Japanese House of Councillors Election, July 2007

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Guess no one cares about Japan.

The election was initially scheduled for today, but the government (unpopularly) rescheduled the elections to a week from now to "finish legislative business" (i.e., ram a few bits of their agenda through before losing the election).

Abe's popularity has continued to fall; his latest approval rating was 25%. The DPJ leads the LDP-New Komeito coalition by about 6-8 points in opinion polls.

I most certainly do. It will be nice to see the LDP lose an election for a change.

I presume that might be the end of Abe then (and back to "revolving door PMs")?

Very little to comment upon otherwise.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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.

Which makes it sound exactly like Ireland....

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Far from an expert, but the Communist Party does relatively well in Japan, no? (Atleast compared to most European communists)

As far as I can understand (again no expert) - yes, around 7% of the vote or so. Though in saying that the JCP was never connected to nor followed the Soviet Union or Maoist China, and always saw it's role as constitutional - not revolutionary.

Anyway the Social Democrats by some strange freak are probably the more left-wing of the two leftist parties in Japan.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I find Japanese politics interesting, but highly depressing.

Almost as depressing as Irish Politics.....

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I find Japanese politics interesting, but highly depressing.

Almost as depressing as Irish Politics.....

As the LDP has only been out of power once since 1954 (and not for very long), Japanese politics is, probably, slightly worse.

Under LDP leadership was Japan ever near-bankruptcy (FFS in the 80s it looked we needed the world bank to bail us out).. and still easily re-elected. Have LDP voters have a history of voting for parties whose economic policies directly effect them negatively? Again, Jack Lynch and Eamonn De Valera's massive support in the west while that region was on a brink of near-famine. Those are the litmus tests.

*Breathes deep*

Sorry for the threadjack, everybody. (again)