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). …
Tag: 2009 general election
The LDP’s disorder deepens, but it remains one party — for now
Asō Tarō's decision to dissolve the Diet on 21 July and hold a general election on 30 August rippled through the LDP on Tuesday, as the prime minister's critics increasingly recognized that with the political system shifting into election mode, the window of opportunity to replace Asō is closing.Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintarō, whose position was …
Continue reading The LDP’s disorder deepens, but it remains one party — for now
Waiting for the reformists
The decision to delay the general election until 30 August means that there are weeks left for the LDP's warring policy groups to battle for the soul of the party.It turns out that the twenty-seven days that will elapse between the dissolution of the lower house on 21 July and the start of the campaign …
Aso pulls the trigger
Prime Minister Asō Tarō, facing open rebellion, has decided to exercise his nuclear option.At an emergency meeting of LDP executives, the prime minister and the LDP agreed that the lower house will be dissolved on 21 July and the general election will be held on 30 August. Kōji will be on 18 August.After two years …
A decisive day?
Although the government parties rallied from behind as the night went on, the LDP and Komeitō failed to recapture a majority of the seats in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, the goal set by the LDP.NHK has called all but three seats, with the opposition parties currently holding sixty-five, one more than the sixty-four needed for …
On the eve of destruction?
The denizens of Tokyo have started voting for representatives to the metropolitan assembly, and the LDP is already explaining away a defeat. Turnout may be up compared with 2005, which, as Jun Okumura notes, bodes ill for the LDP and Komeitō.Appearing on TV Saturday, Hosoda Hiroyuki, the LDP secretary general, said that the election will …
The LDP has exhausted its credit with the Japanese people
Asō Tarō and the LDP failed in the first of two electoral challenges that will precede the dissolution of the House of Representatives and the forthcoming general election.Kawakatsu Heita, the DPJ-backed candidate in the Shizuoka gubernatorial election, defeated Sakamoto Yukiko, the LDP- and Komeitō-backed candidate, on Sunday, this despite a split in the DPJ vote …
Continue reading The LDP has exhausted its credit with the Japanese people
The Tokyo election truce
The campaign for the 12 July Tokyo assembly election officially began Friday, marking the beginning of what could be the Asō government's last stand.The prime minister and his supporters are, of course, doing everything they can to dismiss the notion that Asō Tarō's fate somehow rests upon the party's performance in the Tokyo election, even …
Can the DPJ bring democracy to Japan?
My latest contribution to the Far Eastern Economic Review, co-authored with Colum Murphy, considers the possibilities of a DPJ government.It is available online here, and will be the cover article in FEER's July/August issue.
Reaping the whirlwind
How can the LDP govern Japan when it can barely govern itself?The war of attrition that has been waged between the Koizumian remnant in the LDP and the rest of the party since Koizumi stepped down as prime minister in 2006 has entered a particularly bloody phase as the Koizumians have decided to launch a …
Tobias S. Harris 