On Thursday campaigning for the House of Councillors election scheduled for 11 July begins, as 440 candidates vie for 121 seats. (Michael Cucek has the breakdown here.)The significance of this election has been thrown into clear relief since Kan Naoto took over from Hatoyama Yukio as prime minister and head of the DPJ. What once …
Tag: Your Party
The DPJ can win a majority — but what will it mean?
Having tabulated the predictions made over the course of my election handbook, I think it's appropriate that I return and answer my initial question.Can the DPJ win an absolute majority?Based on my district-by-district predictions, I think the DPJ could win 279 seats, the LDP 159 seats, Komeito fifteen seats, the JCP and PNP seven seats …
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South Kanto, a (mostly) urban battleground
The South Kanto regional block, comprised of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Yamanashi prefectures, sends thirty-four representatives to the Diet from single-member districts and another twenty-two through proportional representation. Yamanashi, with only three electoral districts, is an unusual fit alongside Kanagawa with its eighteen districts and Chiba with its thirteen. This block is densely urban: Kanagawa has …
"The DPJ that does not do any pork-barrel spending"
Watanabe Yoshimi and Asao Keiichiro, who, along with Eda Kenji are the three "partners" at the head of the Minna no to (Your Party), gave a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan this afternoon to explain their purposes to the foreign press.The value of the talk was in providing information about how …
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Another Koizumi child leaves the LDP
As expected, despite their tenuous position in the party (and their bleak electoral prospects), the LDP has not seen young reformists rush to exit the party and sign on with Watanabe Yoshimi's Your Party.Only a small number has left, one by one, and with only a week until the campaign officially begins, presumably not many …
Tobias S. Harris 