The coalition with the SDPJ and the PNP cemented, the DPJ is getting to work filling in the rest of the cabinet.One question is what posts the SDPJ's Fukushima Mizuho and PNP's Kamei Shizuka will fill. The SDPJ has requested either the ministry of health, labor, and welfare or, it seems, the environment portfolio. Despite …
Tag: Ozawa Ichiro
Assembling the new coalition government
The DPJ has been in intense negotiations with the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ) and the People's New Party (PNP) to finalize the terms of their coalition government.The DPJ's goal in negotiations is naturally to minimize the disruptiveness from having two parties (and their internal politics) interfere with the DPJ's plans for a streamlined …
Building the inner cabinet
In the transition plan released by the DPJ's committee to prepare for government in September 2003, the party stressed that in the first five days after winning a general election, the victorious DPJ would convene a transition team that would quickly put into place the rudiments of a new system for governing.Critical to this new …
Ozawa will be secretary-general
Hatoyama Yukio has made perhaps the most important personnel decision that he will have to make as the DPJ transitions into power. Ozawa Ichiro, his predecessor as DPJ leader, architect of the DPJ's election victory, and without question the most powerful figure within the DPJ, will serve as the party's secretary-general.The reason why this decision …
Meet Japan’s Democrats
The votes have been counted, and unsurprisingly the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has emerged victorious, becoming the first party other than the LDP to wield a majority in Japan's House of Representatives since the LDP was created in 1955.But despite its victory, the DPJ is poorly understood even by Japanese. So it is worth …
More on Ozawa
Foreign Policy's website has an essay I've written regarding the role of Ozawa Ichiro in a DPJ government here. For the record, I did not pick the detail.MTC has some excellent thoughts on the Ozawa dilemma here.
A DPJ government takes shape?
Apropos my comments on the probability of Fujii Hirohisa's being named finance minister in a Hatoyama government, Sankei has a long article speculating that to the three important posts of finance minister, foreign minister, and chief cabinet secretary, Hatoyama Yukio will appoint Fujii, Okada Katsuya, and Kan Naoto respectively. Okada, mentioned as a possible finance …
The Economist eulogizes the LDP
In its Banyan column, the Economist documents the rise and fall of the Liberal Democratic Party, in effect writing the LDP's obituary before the party's death.For the most part it is a handy review of a fascinating organization, whose history is virtually synonymous with Japan's postwar political history. Indeed, the genius of the LDP system …
This Hatoyama’s for turning?
As the campaign has progressed, the DPJ has shown that it is willing to be flexible as far as its manifesto is concerned. While it has taken the work of building a manifesto that is the result of a consensus within the party — and which a DPJ government will give due consideration when formulating …
Tohoku, Ozawa’s backyard
The Tohoku regional block is comprised of Aomori, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, Fukushima — and Iwate, Ozawa Ichiro's "fiefdom." These six prefectures combine to elect thirty-nine Diet members, twenty-five from single-member districts and fourteen from proportional representation. In 2005, the LDP won seventeen of twenty-five SMDs, with the DPJ taking seven and an independent winning the …
Tobias S. Harris 