She Doesn't Do Subtlety

The other day I offered the proposition that Diet dissolution of November 16 had no common name. Historically dissolutions have common names, identifiers of the political crisis that had triggered the dissolution. The most entertaining is probably the Bakayaro Dissolution of 1953, when Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida was forced to call an election after shouting "You moron" (bakayaro)) at an opposition lawmaker. Others have been more substantive, such as the Consumption Tax Dissolution of 1990 and the Post Office Reform (Yusei) Dissolution of 2005.

Election 2012 seems to lack a moniker, though. Wikipedia suggests (Link) that it should be called the Soon Dissolution, in reference to Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's promise to Tanigaki Sadakazu on August 8 to hold an election "soon" (chikai uchi ni). However, none of the protagonists seem to have made frequent use of that expression during the campaign.

Yesterday soon-to-be ex-minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and ex-member of the House of Representatives Tanaka Makiko revealed her nominee for the dissolution's name, demonstrating once again her demure, tasteful way with words:

"It was a dissolution of a Prime Minister who felt pressed to quit. It's the 'Suicide Terrorist Bomber Dissolution' (jibaku tero kaisan) I thought to myself. And so it became."

(Link - J)

Tanaka Makiko: a sassy, brassy but perhaps not quite classy lady.

She is not even technically correct. A suicide bomber targets enemies or innocents. The persons worst affected by Noda's dissolution were neither.

A Minister Dies A Mysterious Death

Minister for Postal Reform and State Minister for Financial Services and People's New Party member Matsushita Tadahiro is dead. Police responding to an emergency call from his Tokyo home at about 4:45 p.m. found him "fallen down" (taorete iru). With disturbing speed, the news media complex is reporting that the police are investigating the death of the 73 year-old Matsushita as being a likely suicide. (J)

Now there may be good reasons to suspect the minister's having taken his own life. However, to see a report of an older, sickly man's death reported as a likely/possible suicide on NHK's prime time evening newscast only 2 hours and 15 minutes after the police were first called is damn peculiar. Recall this is the cast of clowns who could never come clean about the exact cause of death of Nakagawa Sho'ichi, when 1) his father had committed suicide, 2) he was an alcoholic, 3) he had suffered months earlier humiliation on a global scale (You Tube) which ended his political career and 4) he was found, lying down, at his Tokyo home, unresponsive.

If Matsushita did take his own life, he would be only the second Cabinet Minister to do so while in office since the promulgation of the present Constitution, the first having been the scandal-beset Matsuoka Toshikatsu in May 2007.

Requiescat in pacem.

What this death will mean for the implementation of the postal counter-reformation Ozawa Ichiro and Kamei Shizuka foisted upon us in order to please the hereditary postmaster's association and the postal unions, is probably not much. Speculation on this subject is also better left to institutions such as The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Bloomberg, which tend to frame world events in terms of their effects on investment portfolios.

Goodbye, Detritus

In decidedly minor political news, Kobayashi Koki, one of the total wastes of human skin Ozawa Ichiro brought into the Democratic Party of Japan for possibly no reason other than to make himself look better by comparison, has declared he will vote for the pending no confidence motion and leave the DPJ. He has found intolerable the party's having submitted a bill raising the consumption tax. (J)

Koba-chan, your train left the station over a month ago.

So long you Tokyo University Faculty of Law graduate, former Ministry of International Trade and Industry bureaucrat, former Liberal Democratic Party district seat holder, expelled from the LDP by Koizumi Jun'ichiro for opposing postal reform and stripped of your seat by Koike Yuriko, only to be returned to the House of Representatives as a proportional list seat winner for the DPJ -- you will most certainly not be missed.

Tanigaki's Ticking Clock

President of the Liberal Democratic Party Tanigaki Sadakazu must be feeling pretty blue these days, despite the relatively mild weather in Tokyo (mild as compared to the Japan Sea side of the nation, which has been absolutely flattened with snow this season). He has led the LDP from a nadir of around 17% popularity in the aftermath the Democratic Party of Japan victory in August 2009 to its current 17% after two-and a half years of DPJ fumbling and bumbling. He has never cultivated a particularly memorable personality: whether of that of an intellectual, of a super-nice guy or of a calming influence upon the fractious factionalism of the LDP barons -- all of which were reasons given for his appropriateness as party leader in September 2009.

In the meantime, the DPJ, whilst originally setting itself apart from recent (post-Mori Yoshiro) LDP practices in terms of foreign affairs and fiscal policies, is now plundering the LDP party manifesto for ideas, which the LDP, even though it is the main opposition party, obviously cannot oppose. When the DPJ cannot stomach the LDP's proposal, it turns to the LDP's ally the New Komeito for draft legislation, whether it is for the reduction of the remuneration of national bureaucrats or the counter-reformation at the post office (J). The DPJ's acceptation of the latter draft bill is especially ominous for the LDP and its leader, as the original reform of the post office was an LDP government crusade, admittedly under the iconoclast prime minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro. Walking back a reform that split the LDP asunder in 2005 is very difficult for the LDP to contemplate. That not backing the New Komeito bill would create a rift in between the LDP and the New Komeito makes the eventual decision on what to do all the more fraught.

Now to Tanigaki's woes are added the rise of regional parties, the most prominent of which is Hashimoto Toru's Kansai-based Ishin no kai. The emergence of these regional parties means that the LDP cannot rely on the stance of being the default anti-DPJ alternative, even in the districts, the contestible ones of which the LDP was hoping to recapture in the next House of Representatives election. The emergence of these regional parties and the low poll ratings of the LDP have undermined Tanigaki's core policy of demanding a dissolution of the Diet and elections. At worst, the LDP may not come out of an election in less dire straits than it is in now; at best it and its ally the New Komeito will not have an outright majority, requiring cohabitation either with the DPJ or the volatile regional parties.

There has even been a blowup over the LDP's latest campaign poster. The choice of a side-lit image, with most of Tanigaki's face in shadow, is unusual, to say the least (J). Major party figures, including past prime ministers, have called the image dark and depressing; many in the party have demanded the poster's withdrawal and destruction.

Tanigaki's term ends in September. He can run for reelection. However, he faces rivals already maneuvering to oppose him. Acting policy research council chairman Hayashi Yoshimasa has already established a study group, the equivalent of a candidacy exploratory committee (J). Hayashi has a handicap in that he is a member of the House of Councillors, a body from which no LDP leader has ever been elected. As the first speaker to his study group Hayashi invited a stronger candidate, the former policy research chief and agriculture minister Ishiba Shigeru (J). Ishiba has a voice that takes some getting used to, but once one has inured oneself, one clearly recognizes a formidable intellect and drive. He has had not restrained himself in criticizing both the leadership of Tanigaki and the LDP's current drift into the party of simply saying "No."

Still quiet but very much in the race to replace Tanigaki is party secretary-general Ishihara Nobuteru. Being Tanigaki's right hand man until September will make it hard for Ishihara to do anything but sotto voce campaigning for the top spot. When visiting Washington (hard on Ishiba's heals, it should be noted) Ishihara did tell audiences there, "If Tanigaki does not run again, I am am thinking of running." (J)

Tanigaki is staring at leaving a historical record of mediocrity. It will be interesting to see whether this psychological burden pushes him to greater recalcitrance or a resigned cooperative stance over these probable last few months of his presidency. Prior to his election as party president, Tanigaki had alway been portrayed as a moderate -- and he probably is one -- which would explain his ineffectiveness as a party bulldog. He may not want to act the poodle or the lapdog. However, with the DPJ insinuating itself in between the LDP and the New Komeito, he may feel he has no choice during but to do so.

They're Off!

The 2010 regular session of the Diet closed down for good yesterday, on schedule but with a record amount of its business unfinished. Lawmakers of both Houses immediately scrambled for their prefectures to begin campaigning in earnest, if in advance of the official starting date for the elections period, which will begin on June 24.

The press and commentariat have been critical of the immense number of government bills left lying either out on the table in the House of Representatives or to die in the House of Councillor's docket. Delayed until further notice are the bills on establishing a bureau for national policy strategy and the rules governing the use of dispatched contract labor. Evaporated into nothingness are the bills on revisions to the postal reform law, the climate change bill and the bill revising the way bureaucratic appointments are made. In total, the Hatoyama and Kan administrations managed to push only 56% of the governmment-submitted bills through the Diet in the regular session -- a postwar record low.

Then again, with so many of these bills having being either blatant attempts to buy off consituencies in advance of the House of Councillors elections or simply ill-considered gestures at quickly fulfilling campaign promises made by members of the ruling coalition in 2009, that they are now either delayed or deceased should prompt hurrahs, not sniping and harrumphing.

No Thank You Mr. Postman

Oh yes, wait a minute Mr. Postman
Wait...Mr. Postman

- The Marvelettes (1961)

On May the 23rd a contented Kamei Shizuka, Minister for Financial Services and leader of the People's New Party, was seated next to a beaming Ozawa Ichiro, Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Japan, on the dais at the National Postmasters Association (Zentoku) convention. Both men promised the assembled that they would push the Diet to pass legislation rolling back the reforms. They then asked for the association's support in the upcoming House of Councillors election. Associate president Tsuge Yoshifumi, welcoming the pledge, responded that in order to realize the goals of the legislation, members of his organization would have to do their best to promote the election of candidates identified with Zentoku -- after the bill's passage of course.

Three weeks later, Ozawa Ichiro has resigned from the position of DPJ Secretary-General. The new Prime Minister of Japan, Kan Naoto, has decided to delay the passage of the bill, currently in the House of Councillors, to a fall extraordinary session of the Diet -- effectively killing the bill in its present form. In response, Kamei Shizuka has resigned as Financial Services Minister, only three days after the inauguration of the Kan Cabinet. A member of Kamei's party has taken his place as minister and the PNP is still nominally in the Cabinet, but the relationship between the two parties is broken in spirit.

The reversal of fortunes of the postmasters and its unionized workforce, from courted darlings to abandoned has-beens, in such a short span of time reflects the tactical and strategic shifts the DPJ has undergone since the resignation of former Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio and Ozawa Ichiro.

On a tactical level, the huge surge in popularity of the Cabinet and the DPJ after the resignations of Hatoyama and Ozawa and the selection of Kan as the new party leader wiped out the electoral significance of Zentoku and postal union vote. For a ruling party with support levels hovering around 20%, every vote counts, particularly in thinly-populated rural single-seat prefectures. In rural areas the post office is the predominant banking, insurance and package delivery institution, often the only one. The fear of losing a community's sole financial services institution is reason enough to vote for the party Zentoku supports. Having such support can mean the difference in between victory and defeat in prefectures where a move of even 10,000 votes one way or the other makes a huge difference.

The trade off was, of course, the loss of the party proportional support for the DPJ among non-aligned voters. Pandering to the postmasters, while not a crucial issue for most, contributed to the extremely negative image of the Ozawa-dominated DPJ as the party that was willing to grovel for every organizational vote pf the pre-Koizumi era Liberal Democratic Party electoral machine.

On a strategic level, the new Kan government has made it clear that it is abandoning efforts to stimulate economic growth through loosened lending standards -- policies strongly associated with Kamei. Reversal of postal reform was a part of this general reversal of the strictures imposed during the Koizumi era. Reversal of postal reform of course infuriated the nation's private financial institutions, which have quite rightly see the post office as a favored behemoth sucking trillions of yen out of the world's financial system. This in turn earned the DPJ the hostility of the financial press, which, for good or ill, is the primary opinion-shaping information source for much of the world's population.

Postal reform might have been saved if the PNP actually brought something of substance to the DPJ. However, in poll after poll, support for the PNP nevers hits even 1% of those polled. It is the party of zero, of nothing and nowhere. It is indeed such a weak entity that it cannot stomp off in huff, like the Social Democratic Party could do after the sacking of Fukushima Mizuho over the Futenma reversal. Instead, the PNP must cling to the skirts of the DPJ in the hopes of surviving as an official political party.

As for the once powerful Zentoku, it must contend with the consequences of having backed the wrong horses in the race for power in the nation's capital. Kan clearly takes his talking points on the economy and finance from Ministry of Finance bureaucrats and the banking industry -- the enemies of the post office. Zentoku could try to boost the fortunes of the PNP by a full court press to have its members vote for the party in the proportion vote -- but that would result in perhaps one or maybe two more seats for the micro-coalition, which has been, thanks to Kamei's overreaching and interference on many fronts, more of a hindrance than a help to the DPJ. More likely, however, it will free its members to vote as they wish, giving the organization political cover in the likely anti-post office mood that will prevail after the July House of Councillors elections.

Tell Me I Am Dreaming

Here is the main schedule for the time remaining before the House of Councillors elections, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun:

June 4

- Joint meeting of the Democratic Party of Japan members of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors to elect a new party leader

- Special plenary sessions of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors to elect a new prime minister (in case of different persons winning in each House, the decision of the House of Representatives takes precedence)

- New prime minister unveils his/her Cabinet

[Yes, you read it right. All three in one day.]

June 7

Prime Minister's Policy Address to the Diet

June 12

Prime Minister pays official visit to the Shanghai World's Fair (tentative)

June 16

End of Regular Diet Session

June 24

Opening of the official campaign period for the House of Councillors elections (projected)

June 25-27

Prime visits Canada and attends the G8 Summit

July 11

House of Councillors Elections

I have to admit: if one set out with the intention to draw all attention away from the campaign efforts of opposition parties, one could hardly devise a more tightly packed and distracting schedule.

I also see do not see how either the revisions to postal reform bill or the revisions of the laws governing the dispatch of contract labor will make it out of the House of Councillors by the currently projected June 16 deadline.

House of Councillors Election 2010 - Buying Votes Where One Can

A glance at this morning's top news stories reveals a ruling party working its control of the dispensing of goverment goodies to either nail down or tamp down constituencies possibly crucial to the outcome of this summer's House of Councillors election.

In a move guaranteed to make believers in fundamental structural reform gag, Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro and People's New Party leader Kamei Shizuka made grand appearances at the convention of the National Postmasters Association (Zentoku) in Nagoya on Sunday. Ozawa promised the assembled that the Diet would approve the government's proposed amendments to the postal reform law in the current Diet session. The Kamei-drafted amendments, which halt the privatization of the postal savings bank and breakup of the postal services into separate business units, is now in committee in the House of Representatives. Presentation of a bill halting postal reform is having international repercussions and is portrayed in the media as the PNP tail wagging the DPJ dog. Nevertheless, Ozawa seemed quite pleased with his welcome.

Japan has around 20,000 postmasters, spread evenly over the entire country. As such they would hardly seem worth Ozawa's and the DPJ's time. However, pandering to the postmasters is seen as the key to securing the votes of Post Office's large unionized workforce, their family members and the hundreds of thousands of largely elderly voters in rural areas dependent upon the Post Office for their banking, insurance and delivery needs. Winning the support of the postmasters is thought to represent the securing of up to a million votes nationwide -- which gives the postmasters significant leverage in an election featuring a deeply unpopular ruling party and a plethora of political rivals vying for the public's favor.

A few stops down on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line, National Policy Unit deputy minister Furukawa Motohisa visited Osaka to discuss with Osaka Governor Hashimoto Toru the possibility of establishing a special low corporate tax international business zone within the prefecture -- a pet project of the governor's. That Governor Hashimoto has recently established the Ishin no Kai, a political organization the governor hopes to transform into a full-fledged political party -- and that a candidate of the Ishin no Kai yesterday overcame candidates support by the DPJ, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Communists in a local election in Osaka Prefecture , are not likely to be unrelated -- particularly because of the candidates supported by political parties, the DPJ's candidate finished dead last.

That a national government gasping for revenues would actually be considering the establishment of low corporate tax zones in Hashimoto's bailiwick on the theory that a lower corporate tax rate would entice businesses to set up shop in Osaka (or elsewhere) despite the high costs for everything else (land, labor, energy...) is a belief that taxes the imagination.

I Don't Know No Hatoyama Cabinet

The pollsters may ask selected voters over the weekend about whether or not they support it. The news media may report about its gatherings, or use its name as a shorthand for the government.

However, after yesterday's Cabinet meeting, the term "Hatoyama Cabinet" ceased to have anything but a technical meaning. The fight, short as it was, over Kamei Shizuka's draft of a law revising the Post Office privatization act, has broken it. You could tell by the body language. When a usually taciturn-to-the-point-of-morose figure like Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano Hirofumi is laughing and gesticulating like an albatross on nitrous oxide trying to take flight, you can be sure the event has hit the skids.

So deep was the wound in the collegiality of the cabinet inflicted by the Prime Minister by his forcing the acceptance of the Kamei draft that participants afterward did not even camouflage their jostling for position at a run for the prime ministership. Nakedly ambitious Internal Affairs and Telecommunications Minister Haraguchi Kazuhiro -- a supporter of embattled Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro -- told reporters that what the PM had forced the Cabinet to approve was "the Kamei-Haraguchi bill." National Strategy Minister Sengoku Yoshito, the acknowledged leader of the anti-Ozawa wing of the DPJ and a fierce opponent of Kamei draft, explained his acquiescence to the bill in a calculatingly petulant verbal stiletto to the ribs of Hatoyama:

"Well, it's because I am in the Cabinet, isn't it?" ("Datte, naikaku ni irun da mon.")

Today Prime Minister Hatoyama will face off against Liberal Democratic Party President Tanigaki Sadakazu in Party Leader Question Time. A sad, bizarre, infuriating performance it will be: neither is the leader of anything.

Will the DPJ Betray Its Constituents?

Short Answer: "Yes. "

Slightly Less Short Answer: "Yes -- by definition."

Long Answer: The Democratic Party of Japan has two routes to power.

One route is to take on the trappings of the traditional LDP, rely on promises of fiscal support to interest groups in the over-represented rural districts and the reversal of the market-based reforms of the Koizumi years, eke out enough wins in rural, suburban and urban districts to become the majority party in the House of Representatives, then cement its victory by doling out political patronage to the rural districts from out of the economic surpluses generated in the party's tradition strongholds in the urban and suburban areas, thereby seriously compromising the DPJ's longtime identity but leaving the electoral map undisturbed.

The other route is to take on the trappings of the traditional LDP, cobbling together enough angry anti-establishment, anti-market-based reform votes possible to eke out enough wins in rural, suburban and urban districts to become the majority party in the House of Representatives, then immediately turn its back on the rural districts (many of the party's rural representatives will be freshmen, by definition--and thus expendable, by definition) passing legislation eliminating and consolidating many rural electoral districts and multiplying suburban and urban ones - all this being done out of the noble intent of "eliminating disparities in the relative voting strength of the citizens" ("ippyō no kakusa") - transforming the electoral map without seriously compromising the DPJ's longtime identity.

In order to win a majority of seats in the next election, the DPJ must compromise on its traditions and ideals. However, to cement its electoral victory -- to make the victory reproducible - the DPJ must make permanent changes to either itself or to the electoral map.

Yesterday, in an agreement with the New People's Party, the DPJ agreed to alter its election manifesto on the issue of postal reform. Under the new formula, the DPJ will call for revision of the Koizumi era laws privatizing and splitting up the post office's many functions.

In return, the DPJ - New People's Party alliance hopes to receive the votes of the members of the National Special Postmen's Association (Zenkoku Yūbinkyokuchōkai, or Zentoku, for short). Party leader Ozawa Ichirō and New People's Party leader Watanuki Tamisuke had dinner on Wednesday night with Zentoku president Urano Osamu.

Aha, so it is the DPJ's traditional identity that is getting the chop!

Not so fast.

First, technically, the DPJ had no input in the reforms of the post office enacted after the LDP's landslide victory in the 2005 House of Representatives elections. The reforms were the handiwork of Prime Minister and LDP President Koizumi Jun'ichirō. By modifying its stand on postal reform, the DPJ is merely changing its opinion of an LDP-instigated reform.

Second, cloning the LDP in order to beat the LDP is a one-shot deal. When the citizens find out that handing Ozawa Ichirō and the Democrats power does not lead to a new, different style of governance, they will toss the DPJ out on the street in the very next House of Representatives election, including and especially many of the party's core leaders.

Not a good thing, especially for the party's core leaders.

The better, more Machiavellian strategy will be to betray the party's newest supporters in the rural areas (and the revived alliance with the People's New Party) not the party's base in the cities and suburbs. New supporters will be fickle and untrustworthy anyway - they had until so very recently been the supporters of another party. Sacrificing their interests in favor of the "nation as a whole" will be easy. (Sacrificing the alliance with the People's New Party, which petulantly suspended cooperation with the Democrats over the nomination of Ikeo Kazuhito to the Board of Governors of the Bank of Japan, will be even easier.)

The Democratic Party will also almost certainly promise to take good care of the Diet members whose electoral districts are marked for elimination ("A nice new Kanagawa single seat district with ocean fronting, perhaps? What's not to like?")

Are the Democrats duplicitous enough to pull this off? The strongest indication of that the answer is "Yes" came in June when House of Councillors Speaker Eda Satsuki (a Democrat, though officially non-aligned for appearances' sake) very quietly asked the House of Councillors Reform Conference (San'in kaikaku kyogikai) to look into the reapportionment of House Councillors district and regional bloc seats in order to rectify the huge disparities in between the voting strengths of the least populated and most populated prefectures.

Now such a reform of the voting strength disparities in the House of Councillors (at their worst, up to 5 times - meaning that the votes of some citizens are worth 1/5 the votes of others) has been a longtime topic of House of Councillors deliberations.

It has also been, for an equally long time, something of a parlor game. In some publications the member of the House of Councillors are called "Senators," and that is not a bad description. Like the United States Senate or the senates in other republics, the House of Councillors is not supposed to proportionally represent populations. Representing populations proportionately is the job of the House of Representatives.

(Whether the Diet's House of Representatives actually does this is another question...a question whose answer is "No.")

Indeed, by not reflecting proportional voting patterns, the House of Councillors--when it is operating according to its constitutional ideals--is supposed to function as a brake on populism.

(Hello, Twisted Diet!)

So if the apportionment of House of Councillors seats does not necessarily have to be representative to be constitutionally useful, then what is Eda (who is no dummy) up to?

Could it be that apportioning more House of Councillors seats to the urbane and suburbane prefectures (the most likely reform proposal--because one cannot cut the number of Councillors in a prefecture below two) is a dry run for a similar reform in the House of Representatives? Fighting voting strength inequality in a House the DPJ already controls will be giving the DPJ not only the experience in how to conduct a revolutionary reform of a Diet House--but the moral authority to do the same to a House it does not yet control?

Perhaps...

It would certainly open the way for transforming a cobbled-together, skin-of-one's-teeth, promising-the-moon, fundamentally dishonest election victory into a secure, possibly permanent Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives.

Unless, of course, some one points out to everyone Ozawa and the Democrats cannot possibly fulfill the promises they are making.

Right, Maehara-san?

Sign of the Apocalypse - Parallel Developments

In what can only be described as an act demonstrating that all LDP internal discipline has collapsed, 50 zōhangumi (opponents of reform) legislators, including those returned from expulsion like Noda Seiko, gathered yesterday for the first meeting of the Postal Business Study Society (Yūsei Jigyō Kenkyūkai).

Attending the meeting as a guest was the chairman of the National Association of Private Postmasters - the Zenkoku Tokutei Yūbinkyoku Chōkai -- or Zentoku, for short.

T'is the sign of an LDP upon the brink.

Can it be less than a year and a half ago that Noda and her fellow exiles were readmitted to the party after lengthy and bitter discussions between the then Secretary-General Nakagawa Hidenao (Nakagawa the Sane) and unbending dead ender Hiranuma Takeo? Each of the eleven returnees signed a letter confessing a personal error in having opposed post office privatization and swearing allegiance to the new party line on postal reform.

Now they are meeting with the chairman of Zentoku, discussing legislation to modify the postal reform plan.

If this does not drive Koizumi Jun'ichirō, Nakagawa Hidenao and other reformers into paroxysms over the LDP's abandonment of the banner of reform--I do not know what will.

Which makes yesterday's other announcement all the more salient.