Aso Taro has resigned his post as party president and the LDP has scheduled its party leadership for four weeks from today, 28 September. The campaign for the party presidency will officially begin ten days earlier, on 18 September, giving the candidates just over two weeks to make their intentions known and then begin traveling …
Author: Tobias S. Harris
Tobias Harris is Japan analyst at Teneo Intelligence. He is the author of a forthcoming biography of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Discussing the DPJ’s administrative plans on CNBC
Bright and early this morning, I somehow managed to speak coherently (I think?) about the DPJ's plans for the government.http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1232917692/code/cnbcplayershare
The Obama administration wastes no time
Responding to yesterday's election, President Barack Obama has issued an innocuous statement congratulating Japan on its "historic election," but the Obama administration appears that it will waste no time in establishing the terms of the relationship with the Hatoyama government.Yomiuri reports that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be visiting Japan in mid-October for discussions …
The path to a New Liberal Democratic Party
Fresh after barely escaping with his political life, Nakagawa Hidenao — who you will recall failed to unseat Aso Taro as LDP leader in July and then stressed that the DPJ would destroy Japan and had to be stopped — has announced that he wants to stand in the election to succeed Aso as LDP …
Meet the new LDP
Having fallen 181 seats to 119 seats in the new Diet, the LDP that will face a governing DPJ will be a peculiar party.What I find most striking is that fifty-five of the LDP's winners are hereditary members, constituting 46.5% of the party's new caucus. By comparison, of the DPJ's 308 winners, only thirty-two (10.4%) …
The final numbers
The DPJ finished with 308 seats (221 SMDs, 87 PR), the LDP with 119 seats (64 and 55), Komeito with 21 (all PR), the JCP with 9 (all PR), the SDPJ with 7 (3 and 4), PNP with 3 (all SMD), YP with 5 (2 and 3), NPJ with 1 (SMD), Suzuki Muneo's micro-party won …
Monday’s TV spots
I will be on CNBC Asia at 8:20am JST (or thereabouts), Bloomberg from 12:20pm, and Brazil's Record TV, well, I don't quite know when.
Japan’s political world turned upside down
Despite a truly historic victory by the DPJ, the first time since the LDP was created that it has been defeated in a general election (and oh how it was defeated!), there is remarkably little to say.After all, there were no surprises. The results were exactly as Japan's media organizations predicted. The DPJ finished within …
Live-blogging the 2009 general election #2
1:01am: NHK still has 14 seats left to assign, but I'm going to end the live-blogging now and try to summarize my thoughts before calling it an evening. Thanks to those of you who read through the night, and to those of you who asked questions, which helped focus my thoughts a bit.12:55am: Shorter Hatoyama: …
Live-blogging the 2009 general election
10:03pm: Time for a new post...10:02pm: Have I mentioned how cool it is to be live-blogging from a newsroom?10:01pm: Another faction leader down, Ibuki Bunmei. More time to indulge his passion for cooking?9:59pm: There's Aso looking grim as reporters shout questions at him. What can Aso say, at this point? Will he be gracious in …
Tobias S. Harris 