The campaign for the DPJ's 21 Sept. leadership election will begin in just over one month.Not surprisingly, no candidate has stepped forward to challenge Ozawa Ichiro in his bid for a third time. Mr. Ozawa has announced that he will not be thinking about the party election until after next week's Obon holiday.One by one, …
Year: 2008
Recipe for disaster
The more I look at the new Fukuda cabinet and its first days in office, the more I'm convinced that the Fukuda cabinet is, in MTC's words, designed to "set up the LDP for a wipeout in the next House of Representatives election."In bringing Kaoru Yosano into the cabinet while also giving Nakagawa Hidenao a …
Flailing Fukuda
I have an op-ed on the Fukuda reshuffle in the Tuesday edition of the Wall Street Asia.It can be found online here.
They like him, they really, really like him…but will it matter?
Jun Okumura provides a convenient breakdown of the initial polls pertaining to the Fukuda reshuffle.The bounce to Prime Minister Fukuda appears to have been somewhere around five percentage points, excluding Yomiuri's freakish poll recording a fourteen-point increase (a poll that can't be compared with earlier Yomiuri polls due to a differing methodology).What I found interesting, …
Continue reading They like him, they really, really like him…but will it matter?
Change in Ichigaya
With the Fukuda cabinet reshuffle, Hayashi Yoshimasa becomes Japan's fourth defense minister in the past twelve months.Of all the changes in the reshuffle, the ousting of Ishiba Shigeru is perplexing.The prime minister had given Mr. Ishiba his vote of confidence in the midst of calls for his resignation in the wake of the Atago incident, …
Meet the new Fukuda cabinet
I am in Los Angeles on a brief layover before heading to Chicago, so I don't have time to offer a more thorough discussion of the Fukuda reshuffle.For something more than my cursory remarks, I strongly recommend Jun Okumura's take and MTC's two posts.Readers will not be surprised to learn that I am underwhelmed by …
Reshuffle questions
It appears that the new cabinet won't be announced until Friday evening, after my departure from Narita, so it looks like readers will have to wait until tomorrow for my thoughts on the prime minister's choices.But my thinking on the fundamental unsoundness of Fukuda Yasuo's decision to reshuffle remains unchanged. (Readers can find my thread …
On Japanese nationalisms
Robert Dujarric of Temple University Japan had an op-ed in the Japan Times Wednesday in which he argued, "Japanese society may have problems but nationalism is not one of them."He argues:Regardless of the metric used, Japan scores very low on nationalism. Its investment in its armed forces as a percentage of national income is small, …
The reshuffle is tomorrow
The prime minister has announced that he will be reshuffling his cabinet and the LDP leadership on Friday afternoon, 1 Aug, after meeting with Komeito's Ota Akihiro in the morning.Of course Mr. Fukuda had to pick the afternoon of my departure from Japan to reshuffle his cabinet.If the reshuffle is done expeditiously, I will try …
Here comes Koike and friends
With Fukuda Yasuo set to finalize a schedule for a cabinet reshuffle after consultations with Komeito — according to Machimura Nobutaka, the prime minister is waiting for reports on the latest failed Doha Round negotiations before proceeding — the cabinet reshuffle is a go, possibly as early as 4 Aug (Monday).The media has immediately shifted …
Tobias S. Harris 