Into The Darkness

Into the darkness
Soon you'll be sinking
What are you doing?
What can you be thinking?

- Graham Nash, "Into the Darkness" (1982)

Here is a trio for the ages...and it sure as heck is not Crosby, Stills & Nash.

On the left is Yamaoka Kenji, the yes-man who makes all other yes-men look good by comparison (and who has redefined the verb "to hover"); in the center Ozawa Ichiro ("It's not about me. Oh, who do I think I am kidding? It's always about me!); and to the right Suzuki Muneo, who is an entire library of bad.

This is a photo from the grand opening of the Nagata-cho offices of the Kokumin seikatsu ga dai'ichi to, the People's Life First Party (Corey Wallace had a way better translation of the party name). The acronym for the party's English name is LF.

Everything about yesterday's LF headquarters opening screams, "We have no money!"

- the cheesy sans-serif font of the party name (J) -- though the graphic designer does deserve some credit for having the dot in koku in red.

- the even cheesier party logo, which is the Democratic Party of Japan's logo turned on its side, in green, with the characters sei and katsu inside the circles.

- the unbelievably cheesy two-page pdf of the party's program (J). No, I am not kidding, this is the actual document, courtesy LF Acting President (daihyo daiko) Yamaoka Kenji's blog post about the opening.

- the tiny bottles of green tea, cans of oolong tea and whatever it is that the person in the foreground is holding up at the ceremonial toast:

- the absence of a URL in any of the images of the opening. It is hard to believe -- no, it is impossible to believe -- but after a month since breaking away from the DPJ, the LF, a party with 49 members, still does not have its own website.

- the presence according press reports of 40 members of the Diet at the unveiling, including members from Nihon Daiichi/True Democrats -- meaning that 20% of the LF's Diet contingent did not show up at the grand opening.(J)

As Aurelia George Mulgan noted even before the dust had settled, the July 2 breakaway from the DPJ marked the first time Ozawa walked out of a party without the party's cash hoard in hand. Since LF was not existence on January 1 of this year, it received not a single yen of the more than 8.3 billion yen in public campaign finance handed out on July 20 (J). Indeed, LF, should it choose to accept public funding, will not be receiving its first dollop of cash until April 2013. (J)

While the majority of LF members are either still enamored of Ozawa or at least see an advantage of going along with the charade, more than a few must be sitting at their Diet desks, their head in their hands, asking, "What have I done?"

Image credits:
Top: Jiji Press
Middle: Hokkaido Shimbun
Bottom: Jiji Press

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.

Re The 52 Defectors: Not In The Bag

In almost a parody of the term "bagman," former Democratic Party of Japan leader Ozawa Ichiro's right-hand man Yamaoka Kenji marches into the Diet office of DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma with the envelope containing the resignation letters of 52 members of the DPJ.

Except, as it turns out, Yamaoka and his commander-in-chief Ozawa Ichiro did not have all 52 resignations from the party in the bag.

After Yamaoka's lunchtime delivery of the package, two of the members of the House of Representatives -- Shina Takeshi (Iwate District #1, two elections) and Tsuji Megumu (Osaka District #17, two elections) -- paid visits to Koshi'ishi's office asking him to please ignore their letters of resignation.

So the rebels did not even win a symbolic victory today, as 38 + 9 + 3 = 50, leaving those resigning from the DPJ today and their fellow travelers one short of the 51 members of the House of Representatives needed to submit a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet.

Quel bordel!

Of Course I Do

Of course I want to write a contrarian post about the present situation inside the Democratic Party of Japan and the Diet following the House of Representatives vote on the three bills paving the way for a raising of the consumption tax, insulting along the way a whole raft of persons, including:

- Hatoyama Yukio

- Ozawa Ichiro

- Tanigaki Sadakazu

- Yamaoka Kenji

- Watanabe Yoshimi

However, such was the jet lag from my trip that when I sat down at my computer, I could see five objects on the screen when I knew there were only three -- meaning I was in no shape to try to tackle the grand opera performance we folks in the cheap seats are not expected to even think about, much less understand.

Suffice it to say that not all the 57 members of the DPJ who voted against the bills or the 16 members who sat out the vote are necessarily ready to commit political suicide out their love for Ozawa Ichiro. A certain fraction are true believers, with enough brains to figure out what their interests are but incapable of seeing that their dear leader is only using them, alternating between bullying and flattering them, terrifying them into craving his approval. A goodly number, the most senior members of the cabal, have made the journey with Ozawa from party to party -- meaning they are just flunkeys, with scarcely a brain wave disturnbing their cerebellums. There are also idiot-savants like Hatoyama who have such a blind faith in the Doctrine of the Mean that they forget the Texas Rule of Politics: "The only things in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos."

It should also be remembered that the larger-than-expected number of nay-voters and abstainers may not represent a victory for Ozawa but indeed a failure of the imagination of the prognosticators. Think about it: you are a fence sitter in the DPJ, not tight with Ozawa but not tight with the mainstream leadership either. You have a tough election fight ahead of you. The New Komeito and the Liberal Democratic Party are all in on the vote, meaning it will pass by a huge margin. Why not be on record as an opponent of tax rises?

As for the threat to the cohesion of the DPJ, one cannot threaten that which has never existed. Every voter in 2009 had read what was on the DPJ label -- "Contents do not represent an organized political party, just an organized movement against the LDP. Westministerian-like levels of party discipline will be freakish and brief." (E)

The electorate also knew, because the newspapers, magazines and news programs went over the numbers in excrutiating detail, that the 2009 manifesto was a Potemkin Village, an improbable passel of promises to every possible constituency -- and that electorate was still was willing to grant the DPJ a huge majority in the House of Representatives.

As for Ozawa, he is on trial again. Ostensibly, he should have been stripped of his party privileges upon the refiling of charges against him. That he has not means that the party central leadership can choose to strip him of his privileges, making it impossible for him to run or even vote in the September DPJ leadership election. All those who followed his lead in voting against the legislation could suffer similar, if lesser, trimmings of their wings. If those are not punishments eliminating Ozawa's influence on party affairs, then what are? Recall that Ozawa already ordered an auto-purge of his followers from their government and party positions in April. Without party privileges, the rebels are dead to the party.

So whatever it is that Koshi'ishi Azuma and Ozawa Ichiro will be discussing this afternoon, it is likely not the end of Noda Yoshihiko's world.

Very Kind of Them #10

The good folks at the East Asia Forum have uploaded a reedited and updated version of my post of the other day on the Ozawa Ichiro trial. (Link)

Ozawa has come out swinging against the government of prime minister Noda Yoshihiko. True, he has done it within the safe confines of a fundraising party for his right hand man/chief "Yes" man Yamaoka Kenji, which one could reasonably claim does not really count as calling out Noda for a fight mano a mano. (J)

However, until the suspension against Ozawa is lifted, which will not be for at least another week due to the Golden Week holidays, Ozawa should not be expected to be showing up at party central anyway...not that he ever does, except on days when he or one his followers is running for the position of party leader.

Is That All You Got, Ozawa Ichiro?

At long last, have you left no other cards to play?

On Sunday, Yamaoka Kenji, a vice-president of the Democratic Party of Japan and the ring leader of the Diet members pressing hard for Ozawa Ichiro run in the September 14 party election, revealed on television the reason why members and supporters of the DPJ should hope that Ozawa Ichiro runs for the position of leader of the party and vote for him if he does:

Yamaoka hinted on a TBS program that a Diet dissolution would not be necessary if Ozawa became prime minister. "Lower house members have a tenure of three more years," he said.

Asked why the lower house would have to be dissolved if Kan kept his post, Yamaoka pointed to the divided Diet, with the ruling parties holding the majority in the lower house while the opposition parties control the upper house.

He said Ozawa, who has strong connections with New Komeito, can surmount difficulties in the divided Diet, but under Kan's leadership the Diet would be completely deadlocked until spring, when the ruling and opposition camps are sure to clash in the Diet over the fiscal 2011 budget.(Link)

Laying aside for a moment the ridiculousness of a purported clash over the fiscal year 2011 budget -- the one kind of legislation which is guaranteed to pass through the Diet without rancor due to Article 60 of the Constitution -- this is what Ozawa has, after 40 years in the Diet, the founding and breaking up of a half-a-dozen parties, a small shelf full of books published of his ideas, a huge court at his beck and call and leading underdog parties to national victories not once but four times.

Ozawa is better than Kan because has good relations with the New Komeito.

Ozawa, who is almost certain to be indicted on accounting fraud charges in regards a real estate deal involving land he bought for a dormitory to house members of his personal staff, a man whose very presence in the Diet is opposed by 70% of voters, is the best man to lead the DPJ and the government of this blessed land because he has a good relationship with a party that worked against DPJ in the last election, instructing its voters to vote for the district candidates of the DPJ's arch-rival, the Liberal Democratic Party and which is widely recognized as the political arm of an authoritarian religious organization.

The ruling DPJ-People's New Party are 12 seats short of a majority in the House of Councillors and 9 seats short of a two-thirds override supermajority in the House of Representatives. In either case, a hook up with the New Komeito would supply sufficient votes for the new ruling coalition to pass any legislation it may so desire. Such is the terror of a nejire kokkai -- a "twisted" Diet where a single party or coalition does not control both Houses of the Diet that it is indeed worthwhile for the membership of the DPJ to elect the fraught Ozawa so that the party may grasp the hand of the even more fraught New Komeito.

Hilarious! Twisted and hilarious!

But you cannot deny the genius of it. Here is Ozawa, with the connivance of the press that hates him, raising to the level of national threat the boogie man he himself created. For it was under his tutelage that the DPJ turned the 2007-2009 negire kokkai into a graveyard of LDP-sponsored legislation and government appointments. It was under his leadership, following his example of utter intransigence, that the DPJ pushed the prime ministers and chief cabinet secretaries of the LDP into hysterics, frightening them so that they even considered, under Fukuda Yasuo, a grand coalition with the DPJ -- a plan that fell through only when the DPJ leadership aside from Ozawa gagged, believing that, yes, there were some things you should not do in order to seize power.

Be afraid of Kan because he will be defeated by the negire kokkai? Balderdash. Ozawa Ichiro is the negire kokkai. Only he would have the stubborness, the ruthlessness, the utter disregard for national priorities and the intestinal fortitude to take his opponent to the mat, no matter how much the editorialists and TV pundits screamed how irresponsible his "No" would be.

Which is the secret that Ozawa and his allies hope that Kan and his allies never, ever unravel: that no one in the current opposition, not LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu, not LDP Secretary-General Oshima Tadamori, not LDP House of Councillors Diet Affairs Chairman Nakasone Hirofumi, not Your Party leader Watanabe Yoshimi, has the guts and the gall to vote against legislation in the nation's interest just for the purpose of injuring the DPJ. That the opposition has no Ozawa Ichiro to go the brink, and then over it, is the crack in the facade of fear. All who could block the Diet's business out of a cussed desire to do so are each and every one too nice, too intent on being liked, to push his enemies to the wall.

The negire kokkai without Ozawa as the antagonist is an annoyance, not a tragedy. He or she who realizes this will be free of fear of the negire kokkai's supposed awful power to thwart good policy and necessary legislation. He or she who has faith in the opposition's lack of will can press forward with his or her agenda, certain that by hook or by crook an able talker can cobble together alliances of like-minded legislators, incorporate the demands of opposition parties into legislation and invoke the art of compromise for the good of all.

And without the fear of a insoluably constipated Diet, Ozawa's candidacy for the leadership of the DPJ evaporates into a puff of smoke and a smear of dust.

Which is sad, because Ozawa has earned the right to go out as a dignified senior statesman, a politician who fought tooth-and-nail to win against incredible odds, who cut corners and betrayed allies with scarcely a hint of remorse, but who, when it came time for him to step aside for the good of his party and his nation, had the grace, wisdom and forbearance to do so.