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 have lied 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.

One Nobel Down

Yamanaka Shinya has won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his development induced pluripotent stem cells (E). The news media is one big physiology fest, with an increasingly exhaused Yamanaka appearing on live feeds and answering idiot announcer questions on every network.

Not bad for a guy whose father, the owner of a small sewing machines parts manufacturer, told his eldest son, "If you do not take over the family business, fine. If you do take over the family business it would terrible" and whose collegues in orthopedics referred to him as "Jamanaka" ("So useless he is just in the way"-naka) because of his total incompetence as a surgeon, working so slowly patients would come out of anesthesia mid-operation.

The only negative is that Yamanaka should have receive the prize two years ago, or at least last year -- his discovery being the Holy Grail of cell development.

Now all the news media is salivating at the thought that Murakami Haruki might pick up the prize for Literature. That Murakami's public appearances over the last two years could be construed as campaigning for the Nobel is probably detrimental to his chances.

As for the right wing in this blessed land, it is chortling, as it usually does: "Nobel Prizes. Japan, 19. PRC, not in prison or in exile for political reasons, 0."

It's ABErrant

How unlike was Abe Shinzo's victory in the Liberal Democrat Party election?

I) It had been 40 years since the LDP presidential election had gone to a runoff. It has been 56 years since the winner in the first round (here the former defense minister Ishiba Shigeru) lost in the second round.

A review of the totals from the two rounds of voting (Diet = Diet members)

Round 1

Abe - 141
Local 87
Diet 54

Ishiba - 199
Local 165
Diet 34

Ishihara - 96
Local 38
Diet 58

Hayashi - 27
Local 3
Diet 24

Machimura - 34
Local 7
Diet 327


Round 2

Abe - 108

Ishiba - 89


II) In a posting to the SSJ-Forum of September 4 and in private emails Professor John Campbell of The University of Michigan invited Japan specialists the world over to predict the winners of the Democratic Party of Japan leadership contest, the LDP presidential election and the next election for prime minister of Japan.

Twenty individuals responded to the challenge.

18 of the 20 picked Noda Yoshihiko as the winner of the DPJ contest.

Nobody picked Abe as the winner of the LDP contest.

Yoshihiko, Takeshi, Naoki, Azuma, Sadakazu, Natsuo, Yoshimi, Yo'ichi, Hirohisa, Jun'ichiro and Ichiro

It's been a bad day (Please don't take my picture!)
It's been a bad day (Pleeeaaze!)

- REM "Bad Day"(2003)

As scheduled, the House of Councillors censured Defense Minister Tanaka Naoki and Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Maeda Takeshi. Their business done, members of the House from the Liberal Democratic Party promptly stood up and strode out of the chamber, making a spectacle of their party leaders' threats to boycott all Diet business until Tanaka and Maeda are either fired or resign.

Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko has sworn he will not force the ministers to resign -- which we can assume is code begging the two to resign. DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma, who is looking older and older these days, as if that were physically possible, continues to hold to an improbable line that there are no reasons for the two ministers in question to resign.

Technically, Koshi'ishi is correct: the censure motion is a symbolic measure with no legal consequences. However, with the LDP and the New Komeito refusing to consider any legislation pending in the House of Councillors, indeed boycotting committee meetings, the ostensibly sanction-free measure has teeth. Fujii Hirohisa, the equally venerable but not so sepuchral-looking as Koshi'ishi head of the DPJ's tax committee (whose resignation from the Hatoyama Cabinet for health reasons looks more and more suspect every day) has asked the prime minister to bow to the inevitable and fire Tanaka and Maeda if he wants to save the consumption tax rise legislation, the supposed cornerstone of his political program (J).

To make the survival of Maeda and Tanaka even less likely, the Tokyo Prosecutors Office Special Investigations Branch (cue Star Wars Imperial March music) on Friday accepted documents accusing Maeda and others with violations of the public elections law. Maeda's use of his office's stature and materials in order to influence the Gero City mayoral election is indisputable. The prosecutors' failing to transform the charges into an indictment would shock the conscience. (J)

So Maeda must go, and with the undertow he generates, Tanaka must be swept out with him. Having pledged in his victory speech in last fall's DPJ leader election to be a "no-sides" party leader, meaning that he will choose his cabinet and fellow party leaders based not upon ability but on fair representation of all the different groups within the party, Noda harvests the rotten fruit of his ill-considered magnanimity.

Former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro, wherever he is hanging out right now, must be thinking, "Noda-san, when I was prime minister, were you not taking notes? Even Ozawa Ichiro, who accepts no one as his equal, saw that my way of tossing into the trash the candidate lists from the faction leaders, appointing the competent and firing even the popular when they caused trouble was the only way to run this blessed land."

Image: Maeda Takeshi (L) and Tanaka Naoki (R) leaving the Cabinet meeting room on April 17, 2012.

Image courtesy: Mainichi Shimbun

Words Are Not Enough

Hmmmm...

Japan's AIJ chief admits loss cover-up, apologizes
Reuters

The president of Tokyo-based money manager AIJ Investment Advisors admitted to Japanese lawmakers on Tuesday to covering up losses of $1.3 billion in clients' pension money, but said he had no intention of cheating his clients.

In his first public comment since the scandal broke in February, Kazuhiko Asakawa apologized to clients and the financial industry for the cover-up and said he had been confident that the losses could be recovered.

AIJ lost the funds through bad bets on equity and bond derivatives, wiping out the bulk of the $2.4 billion in client assets it was managing, Japan's financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), said last week.

More than 90 corporate pension funds, mostly smaller ones, were invested with the money manager, which was handling pensions for about 880,000 people.

"I want to use this opportunity to apologize to all beneficiaries who believed in our funds and purchased them," Asakawa told a financial committee of parliament...

[Link]

I was watching snippets from the hearing yesterday on NHK -- and I would not characterize the attitude of Mr. Asakawa as apologetic. Oh, he may have mouthed phrases that when translated by a machine would scroll out as apologies. His attitude, however, said, "Yeah, I lost your money. But then you were stupid enough to give it to me. Who is the jackass here?"

As for the other executives called to testify, including Old Boy advisor from the old Social Insurance Agency, when they claimed that if they had to choose between calling themselves victims (higaisha) and perpetrators (kagaisha), they would call themselves victims -- that was rich.

Prior to yesterday's performance, I was thinking, "For their sakes, Asakawa and his cronies had better hope beyond hope that none of the small- and medium-sized companies they bilked has ties to organized crime." After last night's performances, I found myself thinking, "For their sakes, they had better hope beyond hope that none of the 880,000 investors whose savings they destroyed watches television."

AIJ Is Not A Lousy Investment Company...

...it is a truly excellent Ponzi scheme. (E)

The Bernard Madoff scandal barely made the news here in Japan. So it is not surprising that an investment company reporting steady returns for over a decade, even as the globe was rocked by the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, was not flagged by regulators or corporate pension fund managers as suspect. Now, according to The Asahi Shimbun, many of the 120 corporate pension funds that invested in AIJ are on line to writing off half of their asset base, meaning they will not be paying out their corporate retirement benefits (kigyo nenkin) or even the full amount of their employees pension (kosei nenkin). (J)

Greed makes simpletons of us all. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. A fool and his money are soon parted.

Yes, the clichéd admonitions could just go on and on.

A Simple Rule

If Peter Tasker suggests it, it's probably a good idea.

Restaurant at the End of the Liberal Democratic Party

Oh, Amaterasu, no.

When I watched Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Ibuki Bunmei do his imaginary tray and chopsticks routine late last year, I thought the performance a spur-of-the-moment attempt at illustration which had veered wildly out of his control.

It turns out that operating a traditional eatery is his template for living:

Current LDP Secretary General Bunmei Ibuki outshines others with a book displaying his cooking expertise.

Titled "Ibuki Tei Shikino Shokutaku" ("Four-Season Dining Table at Ibuki Inn"), the book is a compilation of essays on his cooking prowess and ideas on foods.

Get this man an apron...and get him out of the Secretary-General's office.

Please.

Ozawa's Sour Send-Off

"In walking from one end of the country to the other, the voices cry out to me loudly, ‘Please do something about the eldercare insurance system!’ Can we just let the Diet session come to an end like this?"

Democratic Party leader Ozawa Ichirō, speaking to fellow members of the DPJ leadership council, as reported in the Yomiuri Shimbun of June 5, 2008, p. 4 .

Yes, Ozawa-san and his party could do "something" – they could cooperate with the ruling coalition to craft an emergency compromise bill ameliorating at least some of deficiencies, perceived or real, of the new eldercare insurance system.

However, fixing the existing system was not under discussion on Wednesday night. Instead, the leaders of the main opposition party were meeting to decide whether or not to deploy against the prime minister a constitutionally inert chastisement of the government: a House of Councillors censure motion.

The sudden revival of a plan to pass a censure motion against the PM in the waning days of the Diet Session is the clearest indication yet that Prime Minister Fukuda has reshuffled the political deck. By going behind the backs of the leadership councils of the ruling coalition parties to unilaterally declare a one year lifespan for the nominally 10 year long plan for road construction finance and by instructing his negotiators to accept Democratic Party-proposed changes to the law on managing the bureaucracy, Fukuda took away the Democratic Party’s biggest electoral cudgel: the claim that Fukuda is "just another Liberal Democratic Party tool of power brokers."

Confronted by a Prime Minister willing not only to brush off those in his party intent on reinstitutionalizing patronage politics but also willing to incorporate Democratic Party ideas into legislation (Sound like any other prime minister we know, a recent one, maybe?) the leaders of the Democratic Party have lost their political bearings.

The post August 2007 DPJ has relied upon a particular master narrative--that the Democratic Party is engaged in principled resistance against the policies of a ruling coalition beholden to narrow interests, be they foreign (the Bush Administration) or domestic (the road construction lobby, the Ministry of Finance). In the Democratic narrative the LDP-New Komeitō ruling coalition sacrifices the national interest in order to please the narrow interests—and is willing to go even so far as an Article 59 override of the expressed will of the House of Councillors in order to show its loyalty to these narrow interests. "Ergo," the narrative concludes, "we need a House of Representatives election to end the reign of the special interests and restore government for the benefit of the people."

Throughout the fall and winter, the ruling coalition has been the stubborn facilitator of the DPJ's political program—seemingly bowing to U.S. pressure to reinstate the mission in the Indian Ocean and clearly kowtowing to the road construction lobby in the gasoline levy and road construction plan bills.

Now, however, a new, pliant Fukuda Yasuo (with Cabinet support rates in the 20s, he could hardly be anything else but pliant) seems to have accepted the DPJ's main premise: that the ruling coalition has indeed been too solicitous of narrow interests and must work on behalf of the country—even if that means accommodating DPJ policies.

When your political enemy suddenly embraces you and tells you, "I'm sorry, you were right, I was wrong, let's do it your way!" -- you are non-plussed. When your political enemy does the above and you had, in order to build up your wall of political resistance, brought together a gang of fringe elements and kooks whose only commonality was their common enemy—you are in serious trouble.

This danger was hammered home last week when the People's New Party announced that it would not longer caucus with the DPJ, the Socialists and the Communists unless those parties united to oppose the nomination of Ikeo Kazuhito to the board of governors of the Bank of Japan. Ikeo had been a supporter of the privatization of the post office, making him utterly unacceptable to the PNP, the party of those expelled from the LDP for their opposition to postal privatization.

The loss of the support of the PNP shrinks by four votes the majority the opposition holds in the House of Councillors. It is not enough to throw control of the House of Councillors to the LDP-New Komeito coalition. Since the ruling coalition nominated Ikeo as well, the chance of the PNP will throw its lot in with the ruling coalition is zero.

So no big deal, right?

Wrong. The loss of four conservative votes tips the balance of power in the House of Councillors. First, it brings the opposition majority ever closer to the 51% line. This increases the leverage of the Socialists and the Communists vis-à-vis the Democrats, who need the Socialist and Communist votes in order to stop LDP initiatives. Second, the Democratic Party has lost a convenient excuse—"I am sorry, we cannot do ( X) because it is too leftist. It will cause the PNP to bolt from the unified front." – that could be deployed whenever the Socialists and/or the Communists started making demands too left wing for many in the DPJ.

Passing a motion of censure against the Prime Minister is the DPJ's way of reassuring the other members of the anti-LDP alliance that the DPJ is not considering accommodation with the LDP. That the DPJ's steadfast opposition to the LDP can be demonstrated without the act being very substantial (though the Communists, ever the legalists in the politics, are wary, wondering, "Doesn't passing a censure motion at the end of the regular Diet session mean that those voting for the motion are also committing themselves to not cooperating in any way with the prime minister in the extraordinary session in the fall?") is icing on the cake.

A censure motion also closes the regular session on a down note, reminding the voters (or so the opposition hopes) of how rancorous this session has been...though one would think that reminding the voters via an act of unforced aggression against the PM might prompt some voters to reconsider who exactly was at fault for the turmoil over the last few months.

But Ozawa's observation quoted at the beginning of this post points to a more fundamental problem facing the DPJ in the summer and early autumn—the clock is ticking on post-Koizumi LDP bungling. Prime Minister Fukuda has injected new life into his administration by borrowing the Koizumi trick of placing himself between diehard elements of the LDP on one side and the DPJ on the other—stealing the DPJ's thunder without surrending the microphone. Telegenic Koizumi kids, particularly the "Tokyo WOMEN" trio of Koike Yuriko, Inoguchi Kuniko and Sato Yukari—along with the more frail but still startlingly impressive Kawaguchi Yoriko--are shoehorning themselves back into political news stories again. Nakagawa Hidenao, Koizumi's eminence grise at the Policy Research Council, has a new book out on furthering political reform. On Tuesday, to the horror of both his nominal faction leader Machimura Nobutaka (formally on leave from the post because of his service as Chief Cabinet Secretary) and former faction leader Mori Yoshirō, Nakagawa established a new, 33 member pro-growth, anti-consumption tax rise study group, offering an alternative to the Machimura-Yosano Kaoru-Tanigaki Sadakazu mainline bent on wiping out budget deficits through a dramatic increase in the consumption tax.

[Opposition to hikes in the consumption tax has resulted in a strange political alliance between revenue-hungry bureaucrats, anti-smoking activists and Nakagawa--who both smokes like a chimney and has no compunctions against kicking bureaucratic butt—in support of a tripling of taxes on tobacco.]

If the Koizumi brain trust has regrouped for a comeback—and after having gone through the Revisionist Radicals, then Ye Olde Wise Men, the LDP only has the Carnival of Nobodies left before it has to go back to the Koizumi Korps—then Ozawa and the DPJ will see their chance at a seizure of power slipping from their grasp. The DPJ has benefited mightily from an arrogant, narcissistic and clueless LDP. Were a general election to be held today, the LDP-New Komeitō coalition would likely fall short of 50% majority in the House of Representatives, forcing the formation an LDP-DPJ grand coalition—if not an outright DPJ-led government.

If, however, the prime minister hosts a successful, substantial summit -- and with all the advance work on mega-problems in energy, the rise of the BRICs and global warming there is more than a decent chance the Toyako Summit will be a damned significant one – if the PM keeps relations with the Chinese and the South Koreans on an even keel throughout the testing time of the Olympic Games; and, to top it off, if the PM manages to rein in the worst elements of this own party (through intimidation and a threat of replacing all his current advisors with Koizumi loyalists) then the DPJ will lose its greatest asset: a tin-eared, brick-stupid LDP.

For Ozawa, whose knowledge of the score in the long run has always led to carelessness about losing points over inexplicable nonsense in the present, the possibility of the LDP slipping away from its doom once again is unbearable. Better go forth with the censure motion, even at the cost of appearing spiteful. Perhaps the censure motion will cause the PM to lose his cool out of exasperation and hurt (let us not forget the PM's "crying in frustration" episode in the Diet) leading him to govern badly again, precipitating a political crisis.

Adding up all the pluses and minuses, it must be worth a try.

You Can Check Out Any Time You Like

In the first panel of the cartoon Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo, clad in tennis wear, is preparing to serve. From outside the panel come catcalls and taunts. "Go ahead, show us what you've got! C'mon, you aren't scaring anybody."

Fukuda rears back, tosses the ball in the air, and unleashes a terrific serve.

The ball come zinging back at him as if on fire. He only just ducks down in time.

The catcalls continue, "Oh, that was brilliant! Why don't you try it again?"

Fukuda again rears back, launching an even more powerful serve.

The ball comes sizzling back, clocking Fukuda in the forehead and knocking his glasses askew.

"Whooopeee! Come on, serve it for real this time! Hit it with all you've got!"

Readjusting his somewhat bent glasses, and wiping the sweat from his forehead, Fukuda rears back even further and unleashes a monstrous serve--that comes back like a bullet, knocking him to the ground.

It is then that the frame pulls back, revealing the whole tennis court. Ozawa Ichirō, Hatoyama Yukio and Kan Naoto are all on the other side of the net, their rackets down by their sides, shouting encouragement to the PM. Ozawa leads the jeers, yelling, "Oh, please, please; one more time. That was awesome...of course, whenever you're ready to stop serving against the back wall and instead hit a ball in our direction, that would be great too!"

* * *

One would think that after all the self-inflicted wounds and humiliations over the last few months, the PM and the ruling coalition would have learned a simple lesson: get the ball out of your side of the court. For every issue, the PM and the ruling coalition have found themselves incapable of getting the ball to drop in the Democratic Party of Japan's side, forcing the DPJ and its leaders to actually do something other than just stand around shouting imprecations.

Unbelievably, it is about to happen again. On May 12, the sixty day limit on the road construction bill will expire. It will become possible for the ruling coalition to pass the bill using its two thirds majority in the House of Representatives.

Unfortunately the road construction bill coming up for override is not the road construction bill the Fukuda government wants. The bill that is up for reapproval is a public relations nightmare, an execrable promise of a decade-long matsuri of pork.

"But you know," the DPJ is saying with a huge grin on its face, "You guys passed it once already. Two months ago you thought this was an absolutely fabulous, absolutely essential bill. And you voted for it. Surely you could not have changed your minds about this bill in just two months! That would be irresponsible and unserious--and you are the serious, responsible party! Everyone knows that. So override. Pass this monstrous bill. We dare you. We double dare you."

And the PM and the ruling coalition leadership are simply stunned. They launched a laughingstock of a bill--an absurdity--over to the opposition-led House of Councillors, daring them to leave it alone--only to see their own howling creation land right at their feet, untouched and unchanged, for them to either reject (and won't that look smart--voting for a bill only to reject it only two months later) or pass using the override provision, inviting the public to go ballistic with righteous indignation.

Leaving the PM and the leadership to wonder, "How is it possible the ball is back in our court, AGAIN?"

Funny things happen when you don't play with others, choosing instead to play with yourself.


Later - We may be looking at game, set and match.

Tobias Harris notes that a snap poll by The Asahi Shimbun finds the Fukuda Cabinet's support level at a mere 20%.

Now the Tokyo Shimbun has come out with a rival poll finding support for the Cabinet at 19.8%--which, the paper, bless its leftist little heart, is calling "a support level of only 19%".

Guess folks might be upset that gasoline station owners raised prices a nice round 30 yen per liter yesterday?

(No, no, it is not price gouging to raise fuel prices 30 yen per liter during Golden Week when the tax being revived is only 25 yen per liter. Perish the thought.)

Not Brain Dead, Just Brain Damaged

Janne Morén, a robotics and artificial intelligences expert, examines the thought machine that is the Liberal Democratic Party (sadly, for several of its members, the only thought machine they have) and discovers it exhibiting telltale symptoms of neurological disfunction in a particular region inside the noggin.

Herr Morén, you have the floor...

The Only Game in Town

You must play with the hand that has been dealt you.

On April 29, a national holiday (the miserably named Shōwa Day--as if the reign of the Shōwa Emperor in and of itself was a cause for celebration) the sixty day time limit passes for the House of Councillors to take action on the bill renewing the gasoline tax. Okumura Jun has argued convincingly that the Prime Minister and the rest of the LDP grand pooh-bahs have enough carrots and sticks at their disposal to strong arm enough Representatives into reimposing the 24 yen per liter levy.

But to what end?

If the legislation reimposing the tax were facilitating the realization of the plan the Prime Minister outlined on March 27, then all the LDP members in the House of Representatives, even ones from the five prefectures whose governors refused to put themselves on the record as demanding a reinstatement of the gasoline tax, would fall into line.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister's plan is not the plan that is on the table.

What is on the table, set up for passage using the override provision in May, is the obscene 10 year, 59 trillion yen plan, with all the tax revenues getting sucked into road construction.

Would a Representative from let us say Kanagawa Prefecture, represented in the Diet by both Koizumi Jun'ichirō and Kōno Tarō and with a governor who does not support the gas tax renewal, vote for the reimposition of a tax without knowing whether he or she is voting for fiscal support of the Prime Minister's "one year and out" plan or for the road tribe's multi-year road construction-hogfest?

Would you, in light of the possibility of a snap election sooner rather than later, choose to trust Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo's assurances that "no, no, the Road Tribe's plan is not the operative plan, even though it is currently the only game in town. It is my plan that you are voting to support" -- given how well he has pushed forward reform in general since he became Prime Minister and how well he has kept his other vows so far?

Well would you?

The Fukuda Future - Into The Unknowable

Over at Global Talk 21, Okumura Jun posts a brilliant counterargument to my forecasts of doom for the gasoline levy and the road construction plan.

I think both our assessments are correct.

Okumura-san assumes that factions still behave like factions; that people learn from their mistakes; and that even the holders of LDP party posts can count to three.

I believe that the factions are fictions; that the present LDP leadership has learned nothing in eight months of living with an opposition in charge of the House of Councillors; and no one in the LDP can count to three, or six or any multiple of three thereof.

Both are a reasonable set of assumptions, fully supported by historical precedent and simple logic.

Holding one set or the other as true, however, predetermines one's predictions.
------------------------------------------------

When Fukuda Yasuo became Prime Minister in September 2007, most observers assumed that that the leaders of the ruling coalition could perform a pair of simple tasks:

1) They could count to 60

and

2) They understood the concept "three to six years"

The performance of the first task would give ruling coalition leaders the ability to look at a calendar, find a red letter date by which a certain bill would have to be passed, then count backward to the date by which the House of Representatives would absolutely, positively have to pass the bill. The sixty day span is the amount of time the House of Representatives must wait for action by the House of Councillors on a bill before the House of Representatives can pass the bill using the two-thirds majority override power outlined in Article 59 of the Constitution.

The performance of the second task would give ruling coalition leaders the ability to look a multi-year calendar and understand the immense span of days stretching out before them before they could hope to win enough seats in a House of Councillors election to return the Diet to its familiar rhythms -- a state of legislative tyranny so ingrained into the body politic that the press, without reflection or irony, refers to its restitution as seijōka (正常化) - "normalization". Given that the next opportunity to overthrow opposition control of the House of Councillors is not until either 2010 (a marginal opportunity due to the large number of seats the LDP will be defending) or 2013 (far more likely scenario, given that the DPJ will be defending its 2007 gains) even the most obtuse and/or militant member of the LDP hierarchy would understand that the coalition would have to find a way to share power with Ozawa Ichirō and the DPJ.

These two basic assumptions were indeed the cruxes of the argument for Fukuda Yasuo's election as the president of the LDP. Only the managerial, mild-mannered and colorless Fukuda could play the game of seemingly abnegating himself and the LDP before the DPJ, flattering Ozawa's mighty ego, and, at the same time, keep legislation moving on track toward passage using the override provision.

Everyone believed the above formed the backdrop of political theater as it was to be played out until September 2009, the final possible date of the next House of Representatives election.

Even Ozawa Ichirō believed it. He would have never entered into negotiations exploring the formation of a coalition government--or a legislative entente or whatever it was--if he knew aforehand that the LDP would

a) care so little about the country's political paralysis that they would never engage in good faith nemawashi (prior discussions toward consensus) on the content of bills, and

b) not use the override provision with efficiency and ruthlessness, when it had to.

Ozawa expected the ruling coalition to both care about appearances and still be able to execute most of its legislative program--whether the opposition-led House of Councillors objected or not.

It turns out that Ozawa--and just about everybody else--was wrong.

The ruling coalition, in what has been an almost gleeful hanging out of Fukuda to dry, has delivered ultimatum after ultimatum to the DPJ, trying to force the DPJ at every instance to go down on bended knee and offer its submission--which the DPJ and the rest of the opposition has pointedly refused to do. Compounding the error, the ruling coalition, after delivering these ultimatums, has been unable to deliver on its threats, either losing track of the time it needs to get legislative packages through the House of Representatives using the sixty day override or worse forgetting that in the case of appointments requiring Diet approval, there is no override provision.

------------------------------------------------

Which brings me back to the original propositions in this post.

Okumura Jun believes that the ruling coalition has learned its lesson, that it will be supportive of the PM's strengths in conciliation with the DPJ while retaining a monomaniacal focus on management of the legislative calendar--that it will be able from here on out to use both carrots and sticks to govern the country in an acceptable fashion.

I believe that the ruling coalition has not adapted because it cannot adapt--that the last eight months are not a series of fluke occurrences but symptoms of the ruling coalition's hopeless, structurally determined ineptitude.

Take your pick.

Oh Bully! The reprising sequel!

The Sankei Shimbun is reporting that Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo will be offering a formal apology for the expiration of the gasoline levy this evening.

Like one needs to apologize for a tax cut primarily benefiting the rural areas and businesses...and during an economic slowdown, too.

In other news, the compromise legislation extending all the other otherwise expiring budget-related measures for another two months swept through the Diet today as though carried aloft on wings.

Diet Passes Stopgap Bill To Extend Tax Measures Until May
Kyodo

TOKYO --The Diet passed a stopgap bill Monday to extend until the end of May various special tax measures which would have expired the same day, in a bid to avoid confusion across wide areas of commerce including used car and land sales and financial transactions in the Tokyo offshore market...

I guess the Democratic Party of Japan is willing to be flexible and responsible on matters of national importance--it just considers beyond the pale unpopular and utterly corrupted (and utterly corrupting) programs that have long deserved to die.

So there.

Oh Bully!

On the day I predicted we would witness the death of Tanakaism, Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo has called yet another unscheduled press conference.

I wonder what he will have to say.

Emergency Rules

Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo was just on television giving a hastily organized press conference, outlining a new last-minute proposal regarding the road tax and other expiring legislation.

He outlined a seven point program, the main change being a shift of revenues to the general fund after one year, down from the three years previously discussed.

The PM looked shaky, stumbling over the words of his text and seemingly unsure of what to do with his face. He tried to look grim but succeeded only in looking frightened.

What is he thinking? It is way too late for this kind of political theater to change the Democratic Party's stance. It is a repeat of the Tanami nomination - a sudden, unexpected, hurried announcement of not terribly much, topped off with a plea to the opposition to cooperate.

He cannot go on like this.

Giving It Away

So what is the game plan of the leaders of Democratic Party of Japan? What do they think they are doing? Why do they not feel obligated to compromise, to meet the Prime Minister and the ruling coalition halfway? Why do they not feel pressured into offering their version of bills or nominees to important positions, despite denunciation by the ruling coalition and upbraiding by editorial boards and pundits?

Stripped of the fuzziness and affectation, the bare bones of DPJ strategy seem to be:

(1) Reject any bill or nomination not proposed by the DPJ.

(2) Force the ruling coalition either to

a) abandon its game plan, or
b) use its House of Representatives supermajority or
c) call an election.

(3) React to the ruling coalition's choice in (2) by either saying

"We told them what we wanted so this is the result," or

"They don't know how to compromise so they had to pass their program using brute force," or

"Well, it's about time!"

(4) Repeat as often as possible or until the ruling party learns to think 60 days ahead.

Ideally, the DPJ and its allies in the House of Councillors will harass the prime minister so much that he loses his senses and calls an election. Fukuda Yasuo or whomever is leading the Liberal Democratic Party has no reason to call an election before September 2009. However, given the amount of total nonsense espoused in the guise of political discourse every day of the week, it is possible the PM may be somehow tricked into believing life will be better after an election.

Barring an election, the goal is to force the government to swallow Democratic Party proposals whole or leave it with no choice but the invocation of the override. Either outcome paints the Democrats as the party of ideas and firm principles, whether or not the press plays along.

The DPJ does not have a reasonable chance of seizing control of the House of Representatives outright in an election. However, it and its allies will win more than a third of the seats, eliminating the use of the override provision.

The Diet will come to a standstill.

Incapable of passing legislation or appointing anyone to anything, the present government or its successor will have to enter into coalition talks with the DPJ. Bargaining from a position of strength greater than it possesses today, the DPJ will win control of key levers of economic and political power.

So the critics are wasting their breath: the DPJ does not give a hoot whether or not it appears responsible in its opposition right now. Until

a) the PM calls an election, or
b) the Liberal Democratic Party elects a party leader willing to excise the most rotten bits from the LDP or
c) the LDP leadership learns how to Plan Ahead

the DPJ will just reject, reject twice and reject again every damn fool idea the ruling coalition tosses at them--and most of smart ones too.

So there.

I have given it away.

-------------------------------
Tunnel on road between Fudōjiri Camp and Kōtaku Onsen
Isehara City, Kanagawa Prefecture
March 16, 2008
Image courtesy: MTC

He's On To Us

Ibuki Bunmei, the increasingly unpopular Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party, has discovered the reason for the constant stream of bad news that has been undermining the image of the cabinet of Prime Minister of Fukuda Yasuo and public support for the ruling coalition:

The press is a tool of the Democratic Party of Japan.

According to an article in the today's print edition of the Tokyo Shimbun, Secretary-General Ibuki, fed up with a reporter's asking whether or not it was "difficult" (i.e., impossible) for the Diet to pass the budget enabling legislation, including the renewal of the temporary gasoline levy, by the end of the fiscal year, responded with a prophecy:

「どうしてでしょう。定例日以外審議しない民主党の態度を是認するのは報道の死を意味する」

"And why is that? Showing approval of the stance being taken by a Democratic Party that does not examine (a bill) within the set time limit except on the appointed days, this is the death of the Press!"

Well, yes, if you mean by "Press" the uncritical lapdogs of the ruling party and the Establishment. Yes, Ibuki-san is absolutely right on that score.

Later in the article he expresses shock and dismay that the Press, rather than printing only the approved leaks of the government--the endless parade of naikaku keikensha, naikaku ni chikai hito, tō no moto kanbu whose anonymous opinions are reported as fact on a daily basis--dares to facilitate the leakage of information by the Democratic Party:

「民主党に話をすると漏れて記事になってします。人間社会のルールを守ってくれないと,怖くて事前の打診できない」

"When we talk to the DJP, it gets leaked and become fodder for articles. When the rules of human society are not being preserved, then it's frightening when you cannot know aforehand the repercussions."

which is Ibuki-speak for "If the stuff the Democratic Party leaks gets printed, I cannot predict my ability to control my vengeful wrath."

...which means "Now that you people print what we tell the opposition, rather than vice versa like you are supposed to, we're scared of our own shadows to even approach the Democrats."

So be careful, members of the media--Ibuki Bunmei's on to your petty, treasonous schemes.

---------------- Image of Ibuki Bunmei courtesy of Reuters.

Later - So many strikethroughs! Thanks James.

Statureless in Nagata-chō

No, no, no, no!

(Sound of head pounding on table)

The Liberal Democratic Party's leaders didn't clear the nominations of Tanami Kōji and Nishimura Kiyohiko with the Democratic Party leadership before the 11 a.m. announcement.

(Vocalization. Sounds like "AAaaaaargh!")

I think we can safely say that the Democratic Party is exonerated. Off the hook. In the clear. The failure to name a replacement for the post of Governor of the Bank of Japan is now 100% the fault of the LDP.

(Wiping of the hands gesture)

By not vetting the nominations with the Democratic Party aforehand, the LDP has proven itself incapable of anything but vengeance.

Bloody moronic, near-sighted, knee-biting attack Chihuahuas. Vamos!

Nobody's Home

Governor of the Bank of Japan Fukui Toshihiko's term ends tomorrow.

This is what Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo said last night, on the subject of finding a replacement for the head of Japan's central bank during what marker cheerleader Alan Greenspan has called the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

「与党だけ、政府だけで決められない。民主党がどう考えているか分からないこともある」

"The ruling coalition, the government cannot decide this unilaterally. There are things we don't know about what the Democratic Party of Japan is thinking."

Dear Prime Minister,

Stop delegating.

Stop hoping beyond hope that the deadbeats, lunatics, fanatics and sycophants about you are going to buckle down and do the jobs you have been asking them to do since September.

It will not happen.

Phone. Receiver. Call. Speak.

If no one answers, try another number.

Repeat until you have talked to Ozawa Ichirō, Kan Naoto and Hatoyama Yukio.

Find out, this morning, yourself, what the opposition is thinking.

You have a newspaper journalist as your finance minister. You have no central banker. The dollar is at 97 yen. The stock market is flopping about like a fugu on pavement.

Later - Nikkei Online is reporting that a new nomination bill will be presented to a joint meeting of the steering committees of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, with a finalization vote on the bill taking place tomorrow. No word on who is doing the presenting of this bill or who the new nominee might be. Heck, there is no indication that there even is a new nominee.

One would assume that the announcement has the DPJ's blessing...

Even later - And the winner is...Tanami Kōji (田波耕治) of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

Thank you all for playing along.