Foreign Affairs is featuring at its website an article that I co-wrote with Doug Turner on the DPJ and its likely approach to the alliance.It is available here.
Tag: Hatoyama cabinet
Yomiuri contemplates the British model
Following the discussion on Fuji TV's Shin Hodo 2001 that I referenced yesterday, Yomiuri today has three articles addressing the flaws in the Westminster model, suggesting that the conservative approach to attacking the DPJ's administrative reforms will be to warn of the dangers of too much power concentrated in the cabinet.One article warns of "voices" …
Building the inner cabinet
In the transition plan released by the DPJ's committee to prepare for government in September 2003, the party stressed that in the first five days after winning a general election, the victorious DPJ would convene a transition team that would quickly put into place the rudiments of a new system for governing.Critical to this new …
Will Hatoyama be first among equals?
After appointing Ozawa Ichiro as the DPJ's secretary-general and Hirano Hirofumi as chief cabinet secretary, Hatoyama Yukio has announced his intended choices for other senior posts, none of which comes as a surprise.Okada Katsuya, a former party leader and runner-up to Hatoyama in the May party leadership election, is the incoming prime minister's pick for …
Hatoyama, changing his mind, will appoint senior officials quickly
After suggesting at the start of the week that he would hold off on announcing appointments, Hatoyama Yukio, a day after announcing that Ozawa Ichiro would serve as secretary-general of the DPJ, has announced his chief cabinet secretary, Hirano Hirofumi, a five-term representative from Osaka.Hirano is one of Hatoyama's three closest lieutenants, along with Ozawa …
Continue reading Hatoyama, changing his mind, will appoint senior officials quickly
Ozawa will be secretary-general
Hatoyama Yukio has made perhaps the most important personnel decision that he will have to make as the DPJ transitions into power. Ozawa Ichiro, his predecessor as DPJ leader, architect of the DPJ's election victory, and without question the most powerful figure within the DPJ, will serve as the party's secretary-general.The reason why this decision …
Sankei’s revealing gaffe
In case anyone doubted that the conservative media will have it out for the incoming DPJ government, the Sankei Shimbun has done everyone a favor and admitted that, like the LDP, it has gone into opposition.Sankei's city desk recently established a Twitter feed, at which the following was posted on 30 August even before voting …
Moving on up?
With the DPJ's ranks swelling to 417 Diet members between both houses, some in the party are asking whether the party needs to move its headquarters into a larger space.The DPJ currently rents eight floors in a twelve-story building across the way from the National Diet Library in Nagata-cho, with floor space totaling approximately 3000 …
Two weeks
After negotiations between the DPJ and the LDP, the parties have agreed that a special session will be convened on 16 September to elect Hatoyama Yukio as Japan's prime minister. The DPJ had wanted the session to meet on the 15th, which was apparently inconvenient for the Emperor. With the prime minister and his cabinet …
The DPJ begins work on regime change
In a remarkable coincidence, the day after the DPJ's victory in the general election — and the day the DPJ began its transition in earnest — was the same day that ministries and agencies submitted their spending requests to the ministry of finance for the Fiscal 2010 general account budget.The requests totaled roughly 92.13 trillion …
Tobias S. Harris 