On Wednesday, Nakagawa Hidenao announced that the movement to move up the LDP presidential election from September — in effect a campaign for a recall election aimed at Prime Minister Asō Tarō — reached its goal of signatures from more than one-third of LDP members in the upper and lower houses (one-third is 128 members). …
Tag: LDP
The coming DPJ tsunami?
Daniel Twining, writing at Shadow Government, Foreign Policy's blog for Republicans in exile from government in Washington, argues that the advent of a DPJ government could represent a "tsunami" for the US and Japan.Twining offers the standard Washington perspective on the DPJ: Japan has lots of problems, but who knows whether the DPJ can actually …
The LDP’s disorder deepens, but it remains one party — for now
Asō Tarō's decision to dissolve the Diet on 21 July and hold a general election on 30 August rippled through the LDP on Tuesday, as the prime minister's critics increasingly recognized that with the political system shifting into election mode, the window of opportunity to replace Asō is closing.Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintarō, whose position was …
Continue reading The LDP’s disorder deepens, but it remains one party — for now
Waiting for the reformists
The decision to delay the general election until 30 August means that there are weeks left for the LDP's warring policy groups to battle for the soul of the party.It turns out that the twenty-seven days that will elapse between the dissolution of the lower house on 21 July and the start of the campaign …
Aso pulls the trigger
Prime Minister Asō Tarō, facing open rebellion, has decided to exercise his nuclear option.At an emergency meeting of LDP executives, the prime minister and the LDP agreed that the lower house will be dissolved on 21 July and the general election will be held on 30 August. Kōji will be on 18 August.After two years …
A decisive day?
Although the government parties rallied from behind as the night went on, the LDP and Komeitō failed to recapture a majority of the seats in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, the goal set by the LDP.NHK has called all but three seats, with the opposition parties currently holding sixty-five, one more than the sixty-four needed for …
On the eve of destruction?
The denizens of Tokyo have started voting for representatives to the metropolitan assembly, and the LDP is already explaining away a defeat. Turnout may be up compared with 2005, which, as Jun Okumura notes, bodes ill for the LDP and Komeitō.Appearing on TV Saturday, Hosoda Hiroyuki, the LDP secretary general, said that the election will …
The LDP has exhausted its credit with the Japanese people
Asō Tarō and the LDP failed in the first of two electoral challenges that will precede the dissolution of the House of Representatives and the forthcoming general election.Kawakatsu Heita, the DPJ-backed candidate in the Shizuoka gubernatorial election, defeated Sakamoto Yukiko, the LDP- and Komeitō-backed candidate, on Sunday, this despite a split in the DPJ vote …
Continue reading The LDP has exhausted its credit with the Japanese people
Tokyo election open thread
I was walking in Takadanobaba this afternoon and noticed a keijiban for the Tokyo election. As I looked over the candidates, I was having trouble finding the poster for the LDP candidate, which struck me as odd. After looking carefully at the posters, I finally found him.Why was it so hard to locate the LDP …
The Tokyo election truce
The campaign for the 12 July Tokyo assembly election officially began Friday, marking the beginning of what could be the Asō government's last stand.The prime minister and his supporters are, of course, doing everything they can to dismiss the notion that Asō Tarō's fate somehow rests upon the party's performance in the Tokyo election, even …
Tobias S. Harris 