The tide has definitively turned against Mr. Ozawa, the surest sign being that the media is carrying reports about allegations of fiscal malfeasance by his support groups, once again involving the use of campaign funds for real estate. And so Mr. Ozawa is the target of newspaper editorials demanding that he provided a detailed account …
Tag: Japanese politics
Locking horns in the Budget Committee
On Tuesday the Budget Committee of the Lower House of the Diet convened; the Budget Committee, of course, is the main stage for clashes between government and opposition, and will provide Mr. Fukuda with plenty of time to elaborate on his policy plans, if he indeed has any.While there are a host of economic issues …
Is a snap election within the next seven months likely?
Publicly, Mr. Ozawa and the DPJ leadership remain determined to push for a general election. At a meeting of prefectural chapter heads last week, Mr. Ozawa spoke of intensifying the party's preparations for a general election and outlined the DPJ's four principles for a general election campaign: (1) not standing candidates in all 300 electoral …
Continue reading Is a snap election within the next seven months likely?
Observing Japan in other media
Subscribers to the Far Eastern Economic Review can read my take on Mr. Fukuda's prospects in the October issue (online here).(And readers of FEER's dead-tree edition will be able to see my face in the table of contents.)
Catch-22 for the DPJ
Jun Okumura comments on an Asahi article — available here — that discusses former Prime Minister Koizumi's speech to a meeting of the Machimura faction, in which he described the DPJ as being akin to the LDP anti-mainstream. Now, this might strike some as a strange, but it's actually an apt description for the current …
More on DPJ parliamentary strategy
Following on Asahi's report on Mr. Ozawa's order to the DPJ to prepare a storm of legislation, Sankei provides a fuller survey of the DPJ's arsenal as it prepares for battle against Mr. Fukuda.One pillar is, of course, submitting a host of legislation to the Upper House. Sankei notes that in at least one case, …
Legislative storm!
As Nagatacho waits for Mr. Fukuda's maiden speech to the Diet, which will presumably outline how his government intends to proceed in the remaining weeks (months?) of the current special session of the Diet, the DPJ has decided to strike first on the legislative front.Following Mr. Ozawa's orders to the DPJ's Next Cabinet, the DPJ …
Like father, like son
Following this post from last week, this article in Mainichi today caught my eye:Fukuda cabinet: many common points between father and sonComing to the plate in a "ninth inning, two outs, bases loaded" crisisThe article proceeds to discuss the number of similarities between the circumstances faced by Fukuda the elder and Fukuda the younger, not …
A new era dawns?
On the brink of today's LDP election, the government dissolved the "Building a beautiful country" planning group that was to be the vanguard of Mr. Abe's campaign to leave the "postwar regime" behind. The Abe revolution is over.But what will replace it?As LDP members vote today, I think that my assessment is correct: an Aso …
Fukuda follows his father
The LDP presidential election is now just two days away, set to be held on Sunday. All signs point to Fukuda Yasuo being elected as party president and thus prime minister.Mr. Fukuda evidently has the support of seventy percent of the 387 Diet members and leads in at least twenty-three prefectures.Mr. Aso simply overplayed his …
Tobias S. Harris 