The Asahi Shimbun has published yet another editorial urging the Democratic Party of Japan to be more forthright in confronting the Abe Cabinet in the Diet.The occasion for this editorial was Ozawa Ichiro's completion of a second tour of the country's regions as part of his electoral strategy of building up the DPJ's support structure …
Tag: DPJ
The beginning of a trend?
Yomiuri reported today that exit polling from Sunday's by-elections in Fukushima and Okinawa suggests showed a pronounced tendency among independents to vote for the DPJ candidates.In Okinawa, 55% of independents voted for Karimata Yoshimasa, the candidate backed by the DPJ and three other opposition parties, while 36% supported Shimajiri Aiko, backed by the LDP and …
Demographics and political change
The Japan Times has a brief article about the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' latest survey of Japan's population, conducted in October of last year.The survey found that Japan's population held steady at roughly 127 million people, but there was considerable change in the populations of Japan's prefectures, a continuation of the shift of …
Legislative happenings
In the shadow of the passage of the national referendum bill by the Lower House, the Abe Cabinet managed to push another bill through the Lower House, over active DPJ opposition: the bill supporting the advance of the realignment of US forces in Japan, which calls for increasing responsibility for realignment to local communities and …
Ozawa Ichiro, Japan’s Gingrich?
Alex Pappas at Japundit calls attention to this recent Asahi article on DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro.When the political history of Japan during the two decades following the breakdown of the 1955 system is written -- although in The Logic of Japanese Politics, Gerald Curtis has already provided a fantastic account of change (or the lack …
Reading the local elections with an eye on July
I have held off from posting on the results of Sunday's local elections because I am not entirely sure what conclusion should be drawn.I think it would be a mistake to draw too-firm conclusions about the prospects for July's Upper House elections from the results.Is Ishihara's reelection a clear precursor of LDP victory in July? …
Continue reading Reading the local elections with an eye on July
The DPJ’s dilemma
With the Abe Cabinet determined to press ahead with passage of a bill establishing a national referendum system so that when the time comes a revised constitution can be submitted to a vote, the Democratic Party of Japan finds itself in something of a bind, because unlike previous opposition parties, the DPJ is not opposed …
Food for thought
Nagashima Akihisa, international security policy expert and DPJ member of the Lower House, delivered questions in plenary session of the Lower House concerning the government's recently submitted bill on the realignment of US forces (discussed in this post).Nagashima's remarks, posted here at his blog (in Japanese), constitute a long explanation of the need for a …
The muddy waters of the post-Koizumi era
For those who want a general overview of the present state of Japanese politics -- what's changed, what hasn't -- check out this article by Tokyo University professor Kabashima Ikuo and PhD candidate Okawa Chihiro. Published at Japan Echo, a monthly journal that publishes translations of scholarly articles originally written in Japanese, Kabashima and Okawa …
Political Tourette’s Syndrome?
The new Diet session is more or less on hold, as the DPJ and other opposition parties have decided to boycott the Lower House's Budget Committee meetings on supplemental expenditures until Health, Labor, and Welfare Minister Yanigasawa resigns.Although Abe has apologized for his subordinate's remarks, the opposition has continued to push for resignation.And not without …
Tobias S. Harris 