From Kishi scion to Yoshida scion: with less than a week until the LDP presidential election, it seems hard to conceive at this point how anyone will be able to stop Aso Taro, professed manga lover and friend of otaku (oh, and longtime foreign minister and current LDP secretary-general).With Mr. Koizumi declaring that he will …
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.
The LDP presidential election
NHK has just announced that the LDP will be holding a presidential election next Wednesday, September 19, with the campaign period opening this Friday, September 14.Expect the contenders to begin positioning themselves over the next few hours.The LDP is certainly wise to waste no time in preparing to select a new leader. Mr. Abe's resignation …
A fitting end?
In the midst of Mr. Abe's resignation, Mainichi reports that Shukan Gendai has been investigating reports of tax evasion by Mr. Abe, who allegedly transferred his 2.5 billion yen inheritance from his father to his political organization without paying taxes.While there are plenty of reasons for Mr. Abe's departure, it would be fitting if the …
Abe’s resignation — first thoughts
It's official. After less than a year in office, Mr. Abe has announced his resignation.Evidently his decision came as a surprise to the LDP leadership.In his statement, available here from Asahi, Mr. Abe emphasized that his resignation is a way to break the deadlocked situation in Japanese politics, especially concerning the anti-terror law. He hopes …
Abe’s end?
1:18pm — Asahi reports that Mr. Abe has indeed delivered his desire to resign to the LDP executive. Press conference to come at 2pm.One of my correspondents — and now MTC, by way of Kyodo — has informed me that Mr. Abe has offered his resignation.
The stakes of the anti-terror law debate
The DPJ has wasted no time in using its new found power to pressure the government.Two days into the Diet session, Mr. Ozawa has lambasted the government's suggestion that it will use its House of Representatives supermajority to override Upper House rejection of an anti-terror law. Earlier in the day, Defense Minister Komura said that …
The DPJ in Yoshida country
With the DPJ making the anti-terror special measures law the main point of contention for the autumn special session, it seems increasingly clear that the DPJ has found a solution to the problem of how to distinguish itself from the LDP. The DPJ's positions on social and economic policy not being all that different from …
Anti-faction non-faction to become a faction?
Say that five times fast.In response to the readmission of Hiranuma Takeo, prominent postal rebel, to the LDP, and to the general thrust of discourse within the LDP — Mr. Abe's speech to the Diet yesterday notwithstanding — the reform-minded "Koizumi children" are apparently at work preparing to convert their study group into a formal …
Continue reading Anti-faction non-faction to become a faction?
Ready or not…
The special session of the Diet is officially opened.Prime Minister Abe, opening the session today, claims to have reflected deeply upon the results of the July's Upper House elections and recognizes that there are many who wish to see him gone, but for all that humility, it's entirely unclear whether he has actually learned anything. …
The three stooges
At the tail end of the APEC summit, Messrs. Abe, Bush, and Howard met for a much-vaunted security summit that came in the wake of the US-India-Australia-Japan-Singapore exercises in the Indian Ocean (the "quad" + one?).Commentator Richard Halloran believes that the quad is shaping up to be a "informal defensive pact based on shared national …
Tobias S. Harris 