Japanese House of Councillors Election, July 2007

[Colin]

The DPJ is center-left, the LDP is all over the place (due to its historical dominance of the political scene) but probably best described as center-right. New Komeito is conservative Buddhist but centrist otherwise. The minor Japanese Communist Party and Social Democratic Party that are also likely to win a few seats are obviously left-wing, and the breakaway People's New Party, a split from the LDP, is as murky in its ideology, though allied with the DPJ.

I'm no expert, but I also read/heard descriptions that both the LDP and the DPJ could be better desribed as "center-right to center-left parties"... so that both are neither right nor left (or very different from each other in terms of ideology, for that matter).

I would agree with that. Both the DPJ and LPJ are non-ideological parties. The DPJ is just a coalition of everyone who doesn't like the LPJ and the LPJ is a coalition of everyone who wants to be in power. This makes for what is possibly one of the worst political arrangements in the world.

[Colin]

So is the LDP to Japan as the PRI was to Mexico? Always in charge, never in opposition, ruling off of patronage and forgotten promises?

No not really. Unlike Mexico the LDP wins through legitimate means and keeps the society free and democratic. The systems more democratic than Mexico but less transparent than Sweden.

[Colin]

Hokkaido is cool because they voted DPJ and because thats where the Ainu live. They are like Japanese Basques. Or like Japanese Native Americans. Does anyone here know about the Ainu?   

More like the Japanese Native Americans because, last time I checked, the Spanish have never tried to eradicate Spain of all Basque people and forced them into second class citizenship, which was official Japanese policy into the fifties. Another interesting thing about Hokkaido is that its major city, Sapporo, was designed and constructed by American contractors in the late 1870s and early 1880s. So, in turn, its laid out much more like a modern American city, with wide car friendly streets arranged in a grid, than any other Japanese city.