MTC makes the bold prediction that the LDP "faces annihilation" in the next general election.I'm inclined to agree, simply because it seems that the LDP has finally exhausted the patience of the Japanese people — and the members of the LDP seem more interested in dividing into warring ideological camps than in making good policy …
Tag: LDP
Who won the battle over postal reform?
On Saturday, Koga Makoto, the LDP's chief election strategist, announced that the party's candidate in Gifu-1 will be Noda Seiko, a former postal minister ousted from the party as a postal rebel in the summer of 2005 and readmitted to the party in December 2006. The dispute was over whether the party would give the …
Tip of the iceberg
Following Prime Minister Fukuda's remarks Thursday at the LDP convention, Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, has also warned darkly of the possibility of the breaking of the LDP.Speaking in Utsunomiya, Mr. Ibuki said, "If the LDP wins, the DPJ will break. If the DPJ wins, in the LDP people who cannot persevere will spill out."There are …
Japan on the brink
The Diet returned to business yesterday after a two-day recess, with Prime Minister Fukuda and members of his cabinet delivering speeches outlining the government's basic policies for the 2008 regular session.Prime Minister Fukuda — despite his decline in popularity, which he has said "can't be helped" — gave another excellent speech, his second in two …
Let there be strife
The LDP held its party convention in Tokyo on Thursday, and the mood was anything but cheery.Prime Minister Fukuda spoke bluntly about the existential crisis facing the party today. "We are facing the greatest crisis since the foundation of the party," he said to a crowd of some 3400 party members and supporters.Reiterating the party's …
High spirits in Yokohama
In the exceedingly brief pause between the just-finished special session of the Diet and the regular session of the Diet scheduled to begin tomorrow, both the LDP and the DPJ have held their party conventions.The message at the DPJ convention in Yokohama was simple: "Now is the time for realizing regime change and making the …
The fantasies of "true conservatism"
For a glimpse into the twisted thinking of the Japanese right — the revisionist right — in the aftermath of the downfall of Abe Shinzo, there is no better place to look than the conversation between Sakurai Yoshiko and Hiranuma Takeo published in the January 2008 issue of Voice.The bizarre, distorted facts and outright fictions …
Goodbye to all that
After 128 days, the resignation of one prime minister, the selection of another, the aborted resignation of the leader of the largest opposition party, and the "re-passage" of a major bill in the House of Representatives over the rejection of the House of Councillors, the 2007 special session of the Diet — Japan's latest experiment …
"Not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be"
With the imminent rebirth of the former Kochikai, the LDP faction that until the 2001 Kato uprising was the home of the mainstream tradition in the LDP embodied in Prime Ministers Ikeda, Ohira, and Miyazawa, Tanigaki Sadakazu, LDP PARC chairman and former finance minister, has been making talking about the role the resurrected faction will …
Use of force
"Japan PM forces navy bill through" — BBC."Japan's ruling party steamrolled a new anti-terrorism law through parliament." — Morning Brief, Foreign Policy Passport."Japan's ruling coalition forced a bill through parliament today..." — LA Times (AP)"Fukuda forces through law on Japanese naval deployment" — International Herald Tribune (NYT)"Japan forces through terror law" — Financial TimesAnyone else …
Tobias S. Harris 