With less than ten days until the start of the campaign for the LDP's presidency, the field is shrinking, not growing.Nakagawa Hidenao, who in the immediate aftermath of the general election was convinced that his survival was fate and declared he would contest the election, will not be running in the race after all. His …
Tag: Nakagawa Hidenao
The LDP’s first steps towards a new party
A week after the Liberal Democratic Party suffered its first ever electoral defeat, a new party is already taking shape from the ashes.The biggest change, of course, is the final demise of the factions as a force within the party. As Koike Yuriko said earlier this week upon announcing her departure from the Machimura faction, …
The path to a New Liberal Democratic Party
Fresh after barely escaping with his political life, Nakagawa Hidenao — who you will recall failed to unseat Aso Taro as LDP leader in July and then stressed that the DPJ would destroy Japan and had to be stopped — has announced that he wants to stand in the election to succeed Aso as LDP …
Meet the new LDP
Having fallen 181 seats to 119 seats in the new Diet, the LDP that will face a governing DPJ will be a peculiar party.What I find most striking is that fifty-five of the LDP's winners are hereditary members, constituting 46.5% of the party's new caucus. By comparison, of the DPJ's 308 winners, only thirty-two (10.4%) …
How the DPJ can get Japan growing again
Growth or aid, Yomiuri tells us, is the key point of difference between government and opposition manifestos. The LDP wants to promote economic growth, while the DPJ stresses protection for citizens. Sankei says the same regarding Monday's debate among party leaders.All too often in recent months DPJ leaders have encouraged the idea that the LDP …
The DPJ holds strong in polls
With eight days until the campaign officially begins, the DPJ continues to hold a commanding position in public opinion polls.A recent Sankei/FNN poll found that the DPJ's approval rating as a party increased three points to 31%, compared with the LDP's 22%, the DPJ is the party of choice in PR voting for 44.6% of …
Nakagawa Hidenao fights to the bitter end
In response to the LDP's decision to convene a closed-door gathering Tuesday that will enable LDP members to "exchange opinions" with Prime Minister Aso Taro, Nakagawa Hidenao demanded that the party open the event to the media.The LDP executive dismissed his request, frankly arguing that airing the party's dirty laundry — more than it has …
Aso will fight on
The anti-Asō rebellion was over before it even began.Instead of a meeting of LDP Diet members that would meet today and debate whether to hold a party presidential election before a general election — thereby undoing the prime minister's plan for a 21 July dissolution — the LDP executive agreed to an informal, closed gathering …
SNAFU
Is the Nakagawa rebellion fizzling out already?After loudly proclaiming that he had received enough signatures to force a meeting of LDP Diet members within in the next week, it turns out that Nakagawa Hidenao's campaign to unseat Asō Tarō is falling victim to the pusillanimity of his "supporters."Some of the 133 signatories have claimed that …
The LDP in ruins
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). …
Tobias S. Harris 