month suspension of his party privileges.

Somehow Kato found this punishment, which would see him reinstated with full rights in time for the DPJ's leadership election in September, too onerous to bear. Exile and potential electoral oblivion seems to have been preferable.

Kato's attempts to create the impression that he had come to his decision on his own were almost sad. After meeting with Acting President Tarutoko Shinji, Kato explained his resignation as being a result of the likelihood there will be a House of Representatives election within the next two months and he wanted to prevent the increase in the consumption tax (J) -- two thoughts that whether considered together or in isolation, make not a bit of sense.

After Kato's meeting with DPJ secretary-general Koshi'ishi Azuma, he told waiting reporters, "I have come to this decision by myself." Such a claim is, of course, ludicrous. Whenever an adult male Homo sapiens tells you he came to a decision by himself, it is precisely because he did not.

Meanwhile the other 18 members of the DPJ under suspension -- the 17 others who had earned two month suspension plus Hatoyama Yukio, whose "no" vote on the consumption tax legislation was deemed so heinous, coming as it did from a founder of the party, that he was slapped with a six month suspension -- met with 3 of the House of Councillors members who had had their resignation tendered to the secretary-general on Monday in a study group meeting on of the passage of the consumption tax bill through the House of Councillors. Hatoyama, the parrot that he is, borrowed Ozawa Ichiro's catchphrase of "putting the livelihood of the people first" (kokumin no seikatsu ga daichi - a phrase Ozawa allies today registered as the names of the new caucuses for the DPJ rebels in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors) as the reason he will continue to struggle with the DPJ leadership, even after receiving the party's most severe form of punishment short of expulsion. Hatoyama also parroted the blunt warning of Ozawa Sakihito (no relation (to Ozawa Ichiro) that if the all the members of the opposition, Party Kizuna, the yet-to-be-formed Ozawa party and the DPJ members under suspension were to vote together, a no-confidence motion again the Cabinet would pass. (J)

Theoretically, true. Practically, impossible.

The LDP and the New Komeito crave power; the Your Party hates the Noda government's contractionary economic policies and the deference it pays to the bureaucracy; and the Socialists hate the tax rise and the government's policies on the restarts of Japan's idled nuclear reactors.

But to think that all the members of these parties, plus the Sunrise Party, the other microparties, the independents plus the Communists will all join hands with Ozawa Ichiro and Hatoyama Yukio to topple the Noda government is wishful thinking at its most wishful.

As for Hatoyama's and Ozawa Sakihito thuggish, numerically implausible threats, they have flushed down the toilet any chance of the mainstream DPJ leadership ever allowing either man any responsibility greater than crossing guard or perhaps garbage collector.

How many Kato Gakus still sleep among the ranks of the DPJ? My guess is four, perhaps five more. It is possible, however, that my confidence in Noda Yoshihiko's mastery of the numbers blinds me to the likelihood of a much larger and damaging number of potential defectors remaining.

As for Ozawa Sakihito, he clearly seems to have missed the elementary school lesson that when someone treats you with leniency, you show remorse and, for a decent interval, remain silent.


Later - This text has been edited for clarity.

Party By The Numbers

All day...and all of the night.

Public funding of elections

On April 6, the Ministry of General Affairs and Telecommunications announced its dispensation of public campaign funds to the established parties.

The winners and their winnings (in yen) are:

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)
16,505,302,000

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
10,154,000,000

New Komeito
2,279,166,000 yen

Minna no To (Your Party)
1,118,299,000

Social Democratic Party (SDP)
763,697,000

People's New Party (PNP)
442,543,000

Kizuna Party (Kizuna)
275,585,000

Tachiagare Nippon (Sunrise Party)
173,779,000

Japan New Party (JNP)
136,022,000

Shinto Kaikaku (New Renaissance Party - NRP)
119,610,000

Shinto Daichi-True DPJ
115,325,000

(Link)

The ones making out like bandits are the PNP, who after the coup last week will be splitting up amongst the six remaining members an apportionment for eight.

The Japan Communist Party (JCP), out of principle and/or basic stupidity (at times the two resemble one another), does not take public funds.


Seats in the Diet, both Houses

Following the resignations of Kamei Shizuka and Kamei Akiko from the PNP and the dissolution of the caucus linking the PNP and the JNP, the memberships of the Houses of the Diet are divided as follows.

House of Representatives

DPJ-Club of Independents 291
LDP-Association of Independents 120
New Komeito 21
JCP 9
Kizuna 9
SDP 6
Your Party 5
PNP 3
Shinto Daichi- True DPJ 3
Sunrise Party 2
independents 10
unoccupied 1

House of Councillors

DPJ-Shinryokufukai 104
LDP-Sunrise Party-Association of Independents 86
New Komeito 19
Your Party 11
JCP 6
SDP-League to Protect the Constitution 4
PNP 3
NRP 2
Shinto Daichi- True DPJ 2
independents 5

The Shinryokufukai is a party is a political relic, existing only in the name of the House of Councillors caucus.

A Grand Performance

This is from last week but it is also for the ages.

For aficionados of Japanese political theater, it is hard to beat last Wednesday’s performance by Katayama Toranosuke (J) in the House of Councillors Budget Committee hearing. In his brief time before the microphones, he cleaned the prime minister's clock with such thoroughness and ruthless humor it is hard not to clap. His is a show with everything: a comparison to leaders past, tireless boring in on his target, the arms spread eagle wide at one point in an appeal to speak on behalf of the citizenry and a Cheshire cat grin throughout.

Now I have to admit I have not always been an admirer of Katayama. When he was a member of the House of Councillors for the Liberal Democratic Party, I saw him as one of epitomes of what was holding this blessed land back. “Old Chipmunk Cheeks” I used to call him, making fun of his appearance. I cheered when he was knocked off his perch in 2007 despite his position as the #2 man for the LDP in the House by a newcomer (and a woman to boot!).

However, my opinion of Katayama changed last year in response to his brilliant revival of himself as the Sunrise Party’s (Tachiagare Nippon's) sole elected senator. He managed to leverage a sudden and one would suspect not terribly deep conversion to the party’s hard rightist ideology in order to draw on the votes of the sadly overzealous nationalists. To these he added the personal votes of his old support group (koenkai), and in a pirouette, bounced himself back into his old playground.

To watch the spectacle, go the Sangiin TV website (here) and click on the calendar for the 16th of November. The only show that comes up is the Budget Committee hearing. Click on that link to start the video. Katayama’s turn at the microphones starts up at 4:52 into the broadcast.

The Japanese Tea Parties

Not another political party!

Well, not exactly a party. Unlike the old boys club"Sunrise Party" (that's the new English name of Tachiagare Nippon! - why is it that this new translation set visions of the last scenes of Paul Schrader's Mishima dancing in my head? ) the Nippon Soshinto (the "Japan Regeneration Party"?) lacks the requisite five sitting members of the Diet to win official approval as a political party. Until such time as it does (it is not likely to) it will carry out its activities as a political organization (seiji dantai), meaning it will be campaigning without public funding.

Trying to campaign without a dollop of money from the public coffers fits in rather well with the basic ideological stance of this new autonomous conservative political organization. Founded by Suginami Ward mayor Yamada Hiroshi, former Yokohama mayor Nakada Hiroshi and Yamagata Governor Saito Hiroshi (in the abscence of an official name, Ethan Chua referred to the incipient party as "the Hiroshis") the Nippon Soshinto is dedicated to fighting the Democratic Party of Japan, which, in emulation of its predecessor the Liberal Democratic Party, is blowing out Japan's national budget though baramaki ("rose strewing") public works projects and indiscriminate social welfare spending. From the past utterances of its founders, the party will have a strong nationalist aroma (check out the photo of the press conference) -- Suginami Ward, for example, is one of the very few municipalities whose public schools make use of the controversial Fusosha New History textbooks.

In its combination of attacks on fiscal stimulus spending and a strong conservative nationalist cant, the Nippon Soshinto shares elements of the Tea Party movement in the United States. Both are growing out of a climate of fear, responding to the uncertainty after the election of a more liberal party to power, a shift in government spending priorities as a result of that election and an increase in fiscal deficits as governments try to counteract the depressive effects of the Great Crash of 2008.

However, the voters being targeted by the Nippon Soshinto are not the defiantly ignorant rural astroturf rubes of the U.S. Tea Party movement. Indeed, the projected Nippon Soshinto voter is very nearly the social opposite of the Tea Partier: he/she is an urban or near-urban, upper middle class, highly educated individual. Indeed its policy mix seems directed at managerial, Nihon Keizai Shinbun reading commuter with few emotional ties to the countryside. Its macroeconomic stance is typically corporate - what can save Japan is unemotional, strictly-by-the-numbers government belt-tightening - or more colloquially, the "I got mine Jack, you have to fend for yourself" view.

Rolling into the House of Councillors election this summer, the voters now have the opportunity to choose from amongst three different flavors of non-LDP micro-party conservatism. The DPJ-led ruling coalition member People's New Party will appeal to social conservatives in the rural areas, the party offering wistful, even maudlin, depictions of a traditional Japan of several decades ago combined with trans-Keynesian levels of public borrowing and fiscal profligacy. The Sunrise Party will appeal to the somewhat paranoid nationalist voter, with party ideologues Hiranuma Takeo and Ishihara Shintaro banging on about how the DPJ is handing control of Japan to the South Koreans and the Chinese. In terms of economic policy, Yosano Kaoru will continue his Ahab-like pursuit of a solution to the burgeoning of the national debt, meaning the Sunrise Party will be running on the electorally poisonous promises of cuts in government spending and higher taxes.

[This, by the way, explains the reason why the mild and reasonable Yosano has joined forces with Hiranuma: it is not Hiranuma trying appear more reasonable by hanging out with Yosano, it is Yosano searching for voters whose fanaticism is intense enough to makes them willing to swallow the harsh medicine of higher taxes.]

Finally there is the Nippon Soshinto offering a "liquidate the farmers, liquidate labor, love the nation" plan for the nation's reconstruction in the hopes of captureing the attention of the members of middle-aged urban/suburban managerial class and their spouses (cue the devilishly handsome new party secretary-general Nakada Hiroshi).

In short, in the House of Councillors election, conservative voters have a choice between Shabby Socialist (PNP), Bad Tasting (Sunrise) and Organization Man (Nippon Soshinto) flavors of ex-LDP Japanese conservatism.