Chris Salzberg of Global Voices Online provides the best single roundup of the widening pensions scandal I've seen. Every day brings new twists to this scandal, and Salzberg does a public service by assembling the story into some coherent narrative, with a healthy dollop of quotations from the Japanese blogosphere.The most striking thing about this …
Tag: Abe Cabinet
Reading the proverbial tea leaves
In light of the new Asahi poll showing that the DPJ has expanded its lead in the proportional representation races for the Upper House, 29% to 23%, it is interesting to consider Shisaku's discussion of whether a Lower House election is also possible this year.Now, I don't disagree with his conclusion: "damnably unlikely." With its …
Abe reverts
I have previously discussed how the Abe Cabinet has reverted to form in the cabinet's relationship with the LDP; I have also discussed how Abe has essentially put his predecessor's structural reform ideas on hold.Asahi picked up this narrative on Sunday, in an editorial on the government's recently issued fiscal policy draft proposal, asking whether …
Free fall
If there were any lingering doubts about the drop in the Abe Cabinet's popularity, the latest Yomiuri poll should dispel those — Yomiuri found that the government's popularity fell to 32.9%, and its unfavorable rating rose to 53.7%.It also confirmed the Asahi's finding that the LDP and DPJ are running even in electoral districts, and …
Into the realm of the symbolic
While I obviously recognize that Asahi and Yomiuri approach public affairs from drastically different perspectives, I have never thought that they were living in different worlds.Until today.In Asahi, prominently featured on the front page, was an article on a Japanese Communist Party report suggesting that a special Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces (JGSDF) unit conducted surveillance …
Blair looks forward while looking back
I think it goes without saying that outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be recalled as a tragic figure, full of potential but consumed by circumstances largely beyond his control. (Check out the debate hosted by PostGlobal on this question.)Nevertheless, Blair remains impressive as a world leader who has tried to look forward and …
Are the wheels coming off?
On the same morning that Asahi reports that Abe's popularity has taken yet another blow, dropping to 30%, Yomiuri reports in an article that does not appear to be online that LDP Secretary General Nakagawa Hidenao gave a speech in Toyama in which he suggested that the "abduction problem" will become a point of contention …
Meet the new daijin, same as the old daijin
On Friday morning, Prime Minister Abe summoned forty-eight-year-old Akagi Norihiko to Kantei and requested that Akagi serve as Matsuoka Toshikatsu's successor at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF). Akagi, a Tokyo University graduate, MAFF old boy (OB), and grandson of an agriculture minister in the cabinet of Abe's grandfather Kishi, was first elected …
Continue reading Meet the new daijin, same as the old daijin
Coming full circle
Back in November, I wrote, "The policy differences between the LDP and the DPJ are too slight for the DPJ to build a campaign on anything other than personality and competence at governing."At that point, it was too early to tell just how incompetent the Abe Cabinet would be. But in the seven months since, …
Change the LDP, change Japan — now more than ever
David Pilling, the FT's Japan correspondent, indirectly responds to a point I made earlier this week when discussing Matsuoka's suicide in an op-ed entitled "No way back to old Japan" (subscription required).As the title suggests, he argues that Matsuoka's suicide actually marks the death throes of the old political system:The postwar system that is now …
Continue reading Change the LDP, change Japan — now more than ever
Tobias S. Harris 