As anticipated, the Fukuda cabinet has decided to extend the extraordinary (and extraordinarily long) Diet session thirty-one days, to 15 January, ensuring that the sixty-day rule will take effect and allow the House of Representatives to pass the new anti-terror special measures law.As noted by MTC, the extension means that the Diet will recess for …
Tag: Fukuda Yasuo
Waning support for the anti-terror law
A survey conducted by Yomiuri over the weekend asked whether it is "appropriate" for the government to use its two-thirds majority to pass the new anti-terror special measures bill over an Upper House rejection of the bill.Consistent with other recent polls, the results were decidedly tepid. 43% favored playing the supermajority card, 44% opposed. Meanwhile, …
Discontent in the air
There is no shortage of discontent in Japanese politics today.The HANA right (that's Hiranuma-Abe-Nakagawa-Aso), including their sympathizers in the media, are finding their voice again, and as always, it's a belligerent, combative voice — as described by MTC in this post about the contents of Voice's latest issue. The November issue too was full of …
Fukuda answers some questions
After weeks of uncertainty, Prime Minister Fukuda has moved to answer definitively the six unanswered questions of the current Diet session, answering at least two of them by announcing that he will use the government's supermajority in the House of Representatives to pass the new anti-terror law, and he will extend the Diet session into …
The right is alive, if not kicking (yet)
As planned, onetime Abe wingman Nakagawa Shoichi has formed a conservative study group within the LDP that will keep the flame of the Abe revolution burning.At the opening meeting, Mr. Nakagawa said, "The things which everyone said 'we must do' until a few months ago must not be forgotten." By which he means those things …
Perilous weeks ahead
Prime Minister Fukuda, as I expected when he was chosen as prime minister in late September, has shown himself to be far more adept than most commentators expected. (And one hears fewer complaints about Mr. Fukuda's being a government of factions — I have no doubt that this is Mr. Fukuda's government.)But while he has …
A necessary revision
In light of the ongoing speculation about the probability and timing of a snap election, it is worthwhile to step back and consider structural flaws in how Japanese governments are formed.Why, after all, should Mr. Fukuda's government function on the basis of a parliamentary majority secured more than two years ago under his predecessor before …
Expanding options
I am increasingly led to think that there is one principle common among both states in the international system and politicians within a domestic political system (especially democracies), it is that power is rooted in flexibility. The more options an actor has, the better able he is to outmaneuver rivals and secure other interests.A classic …
Individuals matter
With the start of another week, there are now fewer than three weeks before the already-extended Diet session is scheduled to end. It is still unclear how Japan's first experiment with a divided Diet will end.Six important questions, it seems, will be postponed into the final days of the Diet session. (1) Will the DPJ …
New wind in Asia?
Is it me, or in a few short months has the mood in Asia changed?Remember Sydney in early September? A bedraggled Prime Minister Abe, fresh from proclaiming a new era of cooperation among Asian democracies in India, went to Sydney for APEC, where he met with President Bush and Australia's John Howard. It was at …
Tobias S. Harris 