A little less than two weeks ago, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko decided to cut short the debate on the bond issuance and the electoral reform bills, accepting from the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito the votes for the bond issuance bill they had already agreed to give him. In return, he gave away a one-in-a-decade chance to reform the electoral districts, forcing his party to contest the election in LDP-designed districts. He also received the verbal promises that the LDP would be serious about the advisory commission on welfare and pension reforms and the submission in the regular Diet session of a bill cutting the number of Diet members.
The wisdom of this decidedly unbalanced exchange has yet to manifest itself.
This morning'g public opinion poll results are dismal for the prime minister and his party. Despite the public's having had two weeks to think seriously about the horror of a second Abe premiership -- bolstered by the release of an LDP manifesto showing that the "Friends of Shinzo" have learned exactly nothing in the five years since their being hoisted from power -- a flow from the LDP to the Democratic Party of Japan is nowhere in sight.
For the all important "Which party do you intend to vote for in the proportional bloc half of the ballot? question, the reported results of this weekend's polling and the results from a week ago are:
Kyodo
LDP 19% (24%)
DPJ 8% (11%)
JRA 10% (8%)*
New Komeito 4% (4%)
Your Party 3% (2%)
People's Life First 2% (1%)
Don't know 45% (43%)
The Asahi Shimbun
LDP 23% (22%)
DPJ 13% (15%)
JRA 9% (6%)
New Komeito 4% (4%)
Your Party 3% (1%)
People's Life First 2% (0%)
Don't know 41% (46%)
Yomiuri Shimbun
LDP 25% (26%)
DPJ 10% (13%)
JRA 14% (13%)*
New Komeito 6% (4%)
Your Party 2% (2%)
People's Life First 2% (2%)
The results are a big pick-me-up for the Japan Restoration Association. We shall see if Hashimoto Toru's indelicate unveiling of his unserious approach to politics -- suggesting to the Your Party's Watanabe Yoshimi that districts where the JRA and the Your Party are both hoping to run candidates be divvied up by the two of them competing in "Rock, Paper, Scissors" -- represents a lasting hiccup or just another Monday morning's tempest in a coffee mug.
The poll numbers are a mixed bag for the LDP. It still has its on its two-to-one edge in most surveys but dropped by 5 points week-on-week in the Kyodo poll.
However, it is the chins of DPJ Diet seat holders that will be sunken today. A negative trend is visible across the board, bolstering the veracity of anecdotal accounts of DPJ big wheels speaking before tiny, unenthusiastic crowds.
Of course, these national trend polls mask significant variation in the regional bloc numbers. The DPJ remains viable in the Northern Kanto Bloc and to a lesser extent the Tohoku Region. The LDP dominates in the Southern Kanto, Joetsu, Tokai, Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu regions. The JRA is powerhouse in the making in the Kinki Region, while remaining a decidedly minor force inside Tokyo (no surprises there).
There is still no consensus as to just what the prime minister thought he was doing when he challenged Abe Shinzo two weeks ago during party leader Debate Time. For those inclined toward conspiracy theory, Noda, sick of the leftist and anti-free trade elements in the DPJ, called the election so that the center left would be erased in a rightward wave. Equally plausible is the assertion that Noda, like Abe in 2007, had a mistaken faith in the voters' appreciating his policies. The calling of the election was thus a simple miscalculation, a dooming of the DPJ to death from policy wonkery.
I am partial to both explanations.
Later - No, I do not believe the "just so" story that Prime Minister Noda called the election in order to short-circuit a party revolt against his leadership whilst he was away attending the ASEAN summit. Noda is not an African potentate, for Amaterasu's sake.
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* Totals for Japan Restoration Association are sum of JRA and Party of the Sun for November 17-18 surveys
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Sources:
Kyodo poll:
Tokyo Shimbun of 26 November 2012
The Asahi Shimbun poll:
http://www.asahi.compolitics/update/1125/TKY201211250550.html
Yomiuri Shimbun poll:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/feature/fe6100/koumoku/20121126.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/feature/fe6100/koumoku/20121118.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/feature/20080116-907457/news/20121125-OYT1T00993.htm
Showing posts with label bond issuance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bond issuance. Show all posts
Monday, November 26, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Like, Whatever
Folks are excited that the Democratic Party of Japan has given hints it intends to submit a bill on the reformation of the electoral districts on Wednesday (Link) Folks are equally excited at the Prime Minister's lobbing of Japan's participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership into the discussions of policy promises the DPJ will be including in its election manifesto. (Link)
Both acts are portrayed as harbingers of an election.
Whoa. Try to keep stuff in perspective, folks.
The submission of a bill reforming the electoral districts, if it is the one the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito let die in the last Diet session or if it is the LDP's minimal +0/-5 draft bill, is only the first step of a lengthy bargaining process between the ruling and opposition camps. Once a bill erasing the unconstitutional disparities in between the highest and lowest population districts passes both Houses of the Diet, the Noda government can still delay the calling of an election -- on the grounds that if the government and the opposition wish to avoid any taint on the election, the process of redistricting will have to run the course described in the public elections law.
The country's main political parties could, of course, collude and hold an early election in contempt of the law. However, the hold of the winner upon the tiller of government would be unsteady, subject to court challenge. Under the circumstance who, aside from LDP president and man-in-a-desperate-hurry-and-none-too-fond-of-the-Constitution-anyway Abe Shinzo, would want to press for an early dissolution of the Diet?
As for the inclusion of Japan's participation in the TPP in the Democratic Party of Japan's manifesto, hold the horses.
As the prime minister stated, Japan's participation in TPP would be part of a broader strategy, running in parallel with negotiations on a trilateral China-South Korea-Japan trade pact. By making this linkage, the prime minister makes clear Japan will essentially be trying to play both sets of negotiating partners against each other, as well as against other inter-regional negotiations in which Japan has shown an interest.
Let us see how Japan's negotiating partners respond to that ploy, shall we?
That the PM cannot count on the vote of his own party – that indeed just talking about including the language of TPP participation in the party manifesto could drive enough legislators out of the party as to trigger the collapse of the government -- should be a cold shower for those getting all excited at the Noda announcement.
The Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito have to fold on the bond issuance bill before we start talking about elections. So let us wait for that inevitability to happen before we get hopped up about a Diet dissolution, OK?
Later - The inimitable Corey Wallace has checked in with his own, more expansive examination of the TPP as strategy, tactic, diversion and lead balloon. (Link)
Both acts are portrayed as harbingers of an election.
Whoa. Try to keep stuff in perspective, folks.
The submission of a bill reforming the electoral districts, if it is the one the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito let die in the last Diet session or if it is the LDP's minimal +0/-5 draft bill, is only the first step of a lengthy bargaining process between the ruling and opposition camps. Once a bill erasing the unconstitutional disparities in between the highest and lowest population districts passes both Houses of the Diet, the Noda government can still delay the calling of an election -- on the grounds that if the government and the opposition wish to avoid any taint on the election, the process of redistricting will have to run the course described in the public elections law.
The country's main political parties could, of course, collude and hold an early election in contempt of the law. However, the hold of the winner upon the tiller of government would be unsteady, subject to court challenge. Under the circumstance who, aside from LDP president and man-in-a-desperate-hurry-and-none-too-fond-of-the-Constitution-anyway Abe Shinzo, would want to press for an early dissolution of the Diet?
As for the inclusion of Japan's participation in the TPP in the Democratic Party of Japan's manifesto, hold the horses.
As the prime minister stated, Japan's participation in TPP would be part of a broader strategy, running in parallel with negotiations on a trilateral China-South Korea-Japan trade pact. By making this linkage, the prime minister makes clear Japan will essentially be trying to play both sets of negotiating partners against each other, as well as against other inter-regional negotiations in which Japan has shown an interest.
Let us see how Japan's negotiating partners respond to that ploy, shall we?
That the PM cannot count on the vote of his own party – that indeed just talking about including the language of TPP participation in the party manifesto could drive enough legislators out of the party as to trigger the collapse of the government -- should be a cold shower for those getting all excited at the Noda announcement.
The Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito have to fold on the bond issuance bill before we start talking about elections. So let us wait for that inevitability to happen before we get hopped up about a Diet dissolution, OK?
Later - The inimitable Corey Wallace has checked in with his own, more expansive examination of the TPP as strategy, tactic, diversion and lead balloon. (Link)
Saturday, November 03, 2012
Noda And The DPJ's Ultimate, Black-Hearted Double-Cross
When the Divine wants to punish youIn his most recent post to his blog GlobalTalk 21, Okumura Jun offers some guesses as to why the Liberal Democratic Party, which has until recently sworn it will boycott and block all Diet business unless Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko commits to dissolving the Diet and calling elections in December, has, while not swerving from its commitment to December elections, suddenly de-escalated the crisis over the bond issuance bill and the formation of the commission in charge of implementing the social welfare reforms package. (Link)
It answers your prayers...
Okumura-san sees three main drivers behind the LDP climb-down. I do not disagree with his first two, that
1) the Keidanren and other business lobbies are shouting in the LDP's ear to not play politics with the nation's economy and
2) the LDP leadership senses that the party is so far ahead in the polls its mandate is to avoid doing anything stupid, rather than trying to provoke change.
To those screaming in the ears of LDP Diet members I would add prefectural and local officials, the vast majority of whom are members of the LDP. The message they are screaming? "When the government is reducing budget outlays and is threatening complete cutoffs of all distributions because of your opposition to the bond issuance bill, we are the ones getting killed. Are we in the same party or what?"
As to Okumura-san's third point, I agree that the LDP does not want Noda to resign. However, Okumura-san does not go far enough in imagining the LDP's worst nightmare. His nightmare scenario is that a) Noda resigns and b) the telegenic DPJ Policy Research Council chairman Hosono Goshi takes over as party leader and Prime Minister.
I see two weaknesses in this nightmare scenario.
First, having Hosono "Hot Lips" Goshi as the Democratic Party of Japan's new leader seems insufficiently terrifying. The DPJ's party support and "which party are you going to vote for in the proportional list vote" numbers are so awful that the popularity bump from Hosono's handsome face and youth will merely shift the needle of the DPJ's post-election outlook from "essentially extinct" to "irrelevant."
Second, a Noda resignation and a Hosono takeover will leave unchanged the fights over the bond issuance bill, the formation of the social welfare commission and, most critically, the electoral district reform bill.
That last item is about to take a turn for the worse, if Acting Secretary-General Azumi Jun's Friday announcement is any indication. According to Azumi, DPJ members will need more than a week to talk about the bill amongst themselves (Link) -- which is pretty much a confession that whatever the DPJ leaders are cooking up will be significantly different from the bill they submitted in the Regular Session, which they pushed through the House of Representatives only to watch it die on the doorstep of the House of Councillors.
It is also a fair bet that even if the LDP cooperates this coming week on the bond issuance bill and the social welfare reform commission, Noda will not reward the LDP with a palatable electoral reform bill.
He never gives up a centimeter on anything.
The LDP leadership is not unaware of Noda's ability to lead his enemies into moving too quickly and thus squandering their advantages. The LDP therefore has an incentive to cooperate on the bond issuance bill and the social welfare reform commission, but at a glacial pace, in order to at least try to pressure Noda into offering a reasonable deal on an electoral district reform bill.
If everything grinds to a halt on the bond issuance bill or the LDP devises some other sort of mischief to hobble the prime minister, Noda and his Cabinet could very likely resign…...but not because they would have to...because they would want to.
Because if the Cabinet resigns, Noda and the DPJ can deploy the most vengeful, most malicious and most wicked weapon imaginable against Abe Shinzo's LDP: hold an immediate vote for a new prime minister and vote, one and all, as a party -- for Abe.
Implausible? Not really.
Make Abe the prime minister: heck, that is what he wants, is it not? All at once the problems bedeviling Noda and the DPJ -- the government's having neither operating funds nor a means of conducting a constitutional election – become Abe's problems – which he would have to address immediately and, because he could not call a constitutionally valid election, he and the LDP could only tackle in a coalition with the DPJ -- with the DPJ, as the larger partner in the coalition, calling most of the shots.
Insane. And brilliant. Insanely brilliant. Brilliantly insane.
What is more, there is nothing the LDP or any other party could do to stop Noda and DPJ from dumping the nation's problems in Abe's lap. The House of Representatives elects the prime minister (Constitution of Japan - Article 67). Even if every member of every other party boycotted the premiership election, and even if a few flabbergasted DPJ members refused to back the plan, the remaining DPJ members of House of Representative would still be numerous enough to form the quorum (Article 56) able to vote Abe into office.
It cannot be for no reason that LDP's cry is "dissolve the Diet" (kaisan) – this even though everyone knows that dissolving the Diet without the passage of an electoral reform bill would plunge the country into a constitutional crisis -- and not "Resign!"
Aha, but did not Prime Minister Noda say on Friday, in response to a question from LDP House of Councillors member Nomura Tetsuro, that
"As for a resignation of the Cabinet, I believe that would represent a prime minister abandoning his responsibilities." (Sojishoku ni tsukimashite wa naikaku soridaijin to shite no sekinin o hoki suru mono de aru to kangaete orimasu)?
Yes he did.
However, as former LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu found out, what one thinks a phrase means and what Prime Minister Noda thinks a phrase means can be two very different things.
Reading the sentence again, Noda does not say, "I will not resign!" does he?
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Shutting The Door In Noda's Face
On October 29, the much-delayed fall Extraordinatry Session of the Diet will open. In the House of Representatives, the first order of business will be the Prime Minister's delivery of his Policy Address, outlining what he and his Cabinet intend to accomplish in the session.
Under normal circumstances, the Prime Minister would then move to the House of Councillors chamber, to deliver the same Policy Address.
However, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko will not be delivering his address to the House of Councillors. In an agreement worked out between the heads of all the opposition parties, who together control the majority of seats in the House of Councillors, the doors of the chamber will be shut to him, and the day will pass without his addressing the Senators. (Link - J)
Now this is a decidedly peculiar beginning to a session of the Diet. However, Noda has infuriated the opposition parties, particularly the Liberal Democratic Party, by his refusal to dissolve the Diet and hold elections before the year is out. Indeed, after privately promising the former LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu that he would call elections "soon" (chikai uchi ni), Noda has refused to name a date for the Diet's dissolution. The delay of the opening of the Extraordinary Session until the final days of October indeed guarantees that there will be no election this year, there being not enough time for the drawing of an unimpeachable, constitutional revision of the House of Representatives electoral map and for a legal declaration of candidates for office. (Link)
More pointedly and pettily, the current House of Councillors censured the Prime Minister at the tail end of the Regular Session. Though s censure motion has no legal force behind it and ceased to be meaningful following the closure of the Regular Session on September 8, the PM is still in essence and perhaps in perpetuity persona non grata in the House of Councillors, even before yesterday's formal agreement among the opposition parties to bar the doors to his entry.
If the Prime Minister and the Democratic Party of Japan wanted to, and the President of the House of Councillors agreed to it, the DPJ members of the House of Councillors, who by themselves represent a quorum, could presumably open up the doors of the House of Councillors, invite the PM in and and sit and listen to him deliver his Policy Address.
Even if the PM and the DPJ could pull off this trick and get out of the Diet building before the opposition arrived -- which is unlikely as the Diet members' offices are across the street from the Diet Building -- there would be no point in such a gesture, aside from striking back at the opposition's insulting refusal to listen to a presentation by the head of the government. The opposition would simply censure the prime minister again, bringing the Extraordinary Session to a halt before it had even begun.
So Prime Minister Noda will suffer a stunning slight on October 29, the first time a prime minister has been denied the opportunity to deliver a policy address since the present constitution was adopted. He is probably overjoyed at the prospect, as not having to address the House of Councillors will free up a couple of otherwise wasted hours in the middle of a busy workday.
In an interesting twist, the LDP caucus in the House of Councillors is picking a fight with the LDP caucus in the House of Representatives over the use of pressure tactics. The LDP caucus in the House of Councillors is raring to insult the prime minister as regards the policy address. However, it is agnostic as regards withholding approval on the bond issuance bill until the Noda government has coughed up electoral district reform legislation that both pleases the LDP-New Komeito opposition alliance and hastens the government's demise -- a request that the Noda government has been reticent to honor. Mizote Kensei, the LDP's House of Councillors Secretary-General, has stated that Diet dissolutions are a House of Representatives affair, House of Councillors members being elected for fixed terms. If a bond issuance bill emerges from the House of Representatives, which it can thanks to the ruling DPJ-People's New Party coalition's still holding a thin numerical majority in that House, then, according to Mizote, "The bill will pass in my House." (Link - J)
If Mizote is not just blowing smoke, and Prime Minister Noda can count on the House of Councillors passing the bond issuance bill for the price of insulting him like no prime minister ever has been insulted before, he will take that deal.
Under normal circumstances, the Prime Minister would then move to the House of Councillors chamber, to deliver the same Policy Address.
However, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko will not be delivering his address to the House of Councillors. In an agreement worked out between the heads of all the opposition parties, who together control the majority of seats in the House of Councillors, the doors of the chamber will be shut to him, and the day will pass without his addressing the Senators. (Link - J)
Now this is a decidedly peculiar beginning to a session of the Diet. However, Noda has infuriated the opposition parties, particularly the Liberal Democratic Party, by his refusal to dissolve the Diet and hold elections before the year is out. Indeed, after privately promising the former LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu that he would call elections "soon" (chikai uchi ni), Noda has refused to name a date for the Diet's dissolution. The delay of the opening of the Extraordinary Session until the final days of October indeed guarantees that there will be no election this year, there being not enough time for the drawing of an unimpeachable, constitutional revision of the House of Representatives electoral map and for a legal declaration of candidates for office. (Link)
More pointedly and pettily, the current House of Councillors censured the Prime Minister at the tail end of the Regular Session. Though s censure motion has no legal force behind it and ceased to be meaningful following the closure of the Regular Session on September 8, the PM is still in essence and perhaps in perpetuity persona non grata in the House of Councillors, even before yesterday's formal agreement among the opposition parties to bar the doors to his entry.
If the Prime Minister and the Democratic Party of Japan wanted to, and the President of the House of Councillors agreed to it, the DPJ members of the House of Councillors, who by themselves represent a quorum, could presumably open up the doors of the House of Councillors, invite the PM in and and sit and listen to him deliver his Policy Address.
Even if the PM and the DPJ could pull off this trick and get out of the Diet building before the opposition arrived -- which is unlikely as the Diet members' offices are across the street from the Diet Building -- there would be no point in such a gesture, aside from striking back at the opposition's insulting refusal to listen to a presentation by the head of the government. The opposition would simply censure the prime minister again, bringing the Extraordinary Session to a halt before it had even begun.
So Prime Minister Noda will suffer a stunning slight on October 29, the first time a prime minister has been denied the opportunity to deliver a policy address since the present constitution was adopted. He is probably overjoyed at the prospect, as not having to address the House of Councillors will free up a couple of otherwise wasted hours in the middle of a busy workday.
In an interesting twist, the LDP caucus in the House of Councillors is picking a fight with the LDP caucus in the House of Representatives over the use of pressure tactics. The LDP caucus in the House of Councillors is raring to insult the prime minister as regards the policy address. However, it is agnostic as regards withholding approval on the bond issuance bill until the Noda government has coughed up electoral district reform legislation that both pleases the LDP-New Komeito opposition alliance and hastens the government's demise -- a request that the Noda government has been reticent to honor. Mizote Kensei, the LDP's House of Councillors Secretary-General, has stated that Diet dissolutions are a House of Representatives affair, House of Councillors members being elected for fixed terms. If a bond issuance bill emerges from the House of Representatives, which it can thanks to the ruling DPJ-People's New Party coalition's still holding a thin numerical majority in that House, then, according to Mizote, "The bill will pass in my House." (Link - J)
If Mizote is not just blowing smoke, and Prime Minister Noda can count on the House of Councillors passing the bond issuance bill for the price of insulting him like no prime minister ever has been insulted before, he will take that deal.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
In Defense of Noda Yoshihiko's Leadership
Two analysts whom I respect greatly yesterday issued negative assessments of Prime Minister and Democratic Party of Japan leader Noda Yoshihiko's leadership.
In a post to his blog GlobalTalk 21, Okumura Jun writes:
In a comment to my post of the wee hours of Monday, October 22 on Maehara Seiji’s act of political arson (Link), Corey Wallace of σ1 writes:
My friends, respect you both I do, but you are both wrong.
As to the charge that Noda has a bad record of personnel management, consider the DPJ Hatoyama and Kan left him and what he has been able to do with it. Beside (because he most certainly not under) Hatoyama Yukio, Ozawa Ichiro managed to grab every atom of policy making power to himself, alienating the entire middle tier of the party's membership. The struggle reaching a climax in the Ubukata rebellion (Link) that ended in a humiliating stepdown by the imperious Ozawa.
When Hatoyama stepped down, and took Ozawa in a headlock down with him, Kan Naoto took over a party with a major image problem and deep internal fissures. Kan decided that Job One was the restoration of the party's reputation and mollification of the party’s middle ranks – most of whom had been in the party longer than Ozawa. This meant an openly declared policy of "de-Ozawafication," quarantining Ozawa – a process considerably aided by Ozawa's indictment on political funding fraud charges – and also trying to salvage a workable policy program from out of the mountain of impossible-to-fulfill promises made in the Ozawa-drafted 2009 policy manifesto.
However, Kan could only go so far in the de-Ozawafication process, as Ozawa still had sway over at least 150 legislators. So while Kan kept his Cabinet largely clean of Ozawa acolytes, he had to always be cognizant that he and his allies stood on the precipice as regards party unity, that a step too far could split the party in half. Had not 3/11 intervened, Kan could have indeed presided over such a split.
The recovery and reconstruction effort, and the absolutely disgraceful attacks on Prime Minister Kan by members of the Liberal Democratic Party and others in the opposition, submerged for a while the internal battle between the Ozawa followers and the DPJ main line.
However, Ozawa's frightening hold upon his followers and their willingness to follow him even on the most self-destructive of paths was demonstrated in the election to replace Kan. In a move that strains credulity even today, Ozawa picked as his champion Kaieda Banri, a man who had not only written a book denouncing Ozawaism but one month prior to the leadership election had broken down in tears during Diet testimony (Link). Despite the history of bad blood and real possibility of electing an emotionally unstable man party leader, Ozawa's followers provided the lion's share of 143 votes and a top-place finish Kaieda received in the first round of voting.
Noda eventually prevailed in the runoff, 215 votes to 177 – but what to do about those 177 votes? Noda, in his own attempt to keep the party together despite Ozawa’s machination, promised to be a "no sides" leader, willing to share power with Ozawa followers and allies.
Noda made good on his promise, appointing Ozawa allies Ishikawa Tatsuo and Yamaoka Kenji to his Cabinet – ministers who almost immediately came up croppers. Both were censured and had to be replaced in January 2012. (Cabinet Reshuffle #1)
In June, Noda, facing an uphill battle to get the LDP and the New Komeito to the altar on voting for the package of bills including the consumption tax, decided he little choice to but to rid his Cabinet of four vulnerable ministers, two of whom had been censure by the House of Councillors. (Cabinet Reshuffle #2)
The reshuffle did its job, which was to shut the LDP and the New Komeito up about the Cabinet, so that Noda could get down to the difficult business of working with the opposition to pass the tax rise, knowing that if he succeeded on the policy front, Ozawa and his closest followers would jump ship.
Which they did on July 2.
In September Noda breezed through a required leadership election (Link). Since he had won so convincingly, he had no overt reason to reshuffle his Cabinet. However, to do nothing would have been very poor public relations, especially given the low public popularity ratings for the Cabinet. So he moved his most important young allies around in a game of musical chairs in between the power positions in the Cabinet and party leadership. As for the second- and third-ranking Cabinet posts, he handed them out to all the different groups inside the DPJ, whilst deftly avoiding giving anything to any of the three men who had had the temerity to challenge him in the leadership race (try to get away with that trick, LDP presidents-elect!).
For a man with a less-than-10 vote majority in the House of Representatives, the handing out of minor Cabinet posts to the champions and princes of the various sub-groups inside the party was not just smart but necessary.
The opposition called Reshuffle #3 a travesty. Watanabe Yoshimi of the Your Party came up with a trio of epithets: the "Warehouse Clearance Sale Cabinet," the "Goodbye Memorial Cabinet" and the "Graduation Photograph Cabinet" (Link - J). Even I who tries to avoid running with the herd got carried away and called it the "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish" Cabinet. (Link)
That Tanaka Keishu should have snuck in is hardly surprising. He is the standard bearer of the old Democratic Socialist Party (Minshato) that merged with the DPJ in 1998 but still retains a group identity within the confines of the party. Tanaka of course had a huge warning sign flashing over his head: he had lost his Diet seat in 1990 as a result of the Recruit Scandal. However, he is an old man, with no Cabinet posts under his belt and a much-interrupted and probably doomed Diet career. He was, as I have suggested before, the Prime Minister’s one selection made out of pity.
Politics, however, is a pitiless business.
As to idea that Prime Minister Noda is merely extend his stay in office is a misreading of Noda's approach to politics. With a razor thin majority in the House of Representatives, the Opposition blocking the passage of legislation in the House of Councillors, Cabinet and party support ratings in the cellar and with only nine months left in the terms of the Diet members, he is by definition playing an end game.
But what an end game it has been! He fooled Ozawa Ichiro into walking out of the DPJ with only a half a bushel of followers and no money in his pockets. He drove LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu into humiliating retirement, whilst extorting from him the votes he needed to pass the consumption tax. He maneuvered the LDP to vote for a censure motion condemning itself. He told current president Abe Shinzo, in their first meeting after their respective reelections, to go acquire carnal knowledge of himself should he press on the issue of early elections -- hence the magnitude of betrayal in Maehara’s Seiji's musings on Sunday. (Link)
For the DPJ, the war is lost. The party will be swept away in the next elections, in both Houses. There is nothing that the party can do, nothing that its individual members can do to avoid the deluge. So why not go down fighting, tooth and claw, with devastating tenacity, until the very end?
Unless, of course, Noda and the party choose the Unimaginable Alternative...
In a post to his blog GlobalTalk 21, Okumura Jun writes:
The October 22 evening edition of Nikkei has a chart listing the ministers that resigned or were dismissed during the three years of the DPJ regime. It tells us that Hatoyama lost two, Kan lost four, while Tanaka is Noda’s second loss. So one head better than par for the course? Not quite.
[Snip]
Noda's two losses by contrast were precipitated by political and legal misdemeanors by obviously under-qualified if personable politicos being rewarded for their political attributes.
But that's not all. Prime Minister Noda in what must be a national record has conducted three cabinet reshuffles in little more than a year in office. This is not exactly mitigated by the fact that two of those reshuffles were actually pretexts to get rid of a couple of appointees in each case who had exposed their lack of political toilet training and had to go.
Six incompetents kicked out, or three cabinet reshuffles in little more than a year. Pick his poison; whichever explanation you choose, he makes Hatoyama look good and Kan look at worst average as far as personnel management goes. And that’s probably not an easy feat to accomplish.
(Link)
In a comment to my post of the wee hours of Monday, October 22 on Maehara Seiji’s act of political arson (Link), Corey Wallace of σ1 writes:
As for the main argument of your piece, I guess my point really is, yeah Maehara is a prat, but he hasn't really blown up any "plan" mainly because the plan was a pointless and ineffective one the moment that Noda chose the cabinet he did (irrespective of the Tanaka issue) and the party's leadership essentially sacrificed the middle and younger ranks of the party by signaling that they would turn over on the electoral redistricting. Maehara has made it easier for the LDP etc to badger them during the temporary session. But it may be for the best. It seems the senior leadership's plan is to extend the life of the administration as long as possible, even if it leads the party into even more devastating annihilation in an election. As long as they survive, the rest of the party be damned (and yes, Maehara is part of the senior leadership). A look at the opinion polls tells you what the public want, and the current Noda's administration survival is the lowest on the list for what they want to see happen over the next few months, perhaps only above the government running out of money.
My friends, respect you both I do, but you are both wrong.
As to the charge that Noda has a bad record of personnel management, consider the DPJ Hatoyama and Kan left him and what he has been able to do with it. Beside (because he most certainly not under) Hatoyama Yukio, Ozawa Ichiro managed to grab every atom of policy making power to himself, alienating the entire middle tier of the party's membership. The struggle reaching a climax in the Ubukata rebellion (Link) that ended in a humiliating stepdown by the imperious Ozawa.
When Hatoyama stepped down, and took Ozawa in a headlock down with him, Kan Naoto took over a party with a major image problem and deep internal fissures. Kan decided that Job One was the restoration of the party's reputation and mollification of the party’s middle ranks – most of whom had been in the party longer than Ozawa. This meant an openly declared policy of "de-Ozawafication," quarantining Ozawa – a process considerably aided by Ozawa's indictment on political funding fraud charges – and also trying to salvage a workable policy program from out of the mountain of impossible-to-fulfill promises made in the Ozawa-drafted 2009 policy manifesto.
However, Kan could only go so far in the de-Ozawafication process, as Ozawa still had sway over at least 150 legislators. So while Kan kept his Cabinet largely clean of Ozawa acolytes, he had to always be cognizant that he and his allies stood on the precipice as regards party unity, that a step too far could split the party in half. Had not 3/11 intervened, Kan could have indeed presided over such a split.
The recovery and reconstruction effort, and the absolutely disgraceful attacks on Prime Minister Kan by members of the Liberal Democratic Party and others in the opposition, submerged for a while the internal battle between the Ozawa followers and the DPJ main line.
However, Ozawa's frightening hold upon his followers and their willingness to follow him even on the most self-destructive of paths was demonstrated in the election to replace Kan. In a move that strains credulity even today, Ozawa picked as his champion Kaieda Banri, a man who had not only written a book denouncing Ozawaism but one month prior to the leadership election had broken down in tears during Diet testimony (Link). Despite the history of bad blood and real possibility of electing an emotionally unstable man party leader, Ozawa's followers provided the lion's share of 143 votes and a top-place finish Kaieda received in the first round of voting.
Noda eventually prevailed in the runoff, 215 votes to 177 – but what to do about those 177 votes? Noda, in his own attempt to keep the party together despite Ozawa’s machination, promised to be a "no sides" leader, willing to share power with Ozawa followers and allies.
Noda made good on his promise, appointing Ozawa allies Ishikawa Tatsuo and Yamaoka Kenji to his Cabinet – ministers who almost immediately came up croppers. Both were censured and had to be replaced in January 2012. (Cabinet Reshuffle #1)
In June, Noda, facing an uphill battle to get the LDP and the New Komeito to the altar on voting for the package of bills including the consumption tax, decided he little choice to but to rid his Cabinet of four vulnerable ministers, two of whom had been censure by the House of Councillors. (Cabinet Reshuffle #2)
The reshuffle did its job, which was to shut the LDP and the New Komeito up about the Cabinet, so that Noda could get down to the difficult business of working with the opposition to pass the tax rise, knowing that if he succeeded on the policy front, Ozawa and his closest followers would jump ship.
Which they did on July 2.
In September Noda breezed through a required leadership election (Link). Since he had won so convincingly, he had no overt reason to reshuffle his Cabinet. However, to do nothing would have been very poor public relations, especially given the low public popularity ratings for the Cabinet. So he moved his most important young allies around in a game of musical chairs in between the power positions in the Cabinet and party leadership. As for the second- and third-ranking Cabinet posts, he handed them out to all the different groups inside the DPJ, whilst deftly avoiding giving anything to any of the three men who had had the temerity to challenge him in the leadership race (try to get away with that trick, LDP presidents-elect!).
For a man with a less-than-10 vote majority in the House of Representatives, the handing out of minor Cabinet posts to the champions and princes of the various sub-groups inside the party was not just smart but necessary.
The opposition called Reshuffle #3 a travesty. Watanabe Yoshimi of the Your Party came up with a trio of epithets: the "Warehouse Clearance Sale Cabinet," the "Goodbye Memorial Cabinet" and the "Graduation Photograph Cabinet" (Link - J). Even I who tries to avoid running with the herd got carried away and called it the "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish" Cabinet. (Link)
That Tanaka Keishu should have snuck in is hardly surprising. He is the standard bearer of the old Democratic Socialist Party (Minshato) that merged with the DPJ in 1998 but still retains a group identity within the confines of the party. Tanaka of course had a huge warning sign flashing over his head: he had lost his Diet seat in 1990 as a result of the Recruit Scandal. However, he is an old man, with no Cabinet posts under his belt and a much-interrupted and probably doomed Diet career. He was, as I have suggested before, the Prime Minister’s one selection made out of pity.
Politics, however, is a pitiless business.
As to idea that Prime Minister Noda is merely extend his stay in office is a misreading of Noda's approach to politics. With a razor thin majority in the House of Representatives, the Opposition blocking the passage of legislation in the House of Councillors, Cabinet and party support ratings in the cellar and with only nine months left in the terms of the Diet members, he is by definition playing an end game.
But what an end game it has been! He fooled Ozawa Ichiro into walking out of the DPJ with only a half a bushel of followers and no money in his pockets. He drove LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu into humiliating retirement, whilst extorting from him the votes he needed to pass the consumption tax. He maneuvered the LDP to vote for a censure motion condemning itself. He told current president Abe Shinzo, in their first meeting after their respective reelections, to go acquire carnal knowledge of himself should he press on the issue of early elections -- hence the magnitude of betrayal in Maehara’s Seiji's musings on Sunday. (Link)
For the DPJ, the war is lost. The party will be swept away in the next elections, in both Houses. There is nothing that the party can do, nothing that its individual members can do to avoid the deluge. So why not go down fighting, tooth and claw, with devastating tenacity, until the very end?
Unless, of course, Noda and the party choose the Unimaginable Alternative...
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Can Anyone In The Opposition Play This Game?
On Friday I speculated that the Democratic Party of Japan, faced with a determined and suddenly invigorated Liberal Democratic Party, had out of desperation moved to the Four Corners Offense, where the point is to dribble the ball interminably and pass the ball back-and forth pointlessly so as to keep the other side from ever getting control. (Link)
I was therefore surprised when LDP Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru was able to twist enough arms as to secure a Monday meeting of secretaries-general of the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito, the only three parties that matter.
[An aside - Japan does have other parties, a stunning plethora of them. The DPJ's coalition partner, the People's New Party, seems content to have the DPJ speak for it. The opposition parties outside the LDP-New Komeito alliance are, by contrast, frothing at the mouth, furious that they are never invited to meetings of any consequence. Instead, their leaders gather together to issue condemnations of the "three party cabal" ruling Japan.
No combination of any of the other opposition parties adds up to any meaningful number of votes in the House of Representatives for either the LDP or the DPJ. In the House of Councillors, the other opposition parties could come together to help the government pass legislation. However, due to ideological incompatibility with the DPJ’s current political course, they have taken to side with the LDP, whose politics they dislike even more, to just say "No" to every important government bill landing in the House of Councillors.]
Ishiba's success in gaining meeting on what the next working day seemed a harbinger for a more aggressive LDP and compliant DPJ. True, it was only a meeting to set up another meeting, the next step being a meeting of the leaders of the three parties to talk about and perhaps agree on a date for the opening of the extraordinary Diet session and the sequencing of the government's presentation of its bills. Ishiba and his New Komeito counterpart Inoue Yoshihisa went into their meeting with DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'shi Azuma determined to draw out of the DPJ's man an acquiescence to the the LDP’s and New Komeito’s demands that Prime Minister Noda honor the promise he made to former LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu to dissolve of the Diet "soon" (chikai uchi ni).
What Ishiba and Inoue came out of their meeting with Koshi'ishi was...a promise to meet again on Thursday.
Koshi'ishi opened with the gambit that he would want the heads of the three parties to meet later this week and for the extraordinary session to begin by the end of the month. In both cases, he was lying. However, having placed these ideas on the table put the onus on his counterparts to characterize him later as being close-minded and merely trying to delay the opening of the extraordinary Diet Session.
Koshi'ishi continued with the standard DPJ trio of suggestions -- not demands. First, that the bond issuance bill be passed soon so as to prevent a disruption of the lives of the citizens. Second, that an electoral reform bill be passed 1) eliminating any question as to the constitutionality of the boundaries of House of Representatives electoral districts, and 2) reducing the number of House of Representatives seats, this in order to demonstrate to the citizens, who have been asked to accept a doubling of the consumption tax, that the government is making a best effort at cutting back on its size and spending. Finally, the DPJ would want the convocation of the the National Council on Reform of the Social Welfare System (Shakai hosho seido kaikaku kokumin kaigi) in order to begin discussions of the implementation of the reforms passed along with the consumption tax bill.
Ishiba countered with a concession that he would not want his party to be seen as holding the bond issuance bill, an electoral reform bill and a convocation of the National Council hostage to his and the New Komeito's demands. However, he continued, two months has passed since the prime minister made his promise to dissolve the Diet "soon" (Link - J). Inoue piped in, saying that given the deadlines for the compilation of the national budget, the time limit for the holding of an election is early December. (Link - J)
Let us take a moment to consider Inoue's demand. Article 54 of the Constitution mandates that an election take place within 40 days of a dissolution. However, the Constitution is silent as to the minimum number of days that can pass between a dissolution and an election. Article 31 of the Public Elections Act, however, requires that a final determination of the candidates up for election must be made at least 12 days prior to election day. (Link)
Given that an election is almost invariably held on a Sunday, and the process of the Diet's electing a new prime minister, the new PM’s selection of a Cabinet and his/her delivering a Diet policy address eats up a week, and compiling of a rushed budget will take at least three weeks, the realistic December date for an election is December 1. Working backward 12 days from there brings us to Monday, November 19.
So whatever happens, the extraordinary Diet session will have to finish up all its business in a little less than a month. That is the relevant House of Representatives committees discussing the bills, then voting on the bills, sending them to the plenary session for an up/down vote, then presenting the bills to the House of Councillors, with their committee discussions, votes and final plenary session up/down vote.
Of course, the two Houses could look at identical texts of bills at the same time, pass them at the same time, come together and decide that the bills are the same and thus law.
Except, of course, all of this speculation may be moot. Bringing the House of Representatives district boundaries into conformance with requirements set down Article 13 of the Public Elections Act requires months of research, analysis and compromise, not just a few days of politicians bargaining over legislative band-aids.
So what the LDP and the New Komeito are demanding as regards an election "soon" may be possible but will be illegal.
Koshi'ishi knows this. However, he did not have to pull this card out of his sleeve on Monday when Ishiba and Inoue pressed on the dissolution. Already on the 15th he had made clear that he was not going to say diddly about a date for a dissolution on the grounds that a dissolution of the Diet is a solemn duty and privilege of the prime minister and not something he can just lightly say whatever he may think on the subject. (Link)
After 20 minutes of back and forth, the trio broke up, agreeing to meet again on the 18th.
A clearly frustrated Ishiba then went and put his foot in his mouth. Angry that he came out of the meeting having neither learned nor won anything, he told reporters that unless the atmosphere becomes less duplicitous, having a meeting between the heads of the parties will lead nowhere. (Link -J)
Rule #1 of adult behavior: never shut down avenues. Never say that you will not meet to talk.
How long can the DPJ's torture of the LDP and the New Komeito continue? The first and foremost hurdle that must be vaulted is the passage of the bond issuance bill. That has to happen sometime soon, though just when is rather murky, The Prime Minister Noda and the DPJ, weakened as they are, can call an extraordinary session of the Diet and then dare the opposition to allow the government to run out of money. It is a risk the PM and DPJ seem increasingly confident in taking.
As for how long the public will put up with the DPJ's dodging and weaving whenever the LDP and the New Komeito start talking about holding elections, there may be a limit there. Editorialists will start to castigate the DPJ secretariat for stalling just to avoid the certain electoral defeat awaiting them. Guests on this morning's Asa Zuba! news program complained that, "If they are members of the Diet, and they don’t want to go into session, then they should just quit."
However, as regards the delays in convening of an extraordinary session, Koshi'ishi, who has no limits to his ability to state the chapter and verse on any subject, can tell the press, "Look, an extraordinary session is just that, extraordinary. The National Diet Act requires us to be in session for 150 days. We went way past that mark in the regular Diet Session. We have earned our salaries for the year. If the opposition cleans up its act and stops trying to extort Diet dissolutions from our prime ministers in return for votes on normal government bills, then we can go back to work in extraordinary session."
So on my score sheet, after the first round, it is Dead Pharaoh 1, Python 0. (Link)
I was therefore surprised when LDP Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru was able to twist enough arms as to secure a Monday meeting of secretaries-general of the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito, the only three parties that matter.
[An aside - Japan does have other parties, a stunning plethora of them. The DPJ's coalition partner, the People's New Party, seems content to have the DPJ speak for it. The opposition parties outside the LDP-New Komeito alliance are, by contrast, frothing at the mouth, furious that they are never invited to meetings of any consequence. Instead, their leaders gather together to issue condemnations of the "three party cabal" ruling Japan.
No combination of any of the other opposition parties adds up to any meaningful number of votes in the House of Representatives for either the LDP or the DPJ. In the House of Councillors, the other opposition parties could come together to help the government pass legislation. However, due to ideological incompatibility with the DPJ’s current political course, they have taken to side with the LDP, whose politics they dislike even more, to just say "No" to every important government bill landing in the House of Councillors.]
Ishiba's success in gaining meeting on what the next working day seemed a harbinger for a more aggressive LDP and compliant DPJ. True, it was only a meeting to set up another meeting, the next step being a meeting of the leaders of the three parties to talk about and perhaps agree on a date for the opening of the extraordinary Diet session and the sequencing of the government's presentation of its bills. Ishiba and his New Komeito counterpart Inoue Yoshihisa went into their meeting with DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'shi Azuma determined to draw out of the DPJ's man an acquiescence to the the LDP’s and New Komeito’s demands that Prime Minister Noda honor the promise he made to former LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu to dissolve of the Diet "soon" (chikai uchi ni).
What Ishiba and Inoue came out of their meeting with Koshi'ishi was...a promise to meet again on Thursday.
Koshi'ishi opened with the gambit that he would want the heads of the three parties to meet later this week and for the extraordinary session to begin by the end of the month. In both cases, he was lying. However, having placed these ideas on the table put the onus on his counterparts to characterize him later as being close-minded and merely trying to delay the opening of the extraordinary Diet Session.
Koshi'ishi continued with the standard DPJ trio of suggestions -- not demands. First, that the bond issuance bill be passed soon so as to prevent a disruption of the lives of the citizens. Second, that an electoral reform bill be passed 1) eliminating any question as to the constitutionality of the boundaries of House of Representatives electoral districts, and 2) reducing the number of House of Representatives seats, this in order to demonstrate to the citizens, who have been asked to accept a doubling of the consumption tax, that the government is making a best effort at cutting back on its size and spending. Finally, the DPJ would want the convocation of the the National Council on Reform of the Social Welfare System (Shakai hosho seido kaikaku kokumin kaigi) in order to begin discussions of the implementation of the reforms passed along with the consumption tax bill.
Ishiba countered with a concession that he would not want his party to be seen as holding the bond issuance bill, an electoral reform bill and a convocation of the National Council hostage to his and the New Komeito's demands. However, he continued, two months has passed since the prime minister made his promise to dissolve the Diet "soon" (Link - J). Inoue piped in, saying that given the deadlines for the compilation of the national budget, the time limit for the holding of an election is early December. (Link - J)
Let us take a moment to consider Inoue's demand. Article 54 of the Constitution mandates that an election take place within 40 days of a dissolution. However, the Constitution is silent as to the minimum number of days that can pass between a dissolution and an election. Article 31 of the Public Elections Act, however, requires that a final determination of the candidates up for election must be made at least 12 days prior to election day. (Link)
Given that an election is almost invariably held on a Sunday, and the process of the Diet's electing a new prime minister, the new PM’s selection of a Cabinet and his/her delivering a Diet policy address eats up a week, and compiling of a rushed budget will take at least three weeks, the realistic December date for an election is December 1. Working backward 12 days from there brings us to Monday, November 19.
So whatever happens, the extraordinary Diet session will have to finish up all its business in a little less than a month. That is the relevant House of Representatives committees discussing the bills, then voting on the bills, sending them to the plenary session for an up/down vote, then presenting the bills to the House of Councillors, with their committee discussions, votes and final plenary session up/down vote.
Of course, the two Houses could look at identical texts of bills at the same time, pass them at the same time, come together and decide that the bills are the same and thus law.
Except, of course, all of this speculation may be moot. Bringing the House of Representatives district boundaries into conformance with requirements set down Article 13 of the Public Elections Act requires months of research, analysis and compromise, not just a few days of politicians bargaining over legislative band-aids.
So what the LDP and the New Komeito are demanding as regards an election "soon" may be possible but will be illegal.
Koshi'ishi knows this. However, he did not have to pull this card out of his sleeve on Monday when Ishiba and Inoue pressed on the dissolution. Already on the 15th he had made clear that he was not going to say diddly about a date for a dissolution on the grounds that a dissolution of the Diet is a solemn duty and privilege of the prime minister and not something he can just lightly say whatever he may think on the subject. (Link)
After 20 minutes of back and forth, the trio broke up, agreeing to meet again on the 18th.
A clearly frustrated Ishiba then went and put his foot in his mouth. Angry that he came out of the meeting having neither learned nor won anything, he told reporters that unless the atmosphere becomes less duplicitous, having a meeting between the heads of the parties will lead nowhere. (Link -J)
Rule #1 of adult behavior: never shut down avenues. Never say that you will not meet to talk.
How long can the DPJ's torture of the LDP and the New Komeito continue? The first and foremost hurdle that must be vaulted is the passage of the bond issuance bill. That has to happen sometime soon, though just when is rather murky, The Prime Minister Noda and the DPJ, weakened as they are, can call an extraordinary session of the Diet and then dare the opposition to allow the government to run out of money. It is a risk the PM and DPJ seem increasingly confident in taking.
As for how long the public will put up with the DPJ's dodging and weaving whenever the LDP and the New Komeito start talking about holding elections, there may be a limit there. Editorialists will start to castigate the DPJ secretariat for stalling just to avoid the certain electoral defeat awaiting them. Guests on this morning's Asa Zuba! news program complained that, "If they are members of the Diet, and they don’t want to go into session, then they should just quit."
However, as regards the delays in convening of an extraordinary session, Koshi'ishi, who has no limits to his ability to state the chapter and verse on any subject, can tell the press, "Look, an extraordinary session is just that, extraordinary. The National Diet Act requires us to be in session for 150 days. We went way past that mark in the regular Diet Session. We have earned our salaries for the year. If the opposition cleans up its act and stops trying to extort Diet dissolutions from our prime ministers in return for votes on normal government bills, then we can go back to work in extraordinary session."
So on my score sheet, after the first round, it is Dead Pharaoh 1, Python 0. (Link)
Monday, October 15, 2012
The Secretaries-General Meeting Preview: The Pharoah Versus The Python
Today is a no newspaper day. If one wishes to know what the heck happened over the weekend one has to turn to the Internet or television.
The latter of which is really not a great thing for Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru.
On Sunday, Ishiba appeared on the NHK's flagship Sunday talk show Nichiyo Toron. The program was not produced in its usual manner, with all the guests together in the studio, government and opposition, facing off across a table -- a format which has, given proliferation of opposition parties over the last three years, become increasingly ridiculous-looking.
Instead, the guests, the secretaries-general of the three parties that matter – the LDP, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the LDP's ally the New Komeito -- appeared sequentially, making the title of the program, "Sunday Debate," something of a misnomer.
First up was Koshi'ishi Azuma, the secretary-general of the DPJ. He spoke on the three main issues of the day – the fate of the bond issuance bill, the outlook for the electoral district reform bill and the timing of the House of Representatives election. All three issues are tied together, as an election cannot be held until the unconstitutionality of the electoral districts is rectified, and the DPJ will not budge on an electoral district reform bill unless it has a deal with the LDP and the New Komeito on the passage of a bond issuance bill immediately after the opening of a fall extraordinary session of the Diet.
Koshi'ishi put a brave face on what would seem an impossible task. First, bully the opposition into passing exactly the same bond issuance bill as was allowed to die at the end of the regular Diet Session. Then the government would submit an electoral reform bill anathema either to the LDP or the New Komeito or both. The subsequent enraged reaction of the LDP and the New Komeito would lead to a freeze in Diet business. Amidst the raging political storm, the government would compile the budget for 2013 and then hang on until extraordinary session ends. Following the New Years' holidays, the DPJ, whose governing coalition still holds a slim majority in the House of Representatives, would then ram the next fiscal year's budget through that House -- with the LDP and the New Komeito powerless to stop the budget passing into law.
The problems with this scenario are:
1) the LDP is so hostile toward the DPJ it will go to any length, even allowing a government shutdown, to force the DPJ into submitting an electoral reform bill to both the LDP's and the New Komeito's liking. Only then would the LDP and the New Komeito agree to allow the passage of the bond issuance bill, after which they will do everything in their power to force a no confidence motion against the Noda Cabinet.
2) Public opinion poll results, which have the LDP outpolling the DPJ two-to-one since the election of Abe Shinzo as LDP party president (Table 2) while support for the Cabinet languishes (Link-J) sap the government's ability to resist the LDP's demands. With the DPJ such a damaged brand, engineering a breakout of scared Diet members from the DPJ should be easy enough -- or so the LDP and New Komeito seem to be reasoning. This would transform the current DPJ-led coalition into a minority government, vulnerable to a no confidence motion and incapable of passing a budget by itself.
When Koshi'ishi finished his alternate parrying of the interviewer's pertinent and probing questions and his resolute presentation of the DPJ party line, Ishiba took over, on a live feed from somewhere.
To a collective shriek from the nation.
Now Koshi'ishi Azuma is no great shakes in the appearance department. Indeed, he bears a striking resemblance to Ramses the Great, post-mummification.
Left: Koshi'ishi Azuma, alive since 1936.
Right: Ramses II, not alive since 1213 B.C.E.
However, it was clear within micro-seconds of Ishiba's face's coming up on the screen that, after losing the LDP presidential election to Abe, he had fired his image consultant.
During the presidential campaign Ishiba was a changed man: grinning often, talking at a normal volume and speed and clearly focusing on a commandment to "open your eyes, man, for Amaterasu's sake, OPEN YOUR EYES!"
However, on Sunday, the old Ishiba -- Kaa from Disney's The Jungle Book -- was back -- hissing hypnotically and ooh sooo sloowwly so that all you morons out there in TV Land can understand the LDP's positions.
Top: Ishiba Shigeru, LDP Secretary-General
Bottom: Kaa, from Disney's The Jungle Book (1967)
A campaign manager's nightmare* …and a challenge to the assertion that the LDP's election of The Smirking One (Link) rather than Ishiba as its leader was a mitigated disaster.
In an attempt to fulfill the commitment made last week (Link) to have the heads of the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito meet to discuss the extraordinary Diet session, the secretaries-general of the three parties are meeting today, i.e., holding a meeting to arrange an agenda and a schedule for a meeting.
In having the respective secretariats of the DPJ and the LDP meeting en masse last week, and making arrangements for a three-way party head meeting "soon," LDP has at least learned one lesson from its previous deal-cutting session with the DPJ: under no circumstances let the LDP president be in a room alone with Prime Minister Noda. (Link)
We shall see what the Python squeezes out of the Pharaoh in terms of a date for the three-way party leader meeting.
--------------------------------------------
* Since the secretary-general is the ultimate leader of a party's campaign efforts, the person to whom Ishiba will be giving a migraine is himself.
The latter of which is really not a great thing for Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru.
On Sunday, Ishiba appeared on the NHK's flagship Sunday talk show Nichiyo Toron. The program was not produced in its usual manner, with all the guests together in the studio, government and opposition, facing off across a table -- a format which has, given proliferation of opposition parties over the last three years, become increasingly ridiculous-looking.
Instead, the guests, the secretaries-general of the three parties that matter – the LDP, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the LDP's ally the New Komeito -- appeared sequentially, making the title of the program, "Sunday Debate," something of a misnomer.
First up was Koshi'ishi Azuma, the secretary-general of the DPJ. He spoke on the three main issues of the day – the fate of the bond issuance bill, the outlook for the electoral district reform bill and the timing of the House of Representatives election. All three issues are tied together, as an election cannot be held until the unconstitutionality of the electoral districts is rectified, and the DPJ will not budge on an electoral district reform bill unless it has a deal with the LDP and the New Komeito on the passage of a bond issuance bill immediately after the opening of a fall extraordinary session of the Diet.
Koshi'ishi put a brave face on what would seem an impossible task. First, bully the opposition into passing exactly the same bond issuance bill as was allowed to die at the end of the regular Diet Session. Then the government would submit an electoral reform bill anathema either to the LDP or the New Komeito or both. The subsequent enraged reaction of the LDP and the New Komeito would lead to a freeze in Diet business. Amidst the raging political storm, the government would compile the budget for 2013 and then hang on until extraordinary session ends. Following the New Years' holidays, the DPJ, whose governing coalition still holds a slim majority in the House of Representatives, would then ram the next fiscal year's budget through that House -- with the LDP and the New Komeito powerless to stop the budget passing into law.
The problems with this scenario are:
1) the LDP is so hostile toward the DPJ it will go to any length, even allowing a government shutdown, to force the DPJ into submitting an electoral reform bill to both the LDP's and the New Komeito's liking. Only then would the LDP and the New Komeito agree to allow the passage of the bond issuance bill, after which they will do everything in their power to force a no confidence motion against the Noda Cabinet.
2) Public opinion poll results, which have the LDP outpolling the DPJ two-to-one since the election of Abe Shinzo as LDP party president (Table 2) while support for the Cabinet languishes (Link-J) sap the government's ability to resist the LDP's demands. With the DPJ such a damaged brand, engineering a breakout of scared Diet members from the DPJ should be easy enough -- or so the LDP and New Komeito seem to be reasoning. This would transform the current DPJ-led coalition into a minority government, vulnerable to a no confidence motion and incapable of passing a budget by itself.
When Koshi'ishi finished his alternate parrying of the interviewer's pertinent and probing questions and his resolute presentation of the DPJ party line, Ishiba took over, on a live feed from somewhere.
To a collective shriek from the nation.
Now Koshi'ishi Azuma is no great shakes in the appearance department. Indeed, he bears a striking resemblance to Ramses the Great, post-mummification.
Left: Koshi'ishi Azuma, alive since 1936.
Right: Ramses II, not alive since 1213 B.C.E.
However, it was clear within micro-seconds of Ishiba's face's coming up on the screen that, after losing the LDP presidential election to Abe, he had fired his image consultant.
During the presidential campaign Ishiba was a changed man: grinning often, talking at a normal volume and speed and clearly focusing on a commandment to "open your eyes, man, for Amaterasu's sake, OPEN YOUR EYES!"
However, on Sunday, the old Ishiba -- Kaa from Disney's The Jungle Book -- was back -- hissing hypnotically and ooh sooo sloowwly so that all you morons out there in TV Land can understand the LDP's positions.
Top: Ishiba Shigeru, LDP Secretary-General
Bottom: Kaa, from Disney's The Jungle Book (1967)
A campaign manager's nightmare* …and a challenge to the assertion that the LDP's election of The Smirking One (Link) rather than Ishiba as its leader was a mitigated disaster.
In an attempt to fulfill the commitment made last week (Link) to have the heads of the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito meet to discuss the extraordinary Diet session, the secretaries-general of the three parties are meeting today, i.e., holding a meeting to arrange an agenda and a schedule for a meeting.
In having the respective secretariats of the DPJ and the LDP meeting en masse last week, and making arrangements for a three-way party head meeting "soon," LDP has at least learned one lesson from its previous deal-cutting session with the DPJ: under no circumstances let the LDP president be in a room alone with Prime Minister Noda. (Link)
We shall see what the Python squeezes out of the Pharaoh in terms of a date for the three-way party leader meeting.
--------------------------------------------
* Since the secretary-general is the ultimate leader of a party's campaign efforts, the person to whom Ishiba will be giving a migraine is himself.
Friday, October 12, 2012
The DPJ Goes To The Four Corners
Yesterday, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko had a first face-to-face good-fellow-well-met confab between himself and the recently elected Liberal Democratic Party President Abe Shinzo.
By "recently elected" I mean 16 days ago.
Accompanying both men were the main members of their new party secretariats.
By "new" I mean appointed 14 days ago.
The delay in getting the two party leaderships together is understandable. Noda had to reshuffle the Cabinet: that happened on October 1st. Then the new Cabinet ministers had to get comfortable in their new chairs. Then there was the Sports Day three day weekend...
OK, so the scheduling may not have been done with any degree of expeditiousness.
However, yesterday, the two lineups of men (and yes, it was all men...sigh...is this really an advanced post-industrial society?) got together over a table and got down to work.
And, after an eventful and likely exhausting five minutes, they ended their meeting.
Prime Minister Noda, with a dramatic flourish, told Abe that the two of them really have to together soon with Yamaguchi Natsuo, the leader of the New Komeito, to discuss the extraordinary Diet session. (J)
Meanwhile, in another part of the Diet Building, six members of the Administrative Oversight Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Audit and Administrative Oversight sat twiddling their thumbs.
The six members of the subcommittee -- four from the Liberal Democratic Party, one from Ozawa Ichiro's People's Life Party and one from the New Komeito, had responded to a call from the subcommittee's chairman, a member of the LDP*, to an emergency, extra-Diet Session meeting to examine dereliction of duty in the disbursal of the funds from the supplementary budget for the recovery and reconstruction in the disaster zones of the Tohoku and Fukushima Prefecture.
The reason the six members of the subcommittee were hard at work developing their thumb muscles was that none of the eight Democratic Party of Japan members of the subcommittee showed up to the emergency meeting. Had even a single member of the DPJ showed, the committee would have had a quorum, and could set to work investigating the allegations of fraud and mismanagement. (J)
Or at least they might have tried to do so, only to be stymied by the DPJ-led government's having told the summoned relevant ministry officials not to leave their offices to appear at a meeting that was not going to happen.
The DPJ had an explanation for not responding to the chairman's call. The lengthy process of winnowing through the appointments of new senior vice ministers/state ministers and parliamentary vice-ministers after a Cabinet reshuffle had turned out to be just that, lengthy, and the DPJ secretariat had not had the time to select a new Ranking Member for the subcommittee. Without a Ranking Member how could any of the other members show up?
You know how it is...
Tick, tick, tick...
Funny thing that Abe and Yamaguchi are learning about Noda. If, following your election, or in Yamaguchi's case reelection, to the position leader of your party the first thing you promise to your followers is that you will bring them the head of the current government on a platter, that head is not terribly inclined to facilitate your delivering on that promise. Indeed, however he might not want to embarrass you in front of your peers, he has an incentive to stall, delay, prevaricate, stonewall -- all to keep his head right where it is.
Noda Yoshihiko promised the hapless former LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu in a private one-on-one meeting that in return for cooperation on the package of social welfare reforms bills including the consumption tax bill, the bond issuance bill and a bill reforming the electoral districts, he, Noda, would dissolve the Diet "soon" (chikai uchi ni).
Both Houses of the Diet passed the package of bills on social welfare reform, including the consumption tax bill.
However, when it became clear that Noda and the DPJ were stalling on the submission of the two additional bills, this in order that the two bills would fail to wend their way through the relevant Diet committees and plenary sessions before the September 8 end of the regular Diet session, Tanigaki lost his nerve. He tried, ex post facto, to get Noda to commit to a date certain for the Diet dissolution. He failed to bullrush the stolid Noda. At which point all hell broke loose: a fumbled no-confidence motion; the DPJ's ramming through the House of Representatives its versions of the two bills; the LDP voting in the House of Councillors for a motion of censure condemning its own actions; and the crashing to a halt of the House of Councillors session well before the deadline, leading to the death on the doorstep of the House of Councillors of the bond issuance and electoral reform bills.
Quite an interesting summer.
Anyway, with the two bills dead and Tanigaki gone as LDP president, the seemingly imperturbable Noda is now looking to Abe and Yamaguchi to forget all about that silly "soon" business.
As for Azumi Jun, the former minister of finance, who went about the halls of the Diet sweating and writhing throughout the month of August, it seems possible he may havelied exaggerated about the extent to which Japan faces fiscal disaster should the bond issuance bill fail to be passed this month.
Oh, the duplicitous knave -- I mean, DPJ Acting Secretary-General!
Certainly no one is doing now the panic dance he was doing just two months ago.
So what's bottom line? When will the Noda and DPJ stop their delaying tactics and start playing ball?
Oh, how Abe and Yamaguchi would love to know the answer to that question.
Perhaps they will find out when the two of them have their têtes-à-tête with the prime minister.
Sometime soon, just like he said.
-----------------------------
* While the committee chairs in the House of Representatives are all held by members of the ruling coalition, subcommittee chairmanships are distributed to members of the opposition out of courtesy.
By "recently elected" I mean 16 days ago.
Accompanying both men were the main members of their new party secretariats.
By "new" I mean appointed 14 days ago.
The delay in getting the two party leaderships together is understandable. Noda had to reshuffle the Cabinet: that happened on October 1st. Then the new Cabinet ministers had to get comfortable in their new chairs. Then there was the Sports Day three day weekend...
OK, so the scheduling may not have been done with any degree of expeditiousness.
However, yesterday, the two lineups of men (and yes, it was all men...sigh...is this really an advanced post-industrial society?) got together over a table and got down to work.
And, after an eventful and likely exhausting five minutes, they ended their meeting.
Prime Minister Noda, with a dramatic flourish, told Abe that the two of them really have to together soon with Yamaguchi Natsuo, the leader of the New Komeito, to discuss the extraordinary Diet session. (J)
Meanwhile, in another part of the Diet Building, six members of the Administrative Oversight Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Audit and Administrative Oversight sat twiddling their thumbs.
The six members of the subcommittee -- four from the Liberal Democratic Party, one from Ozawa Ichiro's People's Life Party and one from the New Komeito, had responded to a call from the subcommittee's chairman, a member of the LDP*, to an emergency, extra-Diet Session meeting to examine dereliction of duty in the disbursal of the funds from the supplementary budget for the recovery and reconstruction in the disaster zones of the Tohoku and Fukushima Prefecture.
The reason the six members of the subcommittee were hard at work developing their thumb muscles was that none of the eight Democratic Party of Japan members of the subcommittee showed up to the emergency meeting. Had even a single member of the DPJ showed, the committee would have had a quorum, and could set to work investigating the allegations of fraud and mismanagement. (J)
Or at least they might have tried to do so, only to be stymied by the DPJ-led government's having told the summoned relevant ministry officials not to leave their offices to appear at a meeting that was not going to happen.
The DPJ had an explanation for not responding to the chairman's call. The lengthy process of winnowing through the appointments of new senior vice ministers/state ministers and parliamentary vice-ministers after a Cabinet reshuffle had turned out to be just that, lengthy, and the DPJ secretariat had not had the time to select a new Ranking Member for the subcommittee. Without a Ranking Member how could any of the other members show up?
You know how it is...
Tick, tick, tick...
Funny thing that Abe and Yamaguchi are learning about Noda. If, following your election, or in Yamaguchi's case reelection, to the position leader of your party the first thing you promise to your followers is that you will bring them the head of the current government on a platter, that head is not terribly inclined to facilitate your delivering on that promise. Indeed, however he might not want to embarrass you in front of your peers, he has an incentive to stall, delay, prevaricate, stonewall -- all to keep his head right where it is.
Noda Yoshihiko promised the hapless former LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu in a private one-on-one meeting that in return for cooperation on the package of social welfare reforms bills including the consumption tax bill, the bond issuance bill and a bill reforming the electoral districts, he, Noda, would dissolve the Diet "soon" (chikai uchi ni).
Both Houses of the Diet passed the package of bills on social welfare reform, including the consumption tax bill.
However, when it became clear that Noda and the DPJ were stalling on the submission of the two additional bills, this in order that the two bills would fail to wend their way through the relevant Diet committees and plenary sessions before the September 8 end of the regular Diet session, Tanigaki lost his nerve. He tried, ex post facto, to get Noda to commit to a date certain for the Diet dissolution. He failed to bullrush the stolid Noda. At which point all hell broke loose: a fumbled no-confidence motion; the DPJ's ramming through the House of Representatives its versions of the two bills; the LDP voting in the House of Councillors for a motion of censure condemning its own actions; and the crashing to a halt of the House of Councillors session well before the deadline, leading to the death on the doorstep of the House of Councillors of the bond issuance and electoral reform bills.
Quite an interesting summer.
Anyway, with the two bills dead and Tanigaki gone as LDP president, the seemingly imperturbable Noda is now looking to Abe and Yamaguchi to forget all about that silly "soon" business.
As for Azumi Jun, the former minister of finance, who went about the halls of the Diet sweating and writhing throughout the month of August, it seems possible he may have
Oh, the duplicitous knave -- I mean, DPJ Acting Secretary-General!
Certainly no one is doing now the panic dance he was doing just two months ago.
So what's bottom line? When will the Noda and DPJ stop their delaying tactics and start playing ball?
Oh, how Abe and Yamaguchi would love to know the answer to that question.
Perhaps they will find out when the two of them have their têtes-à-tête with the prime minister.
Sometime soon, just like he said.
-----------------------------
* While the committee chairs in the House of Representatives are all held by members of the ruling coalition, subcommittee chairmanships are distributed to members of the opposition out of courtesy.
Sunday, October 07, 2012
As Bad As It Ever Was
Same as it ever wasIt's back...along with all the horrible memories.
Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was
Same as it...ever was.
- Talking Heads, "Once In A Lifetime" (1981)
The Smirk
Check out the flash at 0:13 and the more sustained holding of the expression in the 0:17 to 0:24 interval in the below (time sensitive):
Link
That facial expression that had one leaping out of one's chair and punching the screen, hoping to wipe it off of Abe Shinzo's child of privilege face.
No still photo captures The Smirk in its essence. The below comes close, though.
Recently I have thinking that what I thought was a bug is actually a feature.
The members of the LDP's Diet delegation who survived the carnage of August 2009 come in two flavors. One set are the Koizumi Children and reformers, who largely won reelection via the party proportional list. These folks, loyal to the party, sided with Ishiba Shigeru, the brainy candidate with the support of the local chapters. Katayama Satsuki's being seated at Ishiba's right hand during the voting was the physical manifestation of this allegiance.
However, a larger base of LDP delegates who survived the 2009 election had either longstanding family ties to a district and/or an adherence to the most anachronistic of right wing ideologies. For the this group, Abe was the candidate of choice. For the ideologues, he was their most obvious and possibly the richest (I have to check the asset listings -- which are bogus anyway because so many politicians shelter their wealth under the names of near relatives) champion of their values, such as they are.
For the established names, being members of the LDP is icing on their cakes, their hereditary support groups (koenkai) being the source of the margin of victory come election time. For these Diet members the very last person they would want as party president is someone with his own charisma and a cerebrum at the top of his spine. They would want to have the most pliable and manipulable president possible, one who would be grateful for having received their votes, and most likely to answer to their whims and protests.
As one researcher I has told me, individual voters in rural areas justify their choices by saying, "Candidate X I respect but candidate Y I can control. That's why I go with Y."
I do not want to believe that the ticking time bomb of the bond issuance bill will precipitate the forced passage of a slapdash electoral reform bill, legalizing what would be a constitutional black hole of a Diet dissolution, triggering an election where, if current public opinion polls are accurate, the LDP would be returned to power, leading to Abe becoming prime minister.
However, the clock is indeed ticking on the government's ability to finance its activities, making the nightmare return of Abe Shinzo, Mr. Prime Minister, more than just a terribly unfunny joke.
To not see The Smirk every night on my screen, Amaterasu Omikami and all the 8 million kami of this blessed land, of this to you I beg.
Friday, October 05, 2012
One Step Closer To Chaos
Yesterday, this was a ghost story.
My morning paper on page 6 had a small article claiming that Sugimoto Kazumi, a first term Democratic Party of Japan district seat member of the House of Representatives (Aichi #10) had decided to leave the DPJ and join the Your Party.
If true, this was seriously bad news for the Noda Cabinet, the DPJ and the country, on the order of the disastrous jump in the popularity of the Liberal Democratic Party after that party's presidential election.
Unfortunately, yesterday the story was nowhere to be found. No online service carried it. Sugimoto's own website had no mention of such a plan.
Today, however, Sugimoto's wish to leave the DPJ is out in the open and everywhere...and it still is seriously bad news for Noda, the DPJ and the country
With Sugimoto leaving, the DPJ-Japan New Party coalition holds a bare seven vote majority in the House of Representatives. Should just eight more DPJ House of Representatives members offer their resignations -- and there are far more than eight disaffected DPJ members -- the government would fall into minority status. This would trigger an immediate submission of a no confidence motion by the LDP and the New Komeito, perhaps with the Your Party in tow.
Sugimoto is no fool, and not just because he has read at Sociology at Oxford and has a Masters from the Kennedy School of Government. He seized upon the raising of the consumption tax and the recent decision to water down the Cabinet Decision on Japan's reliance on nuclear energy for electric power as pretexts for his party switch (and has been bitterly criticized for opportunism by commentors to his blog). His real reason for leaving, however, is the DPJ's popularity numbers continuing to decay, even as the popularity of the Cabinet has been rising and the majority of the those queried declaring a lack of faith in newly-elected Liberal Democratic Party president Abe Shinzo.
Sugimoto's resignation is the first hole in the dike. With the DPJ a seemingly irredeemably damaged brand, there is nothing standing in the way of anyone with a grudge, ambition or a little money departing.
That the Noda government could fall just hours after the opening of an extraordinary session of the Diet is bad. That a new coalition government would have to be cobbled together in order to pass legislation allowing the issuance of government bonds to pay the government's bills is doubly bad. That the electoral district map is still unconstitutional, meaning that Prime Minister cannot call an election to punish the opposition for holding the nation's finances hostage is trebly bad.
In order to forestall the government shutting down, the LDP-New Komeito alliance can demand an electoral district reform bill to their liking. A failure to redraw the districts, shifting voting power from over-representated rural districts to under-represented urban districts, will render moot the last three years of DPJ government. Whatever may have been in the 2009 DPJ Manifesto, the real prize worth the fighting for was the shifting of voting power away from the declining, LDP-dominated, parasitic rural districts to the more populous, more competitive and more productive urban ones.
A doomsday scenario from a single defection? Perhaps. But the viability of administrations in this blessed land's parliamentary system follows the arc of a currency collapse: all it takes is for one smart cookie to pull out and the herd follows in a pell-mell rush for the exits.
With the problems emerging around the appointment of Tanaka Keishu as Minister of Justice (E) the day of reckoning seems all the closer.
My morning paper on page 6 had a small article claiming that Sugimoto Kazumi, a first term Democratic Party of Japan district seat member of the House of Representatives (Aichi #10) had decided to leave the DPJ and join the Your Party.
If true, this was seriously bad news for the Noda Cabinet, the DPJ and the country, on the order of the disastrous jump in the popularity of the Liberal Democratic Party after that party's presidential election.
Unfortunately, yesterday the story was nowhere to be found. No online service carried it. Sugimoto's own website had no mention of such a plan.
Today, however, Sugimoto's wish to leave the DPJ is out in the open and everywhere...and it still is seriously bad news for Noda, the DPJ and the country
With Sugimoto leaving, the DPJ-Japan New Party coalition holds a bare seven vote majority in the House of Representatives. Should just eight more DPJ House of Representatives members offer their resignations -- and there are far more than eight disaffected DPJ members -- the government would fall into minority status. This would trigger an immediate submission of a no confidence motion by the LDP and the New Komeito, perhaps with the Your Party in tow.
Sugimoto is no fool, and not just because he has read at Sociology at Oxford and has a Masters from the Kennedy School of Government. He seized upon the raising of the consumption tax and the recent decision to water down the Cabinet Decision on Japan's reliance on nuclear energy for electric power as pretexts for his party switch (and has been bitterly criticized for opportunism by commentors to his blog). His real reason for leaving, however, is the DPJ's popularity numbers continuing to decay, even as the popularity of the Cabinet has been rising and the majority of the those queried declaring a lack of faith in newly-elected Liberal Democratic Party president Abe Shinzo.
Sugimoto's resignation is the first hole in the dike. With the DPJ a seemingly irredeemably damaged brand, there is nothing standing in the way of anyone with a grudge, ambition or a little money departing.
That the Noda government could fall just hours after the opening of an extraordinary session of the Diet is bad. That a new coalition government would have to be cobbled together in order to pass legislation allowing the issuance of government bonds to pay the government's bills is doubly bad. That the electoral district map is still unconstitutional, meaning that Prime Minister cannot call an election to punish the opposition for holding the nation's finances hostage is trebly bad.
In order to forestall the government shutting down, the LDP-New Komeito alliance can demand an electoral district reform bill to their liking. A failure to redraw the districts, shifting voting power from over-representated rural districts to under-represented urban districts, will render moot the last three years of DPJ government. Whatever may have been in the 2009 DPJ Manifesto, the real prize worth the fighting for was the shifting of voting power away from the declining, LDP-dominated, parasitic rural districts to the more populous, more competitive and more productive urban ones.
A doomsday scenario from a single defection? Perhaps. But the viability of administrations in this blessed land's parliamentary system follows the arc of a currency collapse: all it takes is for one smart cookie to pull out and the herd follows in a pell-mell rush for the exits.
With the problems emerging around the appointment of Tanaka Keishu as Minister of Justice (E) the day of reckoning seems all the closer.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Koshi'ishi Stays
Contrary to my assertions of Friday, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko has asked Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma to remain at his post.
The press has asserted that despite Koshi'ishi's failure to keep some 70 members of the DPJ's Diet delegation from departing during his tenure, his presence is still needed to reassure the remaining disaffected elements in the party that their voices will be heard.
Noda may have indeed been planning to replace Koshi'ishi, only to reverse himself, due to a realization of how close the ruling coalition is to losing its once massive majority in the House of Representatives. More likely, however, the multiple meetings with Azuma over the weekend, ending in a plea for Azuma to stay on, was a careful concocted bit of theater, intent on convincing the losers in Friday's leadership contest that the central core of 220 Noda loyalists will pay attention to the party's fringe elements.
Koshi'ishi's retention as the party's main elections organizer sends a strong signal that elections are not imminent. Koshi'ishi is not credible and may lack the stamina to be the point man of an election pitting the DPJ not only against a default-vote LDP but an untried and as yet unassessable Japan Restoration Party.
Furthermore, the process of rendering the electoral district map constitutional will be a process of several months, not just a pair of votes in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors.
First, the August reform bill is dead. Diet rules declare null and void bills passed by one House but not accepted in committee in the other House by the end of a Diet session. This is what happened to the bond issuance and electoral reform bills passed by the House of Representatives in an August 28 pre-emptive strike against the August 29 censure vote against the prime minister.
That the same electoral reform bill of August, a combination of the Liberal Democratic Party's so-call +0/-5 solution to the disparity in voting strengths in between the nation's largest and smallest electoral districts, a reduction of the number of proportional seat members in the House of Representatives and a mixed voting system for the remaining proportional seats, will not reappear is a virtual given. The August bill had been designed to fail, combining LDP and New Komeito ideas into a horrible chimera about which the opposition parties could never come to decision whether to accept or reject.
When the new, revised bill comes out of the DPJ's policy research council and receives Cabinet approval, however long that process will take, the draft will likely be so different from the August bill and so favorable to presumed DPJ strongholds that the LDP will gag. The resulting standoff between the two parties will extend for several more weeks, until a final reform bill can win passage from both Houses.
Only then will begin the process of resetting the boundaries of electoral districts, which have, since the last electoral reform, become scrambled by local municipality mergers and population shifts. This process, according a Tokyo Shimbun analysis, will take another two to three months (J).
So even if the ruling and major opposition parties come to a consensus on a basic electoral reform bill in the first weeks of October, an event which is extremely unlikely, the final electoral districts bill will probably not win passage before the end of the fall extraordinary session. This will leave the opposition gnashing its teeth until the 2013 regular Diet session, which means sometime in January.
The strugge over electoral districts would, of course, only become more tortured if a majority of the House of Representatives vote in favor of a motion of no confidence against the Cabinet. Noda wants to both keep his present job and chaos to a minimum. The LDP, which has demonstrated a disturbing nihilism, cannot be trusted to go along with Noda to prevent this catastrophe.
Hence the importance of retaining Koshi'ishi to keep the less-than-reliable DPJ troops in line when the crunch time comes during the extraordinary session.
The press has asserted that despite Koshi'ishi's failure to keep some 70 members of the DPJ's Diet delegation from departing during his tenure, his presence is still needed to reassure the remaining disaffected elements in the party that their voices will be heard.
Noda may have indeed been planning to replace Koshi'ishi, only to reverse himself, due to a realization of how close the ruling coalition is to losing its once massive majority in the House of Representatives. More likely, however, the multiple meetings with Azuma over the weekend, ending in a plea for Azuma to stay on, was a careful concocted bit of theater, intent on convincing the losers in Friday's leadership contest that the central core of 220 Noda loyalists will pay attention to the party's fringe elements.
Koshi'ishi's retention as the party's main elections organizer sends a strong signal that elections are not imminent. Koshi'ishi is not credible and may lack the stamina to be the point man of an election pitting the DPJ not only against a default-vote LDP but an untried and as yet unassessable Japan Restoration Party.
Furthermore, the process of rendering the electoral district map constitutional will be a process of several months, not just a pair of votes in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors.
First, the August reform bill is dead. Diet rules declare null and void bills passed by one House but not accepted in committee in the other House by the end of a Diet session. This is what happened to the bond issuance and electoral reform bills passed by the House of Representatives in an August 28 pre-emptive strike against the August 29 censure vote against the prime minister.
That the same electoral reform bill of August, a combination of the Liberal Democratic Party's so-call +0/-5 solution to the disparity in voting strengths in between the nation's largest and smallest electoral districts, a reduction of the number of proportional seat members in the House of Representatives and a mixed voting system for the remaining proportional seats, will not reappear is a virtual given. The August bill had been designed to fail, combining LDP and New Komeito ideas into a horrible chimera about which the opposition parties could never come to decision whether to accept or reject.
When the new, revised bill comes out of the DPJ's policy research council and receives Cabinet approval, however long that process will take, the draft will likely be so different from the August bill and so favorable to presumed DPJ strongholds that the LDP will gag. The resulting standoff between the two parties will extend for several more weeks, until a final reform bill can win passage from both Houses.
Only then will begin the process of resetting the boundaries of electoral districts, which have, since the last electoral reform, become scrambled by local municipality mergers and population shifts. This process, according a Tokyo Shimbun analysis, will take another two to three months (J).
So even if the ruling and major opposition parties come to a consensus on a basic electoral reform bill in the first weeks of October, an event which is extremely unlikely, the final electoral districts bill will probably not win passage before the end of the fall extraordinary session. This will leave the opposition gnashing its teeth until the 2013 regular Diet session, which means sometime in January.
The strugge over electoral districts would, of course, only become more tortured if a majority of the House of Representatives vote in favor of a motion of no confidence against the Cabinet. Noda wants to both keep his present job and chaos to a minimum. The LDP, which has demonstrated a disturbing nihilism, cannot be trusted to go along with Noda to prevent this catastrophe.
Hence the importance of retaining Koshi'ishi to keep the less-than-reliable DPJ troops in line when the crunch time comes during the extraordinary session.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The Four LDP Candidates At The FCCJ (Continued)
Of the four candidates present, Ishiba Shigeru seemed to be most confident. At the initial four-way handclasp, his was the broadest and most assured of the smiles. In his answers he was precise, eschewed generalities and tied current hot button issues to the underlying history of the policies involved.
A reputed wonk's wonk who actually is one, unlike the man he wants to succeed.
The only time he lost his cool was when one questioner (whom I respect immensely) asked the four candidates whether they will continue to follow the Tanigaki Line on the bond issuance bill -- i.e., the current Liberal Democratic Party strategy of refusing to approve of the issuance of new bonds to cover the costs of the budget, threatening the government with a shutdown as early as October.
One after the other, the four candidates repeated the party line that the Democratic Party of Japan-led government's budget was full of pork-barrel projects, so that the LDP was merely exercising a bit of ex post facto fiscal prudence. Furthermore, the survival of the current government was intolerable, so any act pressuring Noda into dissolving the Diet and calling elections was worth the risk.
After giving this stock response, Ishiba leaned away from the mike and grimaced.
At first I thought Ishiba was furious at the questioner. Upon reflection, he was more likely disgusted with himself. Back when his candidacy was just a notion, he was a thorn in the side of the Tanigaki-Ishihara leadership group. He would argue that the party leadership's policy of just saying "No" to everything, refusing to release the membership to vote for vital bills unless the prime minister promised to quit, was short-sighted, borderline unpatriotic and stupid.
Now that Ishiba was a candidate, however, he had had to tell a lie -- that he would continue the policy of pushing for elections, unconstitutional as he most likely knows they would be, even at the cost of the government of Japan's credibility.
Having to lie did not kill him...but it left him pretty darn ticked off.
A reputed wonk's wonk who actually is one, unlike the man he wants to succeed.
The only time he lost his cool was when one questioner (whom I respect immensely) asked the four candidates whether they will continue to follow the Tanigaki Line on the bond issuance bill -- i.e., the current Liberal Democratic Party strategy of refusing to approve of the issuance of new bonds to cover the costs of the budget, threatening the government with a shutdown as early as October.
One after the other, the four candidates repeated the party line that the Democratic Party of Japan-led government's budget was full of pork-barrel projects, so that the LDP was merely exercising a bit of ex post facto fiscal prudence. Furthermore, the survival of the current government was intolerable, so any act pressuring Noda into dissolving the Diet and calling elections was worth the risk.
After giving this stock response, Ishiba leaned away from the mike and grimaced.
At first I thought Ishiba was furious at the questioner. Upon reflection, he was more likely disgusted with himself. Back when his candidacy was just a notion, he was a thorn in the side of the Tanigaki-Ishihara leadership group. He would argue that the party leadership's policy of just saying "No" to everything, refusing to release the membership to vote for vital bills unless the prime minister promised to quit, was short-sighted, borderline unpatriotic and stupid.
Now that Ishiba was a candidate, however, he had had to tell a lie -- that he would continue the policy of pushing for elections, unconstitutional as he most likely knows they would be, even at the cost of the government of Japan's credibility.
Having to lie did not kill him...but it left him pretty darn ticked off.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
OK, Morons. Now What?
Yamaguchi Kunio Natsuo (L) and Tanigaki Sadakazu (R) are Leader and President of the New Komeito and the LDP, respectively.
As can be expected in these lamest of times, the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito, having failed to halt the passage of the bond isuance and electoral reform bills in the House of Representatives, submitted at a velocity somewhat faster than the speed of thought a censure motion to the President of the House of Councillors.
So what happens now?
All business in the House of Councillors comes to a halt, the motion taking precedence. The membership gathers in the plenary chamber. The parties submitting the motion explain their reasons for submitting the motion. The chamber votes.
Should the measure pass, nothing of consequence happens, as a censure motion has no legal effect. The prime minister, however, will be persona non grata in the House, stripped of the dignity of his office.
The presumed result is that the House of Councillors will cease to conduct any of its business, despite the Diet's still being in session -- the continued acceptance of high salaries for no work being extremely popular with the taxpayers. (J)
I am looking forward to the LDP's and the New Komeito's speeches. New levels of casuistry will be necessary to prevent folks from laughing.
The prime minister's faults:
- "He convinced us to vote for a rise in the consumption tax, which was our own policy."
- "He has increased Japan's international prestige by keeping his cool at a time when Japan is beset with challenges to its territories and territorial claims."
- "He disposed of non-Japanese activists landing on the Senkakus in exactly the same way Koizumi Jun'ichiro did."
- "He has led his party into passing a bill that provides the legal basis for the government to pay its bills."
- "He has led his party into passing an electoral reform bill that a) resolves the issue of the unconstitutionality of the districts due to over- and under-representation, b) cuts the cost of government by eliminating 40 seats of the House of Representatives and 3) increases the chances of the smaller parties to win seats."
A damning list, to be sure.
The live broadcast from the House of Councillors chamber is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m., accessible at http://www.webtv.sangiin.go.jp/webtv/index.php.
Photo image credit: Kyodo News
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Phi Slamma Jamma
I obviously did not think they had it in them.
However, faced with a Liberal Democratic Party threat to submit a censure motion against Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko tomorrow, the members of the Democratic Party of Japan ignored the bad optics of theLDP opposition parties boycotting the Diet plenary session to cram not just the bond issuance bill but the electoral reform bill, which the Special Committee on Political Ethics and Election Law sent to the floor of the House of Representatives only yesterday, down opposition's throats. (J)
Now that the bills have passed the House of Representatives, they go to committee in the House of Councillors, where the opposition, led by the LDP-New Komeito alliance will have to justify on camera why they are pushing the government to the edge of fiscal crisis and what is wrong with the DPJ's electoral system reform bill.
And wouldn't ya knowit, even though the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito divvy up the chairmanships of the House of Councillors committees thusly:
Full Committees
DPJ 12
LDP 10
New Komeito 3
Independent Sub-committees
DPJ 1
LDP 1
Investigative Commissions
DPJ 3
LDP 2
the chairs of the Finance Committee and the Special Committee on Political Ethics and Election Law are both members of the DPJ.
Did I say something about electoral reform being the crown jewel of the 2009 election, the prize worth the fighting for?
With DPJ members as the masters of ceremonies, the LDP and the New Komeito will have to talk or walk. They must either explain themselves or boycott the proceedings.
It's a lose-lose proposition.
The DPJ does not have the votes in the House of Councillors to pass the bond issuance legislation -- the bill it really needs to pass in the these last few remaining days of the regular Diet session. However, it has set up the conditions for the LDP take the rap should the government shut down because it cannot pay its bills.
The DPJ may not be ready for prime time. It still lacks, for example, a serpent- tongued guy or gal to make exquisity verbal hamburger of every LDP hypocrisy or revision of the historical record.
However, in terms of in-your-face slamming down of legislation, the DPJ's got game.
However, faced with a Liberal Democratic Party threat to submit a censure motion against Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko tomorrow, the members of the Democratic Party of Japan ignored the bad optics of the
Now that the bills have passed the House of Representatives, they go to committee in the House of Councillors, where the opposition, led by the LDP-New Komeito alliance will have to justify on camera why they are pushing the government to the edge of fiscal crisis and what is wrong with the DPJ's electoral system reform bill.
And wouldn't ya knowit, even though the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito divvy up the chairmanships of the House of Councillors committees thusly:
Full Committees
DPJ 12
LDP 10
New Komeito 3
Independent Sub-committees
DPJ 1
LDP 1
Investigative Commissions
DPJ 3
LDP 2
the chairs of the Finance Committee and the Special Committee on Political Ethics and Election Law are both members of the DPJ.
Did I say something about electoral reform being the crown jewel of the 2009 election, the prize worth the fighting for?
With DPJ members as the masters of ceremonies, the LDP and the New Komeito will have to talk or walk. They must either explain themselves or boycott the proceedings.
It's a lose-lose proposition.
The DPJ does not have the votes in the House of Councillors to pass the bond issuance legislation -- the bill it really needs to pass in the these last few remaining days of the regular Diet session. However, it has set up the conditions for the LDP take the rap should the government shut down because it cannot pay its bills.
The DPJ may not be ready for prime time. It still lacks, for example, a serpent- tongued guy or gal to make exquisity verbal hamburger of every LDP hypocrisy or revision of the historical record.
However, in terms of in-your-face slamming down of legislation, the DPJ's got game.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Do Japan's Progressives Have To Lose Their Minds?
Something has gone wrongIn the same edition of the Tokyo Shimbun as the cartoon featured in yesterday's post (thank you again Jordan) the powers that be there printed an editorial that simply boggles the imagination.
Sighing, sighing
Faces have turned long
Crying, cryin'
Hear them sob and whine
Tearful, tearful
That's a real good sign that they're feelin' glum
Sad sad times have come...
- REM and CTW, "Furry Happy Monsters" (1998) *
Read it, please.
But wait! Before you do, get down in a prone position! I was luckily already on the tatami when I read this piece. Otherwise I would have hit the floor at a possibly injurious velocity. (Link)
For those with neither the time, inclination or capacity to read the original, here is the deal.
The Tokyo Shimbun, while it is only a prefectural newspaper and the offspring of the Nagoya-based Chunichi Shimbun, is fairly well established as the broadsheet of progressivism. Some might ask whether or not The Asahi Shimbun is not the standard bearer here. Sadly, the Asahi is not progressive, merely confused.
Anyway, the Tokyo Shimbun is the reliable voice of the non-Marxist left.
Which is why the editorial so shocking: it echoes the rhetoric of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito regarding the need for a Diet dissolution and elections.
Since a direct translation will take too long, here is a synopsis:
1) The "politics of being able to come to a decision" (kimerareru seiji) was just a cover story for the passage of a bill raising the consumption tax.This is the product of a diseased mind. Point #8 is beyond bizarre: no one could possibly believe that anything approaching fair and unbiased redistricting would be possible were the LDP to regain power, as the LDP would should the +0/-5 solution be adopted. The LDP had 54 years in power during which it could have installed a mechanism for assuring the proper representation of all the citizens. For its own profit it did nothing. Only under after its brush with life in the opposition in 1993-94 did it consent to the first serious reforms of the districts. To belive that a panel of experts would achieve diddly squat under an LDP regime is flat out nuts.
2) Now that there are only 10 working days left before the official end of the Diet session, what could the DPJ-LDP-New Komeito working arrangement hope to "decide"?
3) The first thing that needs to be decided is the matter of the disproportionately represented districts. The DPJ submitted to committee its version of a reform bill (I have argued previously that this bill is a red herring, meant to fail or never be voted upon - MTC). Opposition parties boycotted the session, leaving the DPJ representatives voting to send the bill to the floor of the House of Representatives in a show of force (kyoko).
4) This was no way to handle a matter as fundamental as the means by which Diet members are to be chosen.
5) Since the opposition parties control the House of Councillors, the sending of the DPJ bill to the floor without the consent of the LDP and the New Komeito is pointless, especially as the current bill is a patchwork of ideas without a guiding principle.
6) Did they DPJ not send to the floor this ragbag bill without a hope of passage only to delay the House of Representatives election where they are predicted to go down to ignominious defeat?
7) In order to put the questions of the necessity of raising of the consumption tax to the voters, hurry up and pass the minimal +0/-5 revision, then dissolve the Diet.
8) As for fundamental reforms such as cuts in the number of Diet members, what is realistic is to leave the problem to be solved in the interval between the upcoming election and the election after, through the setting up of a commission of experts to debate the problem.
9) Before attacking the proportional seat numbers, which reflect the people's will, try the more painful cuts of the number of districts; of the amount of public campaign finance extended; of the salaries of seat holder salaries and stipends for PR and research purposes.
10) The DPJ decided to send to the floor the bill on the issuance of new bonds without the LDP present at the committee meeting. This was impermissibly impolite conduct of Diet business.
11) The LDP intends on submitting a censure bill to the House of Councillors on the 29th. If it passes, the Diet will thereafter be just spinning its wheels. The disproportionality issue will be left in abeyance and the bond issuance bill will be put off for later.
12) It is difficult to accept a "politics of being able to come to a decision" when its result is the increasing of the burdens shouldered by the populace. It is time to put an end the politics of that fails to decide what should be decided, leaving only each side blaming the other.
As for the lack of politesse in voting of bills out of committees when the opposition is boycotting, when did the LDP ever restrain itself on this issue during its years in power? Besides, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, if the other side does not want to show up, you cannot stop them.
Some folks are angry that the DPJ has not been able to fulfill the promises of its manifesto. Many are furious that Noda Yoshihiko staked his and his party's political life on rasing the consumption tax, an LDP manifesto promise.
However, that the editorial division of a major newspaper should forget history and despise political reality (where the LDP-New Komeito's control of the House of Councillors gives them a perverse control of the government's agenda) to the point where it is screaming "Oh, just tear it all down!" indicates we are on the precipice of a descent into nihilism.
C'mon boys and girls (and furry monsters too): things are not so bad. So the Augean Stables are taking a bit longer than a weekend to clean up. What do you expect after a fifty-four year-long elective dictatorship?
* The original version of this song has an East Asian history angle. The first line of the chorus, "Shining Happy People Holding Hands," was the title of a PRC poster lead vocalist and lyricist Michael Stipe saw in 1991. The poster had been issued as a part of the propaganda campaign encouraging national unity in the aftermath of the Tien An Men protests and subsequent crackdown. The song was meant to be sickly ironic. However, as was the case with the band's song "The One I Love," the story of an abusive relationship, the public absorbed the meaning of the song in a manner exactly opposite the way the artists had intended. The band had to just go with the flow. As a result the above linked video is a subversion of a subversion of a subversion of a suppression of a subversion.
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