I will be discussing the Japanese political situation on Newstalk K57 in Guam at 7:30am JST.It appears that you can listen live here.
Month: July 2009
Fleeing a sinking ship?
A week after Nagasaki Kotaro — and his 3600 supporters in Yamanashi's second district — left the LDP, another Koizumi child has bolted the party.Yamauchi Koichi, a first termer representing Kanagawa's ninth district, had, as discussed in this post, come to recognize the unpleasant situation for reformists in the post-Koizumi LDP. As he said in …
Aso gets his election
As planned, Prime Minister Aso Taro dissolved Japan's House of Representatives Tuesday afternoon.Despite criticism from members of the cabinet last week, all signed the cabinet decision for dissolution. Before dissolving, Aso attended a meeting with LDP Diet members, humbly accepted their criticism, and then proceeded to dissolve the lower house.The campaign will officially begin in …
Nakagawa Hidenao fights to the bitter end
In response to the LDP's decision to convene a closed-door gathering Tuesday that will enable LDP members to "exchange opinions" with Prime Minister Aso Taro, Nakagawa Hidenao demanded that the party open the event to the media.The LDP executive dismissed his request, frankly arguing that airing the party's dirty laundry — more than it has …
Ozawa will run in Iwate
After strong indications last week that he would switch districts, Ozawa Ichiro has announced that he will be running in Iwate's fourth district instead of switching to Tokyo's twelfth district, where he would run against Komeito president Ota Akihiro. I can only imagine the communication between the DPJ and Komeito in advance of Ozawa's decision.The …
Aso will fight on
The anti-Asō rebellion was over before it even began.Instead of a meeting of LDP Diet members that would meet today and debate whether to hold a party presidential election before a general election — thereby undoing the prime minister's plan for a 21 July dissolution — the LDP executive agreed to an informal, closed gathering …
The emerging realism of the DPJ
As the general election approaches, there are signs that a new realism is afoot in the DPJ.Mainichi reports today that the DPJ is prepared to remove the party's opposition to the MSDF's participation in the Indian Ocean refueling mission in support of coalition activities in Afghanistan, at least until the expiration of the current law. …
SNAFU
Is the Nakagawa rebellion fizzling out already?After loudly proclaiming that he had received enough signatures to force a meeting of LDP Diet members within in the next week, it turns out that Nakagawa Hidenao's campaign to unseat Asō Tarō is falling victim to the pusillanimity of his "supporters."Some of the 133 signatories have claimed that …
The LDP in ruins
On Wednesday, Nakagawa Hidenao announced that the movement to move up the LDP presidential election from September — in effect a campaign for a recall election aimed at Prime Minister Asō Tarō — reached its goal of signatures from more than one-third of LDP members in the upper and lower houses (one-third is 128 members). …
The coming DPJ tsunami?
Daniel Twining, writing at Shadow Government, Foreign Policy's blog for Republicans in exile from government in Washington, argues that the advent of a DPJ government could represent a "tsunami" for the US and Japan.Twining offers the standard Washington perspective on the DPJ: Japan has lots of problems, but who knows whether the DPJ can actually …
Tobias S. Harris 