The press is filled with important numbers for the seventeen days of official campaigning. These are a few that caught my eye.28%, 27% — 21%, 22%: These are the DPJ's and the LDP's poll numbers in proportional representation voting and electoral district respectively, as found in Yomiuri's latest poll. I should also add 33%, 34%, …
Tag: Japanese politics
The official campaign begins
Today is kôji, the day when candidates officially register with the Central Election Management Commission and prefectural commissions. It also means that campaigning can officially begin — candidates can actually ask voters for their voters.Yomiuri reports that the total number of registered candidates is 376 377, 121 of whom are incumbents.Feel free to post your …
Komori rages at Asahi
Don't you hate when journalists — especially those who make no secret of where they stand — criticize other journalists and media outlets for their biases?And yet Komori Yoshihisa has thrown down the gauntlet, charging the Asahi Shimbun with waging a political campaign against Mr. Abe and his cabinet. He hurls a litany of charges …
No taxation without representation
Asahi published a poll today addressing the consumption tax issue, and found that 72% of respondents want it to be a point of contention in the Upper House election.This, remember, is the issue that Mr. Abe insisted, early in his cabinet, would not be discussed until autumn 2007, safely after the Upper House elections (safely …
Is the government trying to lose the election?
Facing criticism about his government's decision to postpone discussion about the consumption tax to the autumn, Prime Minister Abe has decided that instead of doing his best George H.W. Bush impersonation — "read my lips" — he has decided to be ambivalent: "I will not say that we will not raise the consumption tax rate."Meanwhile, …
Continue reading Is the government trying to lose the election?
Campaigning starts in earnest
With the campaign (unofficially) underway — thank you, public elections law — we are now in for a month of maneuvering and campaigning as government and opposition camps push for the seats necessary for an Upper House majority. Yomiuri's latest poll showed the DPJ enjoying a three-point edge over the LDP in proportional representation (25% …
No one benefits from the pensions scandal?
The Asahi Shimbun published a chart today that shows public opinion regarding responses to the the pensions crisis (sadly, it does not appear to be online).Asked if they appreciated the Abe Cabinet's response to the pensions scandal, 59% of respondents said they did not appreciate it to 24% who did.That's not so surprising, but the …
Giri giri election
The Japanese phrase giri giri means just barely — and so will go this election, either just barely for the government or just barely for the opposition.I see no other way to call it, especially after reading David Pilling's analysis of the election in the FT, which asks, "Is it over for Japan's Abe?" For …
After the Yoshida Doctrine, what?
Over at Shisaku, MTC notes in a thoughtful post on the Yoshida Doctrine, "Yet even now, sixteen years down the line, the Yoshida tradeoff rules as the master narrative underpinning all discussion of Japan's security options."Yet I wonder if the Yoshida Doctrine lives on only as a function of the institutional and constitutional constraints that …
For the DPJ, the worse the better
With the Upper House elections little over a month away and public outrage over the pensions scandal seemingly unassuaged, the DPJ has found another angle to emphasize the government's indifference to the plight of the average Japanese citizen.A comic strip, available online here, is being distributed to voters in a flier, the cover of which …
Tobias S. Harris 