I am back from the lunchtime session with Professor Curtis, who gave a thorough and pessimistic account of the era in Japanese politics coming into being.I do not think it inappropriate to speak of a new era in Japanese politics; Professor Curtis is certainly convinced that Sunday's catastrophic electoral defeat for the LDP marks the …
Continue reading The emerging contours of post-7/29 politics
The final breakdown: DPJ 60, LDP 37, Komeito 9, Independents 7, JCP 3, SDPJ 2, PNP 2, NPJ 1.That gives the opposition parties 137 seats to the government's 105, with the DPJ becoming the largest party with 109 seats, more than the government parties combined. With the thirty-two-seat differential between opposition and government parties, there …
The last day of campaigning is done, and tomorrow, Sunday, the voters will decide whether to punish the LDP and Komeito for the Abe cabinet's corruption, lapses, and policy failures and hand control of the Upper House of the Diet to the DPJ and other opposition parties.(Find my predictions for the critical single-seat district campaigns …
The campaign is in its final days, the headlines continue to point to a disastrous loss for the LDP and suggest that even Komeito might lose a couple seats — and yet even if the DPJ wins, the outcome and consequences of the election are far from clear.First, though, just some thoughts about how many …
With the government still defiantly rejecting suggestions that Prime Minister Abe should take responsibility for a major defeat in Sunday's election — a debate that is about as clear as a sign one can get of the LDP giving up and perhaps praying for rain (or a heat wave) — I cannot help but wonder …
The DPJ appears to be advancing on all fronts, pushing hard even in "conservative kingdoms" like Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, the surprisingly competitive election in Kagoshima being the subject of an article in today's Yomiuri (surprise! not online).If the campaign continues this way until Sunday, even my worst-case scenario prediction will likely miss high.Not surprisingly, …
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has issued statistics regarding early voting for Sunday's Upper House elections.The ministry's report found that early voting is up more than 50% from 2004, rising from approximately 260,000 votes to nearly 400,00 votes, with higher tallies recorded in every prefecture except Miyazaki and Kochi.Mainichi concludes that the increase …
Using the occasion of Japanese Air Self-Defense Force pilots participating in live-bombing exercises with the US in the Marianas, Norimitsu Onishi of the New York Times has a prominently featured article in today's edition (also on the front page, top of the fold of today's IHT) on Japan's shedding "military restraints."The NYT website also features …
I mentioned earlier that I was in the process of reading Prime Minister Abe's Utsukushii Kuni e [Towards a beautiful country], the book he published in advance of last autumn's LDP presidential election and that was a popular seller after his inauguration as the Japanese people tried to figure out just who their new prime …
This week's Economist and today's FT both carry articles discussing the shadow cast by former Prime Minister Koizumi over the Upper House elections — and over his hapless and, according to Mr. Koizumi, kawaiso successor.I have no doubt that there are segments of public opinion and sections of the LDP that would be glad to …
Continue reading Who misses Koizumi more, the Japanese people or the foreign press?
Tobias S. Harris 