After the uprising of the 17th of JuneThe Secretary of the Writers' UnionHad leaflets distributed in the StalinalleeStating that the peopleHad forfeited the confidence of the governmentAnd could win it back onlyBy redoubled efforts.Would it not be easierIn that case for the governmentTo dissolve the peopleAnd elect another?Bertolt Brecht, "Die Lösung" (1953) Deputy Prime Minister/Finance …
Tag: Aso Taro
The LDP has an election date
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 …
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 …
The Japanese people choose
It is election day in Japan. After forty days of intense campaigning, the sound trucks are silent as the LDP, the DPJ, and a handful of smaller parties submit themselves to the judgment of the voters. After nearly four years, the Japanese people will vote for a new House of Representatives.I had many ideas for …
The last night of LDP rule?
This evening I ventured over to Ikebukuro, where Prime Minister Aso Taro and DPJ leader Hatoyama Yukio were having dueling rallies on opposite sides of Ikebukuro station.I did not stay long at the LDP rally. Located on the east side of the station, the crowd was gathered on sidewalks around the roundabout, and there was …
The LDP on the brink of disaster
The general election campaign is heading into its final days. Despite another two days of campaigning, the LDP and DPJ are mostly battling for seats on the margins — the LDP to keep from falling below 100 seats, the DPJ to reach the magic number of 320, the number required for a supermajority. As the …
Kyushu, a conservative bastion
This is the eleventh and final installment in my general election guide. For an explanation of my purpose in making this guide, see here. For previous installments, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.The Kyushu regional block contains thirty-eight single-member districts spread over eight prefectures: Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, …
It’s not 1954 all over again
At a press conference over the weekend, Okada Katsuya, the DPJ's secretary-general stressed that because Hatoyama will be winning the mandate for the party, Hatoyama should serve a full four-year term (which, Okada stated, a DPJ government will serve so that it is able to accomplish its goals).After four prime ministers in four years, I …
The Economist eulogizes the LDP
In its Banyan column, the Economist documents the rise and fall of the Liberal Democratic Party, in effect writing the LDP's obituary before the party's death.For the most part it is a handy review of a fascinating organization, whose history is virtually synonymous with Japan's postwar political history. Indeed, the genius of the LDP system …
An LDP upset in the making?
The LDP continues to set the tone in the non-campaign campaign. Speaking in Hiroshima on the occasion of the sixty-fourth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, Prime Minister Aso Taro stressed the existence of "a country with nuclear weapons that could attack as our neighbor," and reiterated the importance of the US nuclear …
Tobias S. Harris 