Kan Naoto has been elected head of the DPJ and is line to become Japan's ninety-fourth prime minister this afternoon. He received 291 votes to Tarutoko Shinji's 129.(Image by Kenji-Baptiste OIKAWA and used under a Creative Commons license)
Tag: Japanese politics
Meet the new cabinet, (mostly the) same as the old cabinet?
As Japan waits for the DPJ's Diet members to choose a new party leader and then for the Diet to confirm the new prime minister, the media is speculating about the new lineup for the cabinet and the party leadership.Among other items of speculation, Sengoku Yoshito is supposedly the front runner to succeed Ozawa as …
Continue reading Meet the new cabinet, (mostly the) same as the old cabinet?
The virtues of Kan
Kan Naoto, Hatoyama Yukio's second finance minister, was the first DPJ member to declare his intention to run in the party election scheduled for Friday — and it seems unlikely, for reasons outlined by Michael Cucek here, that he will be denied the job.What would be the significance of Kan's replacing Hatoyama?I think that what …
Ennis on the resignation
Peter Ennis, formerly of The Oriental Economist, has picked the perfect time to start blogging.His take on the resignation can be found here.
Regime change?
It seems that in addition to Hatoyama's resigning from the premiership, Ozawa Ichirō will resign as secretary-general of the DPJ.If Ozawa does resign — together with his lieutenants in various leadership positions within the DPJ with him — and actually manages to retire from politics and not try to run the party from the shadows, …
Was the coalition doomed from the start?
On Friday, Fukushima Mizuho, the head of the Social Democratic Party of Japan, refused to bow to the prime minister's decision to accept a modified version of the 2006 realignment agreement, forcing the prime minister to dismiss her from her position as minister responsible for consumer affairs.Not surprisingly, on Sunday the SDPJ decided that it …
Why did Hatoyama go after Futenma first?
With little surprise, the Hatoyama government has decided to postpone a decision on the future of Futenma, after alienating both the Okinawan people and the US government with its indecisiveness on the issue. Reuters reports that after months of treating the end of May as the deadline for solving the dispute, the government has announced …
A new dawn?
On Thursday, Masuzoe Yoichi, former minister of health, labor, and welfare and the most popular politician in Japan, will inform the LDP that he is exiting the party. On Friday, he will announce the formation of his own party (for now, the Masuzoe New Party), which is projected to have enough members to clear the …
On the Hatoyama government’s troubles
I have an op-ed in Friday's Wall Street Journal Asia on the Hatoyama government's struggles.You can find it here.
Tobias S. Harris 