Japan General Discussion

[jaichind]

Iwate (岩手) Prefecture assembly election results and comparison to 2011.


2011

I included LDP backed independents with LDP and DPJ backed independents with DPJ
IRP stands for 地域政党岩手 (Iwate Regional Party.)  It is a center-left regional party but is anti-Ozawa and as a result did form tactical alliances with LDP.

Turnout 52.8%

                   Contested   Won    Vote%
LDP                18           13      24.64%
KP                    1             1        1.62%
IRP                  7             4       10.98%
DPJ                34            24      49.41%
SDP                 4              3       5.53%
JCP                  3              2       4.45%
YP                   1               0       0.95%
Independent    4              1       2.42%


2015

Since 2011 Ozawa split the DPJ creating PLP.  Then DPJ SDP PLP JCP formed a anti-LDP opposition alliance in response to Abe's pushing for new security bills which was created by Ozawa.  The anti-Ozawa parts of the remaining DPJ merged with IRP to form  ICC (Iwate Citizen's Club)  岩手県民クラブ which should also be seen as a center-left anti-Ozawa tactical ally of LDP.  DPJ SDP PLP and JCP also decided to back a bunch of independents with various DPJ SDP PLP backgrounds as anti-LDP United Front candidates.    For ICC I included the pro-ICC independents.  The grand anti-LDP United Front alliance independent candidates I put under Ind-UF.  

Turnout 46.0%

                   Contested   Won    Vote%
LDP                16           13      21.38%
KP                    1             1        1.89%
ICC                  8             6       14.36%
DPJ                  5             5         7.70%
PLP                  9             6       16.18%
SDP                 3              2        6.13%
Ind-UF           15            11      21.86%
JCP                  3              3        7.03%
Independent    3              1        3.48%

LDP seat share stayed the same but lost vote share.   ICC was able to capture the anti-Ozawa center-left vote.  Many of the pro-Ozawa candidates ran as Ind-UF.  So in terms of vote share this a wash from 2011.  Some LDP lost some votes due to security bills and center-left votes were lost to ICC due to anti-Ozawa feelings in some center-left circles.  As usual is the trend recently, JCP continues to surge.  The independents are mostly made up for DPJ or ICC rebels with the one independent that won is an ICC rebel.  Given the continued domination of the pro-Ozawa parities in the legislature, I expect ICC to form tactical alliances with LDP just like IRP did after 2011.

In the end, Ozawa who worked to create this united front can claim some sort of victory by pushing down the vote share of the LDP-KP but he will have to accept that the market for the center-left anti-Ozawa vote is also expanding so he is emerging as an impediment to an opposition grand alliance against LDP.

[jaichind]

Yamagata City (山形市) election is this weekend of 9/13.  After the Iwate Prefectural assembly elections this is billed as the next showdown that could affect how the vote in the Upper House on the security will go.  The LDP-KP candidate Sato Takahiro (佐藤孝弘) is also being backed by the hawkish PFG and NPR.  Wile the DPJ-SDP-PLP-JCP candidate  Umezu IsaoNaru  (梅津庸成) is tacitly backed by non-Hashimoto part of JIP.   The opposition is billing this vote as a referendum on Abe's attempt to pass the new security bills

Back in 2011 it was

DPJ-SDP-JCP backed incumbent with tacit KP support 49.5
LDP candidate                                                           38.2
independent with LDP background                             12.3

This time around the sharp contrast between ruling and opposition camps is much more polarized.

[jaichind]

JIP leader Matsuno, in an attempt to regain control of the party, and win over the wavering middle,  remove 3 JIP MPs from their leadership positions.  He removed Kakizawa Mito (柿沢未途) as General Secretary for provoking the conflict which led to the departure of Hashimoto to try to win over the YP background members of the JIP to stay.  He also removed Baba Nobuyuki (馬場伸幸) as JIP Diet affairs Chief and Katayama Toranosuke (片山 虎之助) as head of the JIP caucus in the Upper House.  It has been clear that both Baba and Katayama will defect to Hashimoto's new party so it makes no sense to keep them in the leadership group to disrupt the JIP from within.  Matsuno is trying to keep as many MPs as possible so he has the negotiation power to work out a favorable deal with DPJ on an alliance or merger.

[jaichind]

NTV  Poll which had

Abe Cabinet Approval at 39/43

Do you support Hashimoto's actions in splitting JIP and creating a new party

Yes          29.9%
No           50.3%
Not sure  19.3%

Do you have any positive expectations of Hashimoto's new party

Yes           30.0%
No            58.9%
Not sure   11.1%

Too bad there are no cross-tabs to see if the 30% or so that has positive views of Hashimoto are mostly LDP supporters or not as I suspect it is.  If a good portion of that 30% are from the non-LDP bloc then next years Upper House elections will be very positive for LDP-KP.

[jaichind]

Yamagata City (山形市) mayoral election tomorrow.   The DPJ-SDP-PLP-JCP candidate  Umezu IsaoNaru  (梅津庸成) is pretty much running 100% on the security bill issue while the LDP-KP candidate Sato Takahiro (佐藤孝弘) is pretty much avoiding the issue.  While public opinion is on the side of the opposition on the security bill issue the  DPJ-SDP-PLP-JCP strategy of trying to tie a national issue to a race for mayor might backfire. 

One way or another the LDP-KP plan is to pass the new security bills in the Upper House 9/17 or 9/18.  This might get delayed by a day or two due to the joint opposition DPJ JIP JCP SDP PLP and AEJ vote of no confidence motion.  But if the LDP-KP could not get through the procedural hurdles to pass the Upper House then Abe has to either give up this year and try next year or have the Lower House override the Upper House with its 2/3 majority.  This act of using the 2/3 majority is rare and Abe would most likely want to avoid this. 

If  Umezu wins tomorrow it will give the DPJ JIP JCP SDP PLP AEJ bloc the excuse and claimed mandate to block the LDP-KP attempts to get the security bill up for a vote.

[jaichind]

Looking at the 51 JIP MPs, I can break down their background into this chart
(PGOR is Political Group of Okinawa Revolution, SPJ is Sunrise Party of Japan)
 
                   Upper House              Lower House
PGOR                  1                                1
YP                       6                                9
Osaka                 2                               11
LDP                                                      3
DPJ                     1                                9
PLP                                                       4
SPJ                     1                                3

Note: One of YP Upper house is really pro-YP.  One DPJ lower house is pro-DPJ.   For the YP background MPs, 3 Upper House MPs and 2 Lower House went from LDP to YP (including the YP background JIP leader Eda), 2 Lower House MPs went from DPJ to YP (including JIP General Secretary and center of the entire storm  Kakizawa.  JIP leader Matsuno has DPJ background.  One of the Osaka background Upper House MP is really not based from Osaka but is are so aligned with Hashimoto that I am just counting him as Osaka background.

So if 12 Osaka MP attended the Hashimoto meeting last night and pledged to join the new Hashimoto Party it must be from the 13 MPs of Osaka background.  It is said that the Hashimoto could have up to 20 MP members.  If so then it must be the 13 MPs with Osaka background, 3 with LDP background, and 4 with SPJ background which would make it 20.

If Eda who is de facto leader of the YP bloc and Matsuno who is JIP leader but also leads the DPJ bloc are for merger with DPJ looking at the numbers they can make it happen.  I am sure the PLP bloc will be fine with that too since PLP is just a DPJ splinter.

Latest on JIP split.  It seems so far 17 out of 51 MPs will join the Hashimoto new party which I assume is the Osaka background MPs and most of the Sunrise and LDP background MPs.  24 will stay on with JIP which they know will mean alliance or even merger with DPJ which I assume are those with DPJ PLP background MPs plus those with YP background which were not originally from LDP.  10 seems to be on the fence which I assume are remainder of those MPs of YP background plus PGOR background are said to consider a third way, which would really mean something like merge into AEJ.

[jaichind]

Yamagata City (山形市) mayoral election voting done.  Turnout is 57.5%, 10% higher than 4 years ago.  So the nationalization and polarization is having an affect.

[jaichind]

Exit polls show LDP-KP backed Sato Takahiro 佐藤孝弘 having the edge.



The margins seems big enough to be sure that Sato did win.

[jaichind]

With about 34% of the vote counted it is a virtual tie between Sato Takahiro (佐藤孝弘) and Umezu IsaoNaru  (梅津庸成).  But given the exit polls projecting a Sato win of 5%-10% Sato should pull it out.

[jaichind]

56% of the vote counted.  Still virtual tie of around 49.5-49.5 between Sato Takahiro (佐藤孝弘) and Umezu IsaoNaru  (梅津庸成).  It seems that the exit polls overestimated the independent Igarashi (五十嵐右二) making the race much closer than the the exit polls projected.  Still Sato should still have the advantage.

[jaichind]

Cross tabs on exit polls by party supporter. 

As expected LDP supporters which make up 43% of the electorate backed Sato Takahiro (佐藤孝弘)
while DPJ with 18% of the electorate backed Umezu IsaoNaru  (梅津庸成)
Independents which make up 30% of the electorate tilts Umezu. 
I do not buy that only 2% of voters are KP supporters.  I suspect around 10% of the 30% of the electorate that claims to be independent are really KP supporters but does not want to disclose it to exit pollsters.

[jaichind]

94% of the vote counted. Still virtual tie at around 48.6-48.6.

[jaichind]

Looks like Sato wins by a tiny margin.  Exact vote count not out yet.

[jaichind]

Sort of final results

Sato Takahiro (佐藤孝弘)        49.1%
Umezu IsaoNaru  (梅津庸成)   47.6%
Igarashi (五十嵐右二)                3.3%




Looks like the independent had a late surge making the results somewhat bigger than the count indicated.  Still a lot closer than the 5%-10% win by Sato as indicated by exit polls.

Not sure what the opposition bloc  DPJ JIP JCP SDP PLP and AEJ  will do now in the Upper House to block the new security bill since they billed this election as an referendum.  Looks like now Abe will get his way one way or another and the bill will pass.

[jaichind]

The exit polls also shows a large majority of voters oppose the security bills 37-63 but I guess LDP-KP attempt to keep the race about local issues won out in the end.

[jaichind]

The battle between Abe and Okinawa governor Onaga Takesh (翁長雄志) continues over the US Futenma base relocation.  Talks between the central government and the Okinawa government broke down Sept 9th and right after Abe was re-elected unopposed as LDP President, the Abe cabinet announced it was going ahead with work on the USA base relocation effort. NHK reports that Onaga plan to announce today his intention to cancel permit his predecessor granted that allows U.S. relocation of Futenma base.  This represents another level of escalation.

[jaichind]

A bunch of polls came out on Abe Cabinet approval.  It was a mixed bag but overall it shows that Abe approval did recover but the assent is petering out in the low 40s.    Again, focus on the purple line for the psudo-RCP like average.



NHK also came out with party support for Sept.  LDP-KP gained around a point.

LDP        34.7
DPJ          9.8
KP           3.7
JIP           1.3
JCP          4.0
PFG         0.1
SDP         0.6
PLP          0.2
AEJ          0.0




Again, rule of thumb is LDP+KP will get if election is called NHK vote share plus about 2% right before the election.  So NHK LDP+KP = 38.4%.  Since this is not election season so the polls are less polorized it is more reasonable to add 4%-5% which would put it at 43%.  The rule of thumb for NHK for DPJ is to perform a about double of NHK support.  So DPJ should be around 20% of an election is taking place today.

[jaichind]

Security bills close to being passed.  LDP-KP made a deal with AEJ to make some adjustments which got AEJ support for the security bills.  DPJ-JIP-PLP-SDP-JCP last move is to move a motion of no confidence for Abe to delay the bill being passed.  This vote will test which MPs of the JIP will go with Hashimoto or stay in JIP and onward to alliance or merger with DPJ.

[jaichind]

Security bill passes Upper House 148 vs 90.  It seems that LDP KP AEJ PFG NPR MP voted yes for the bill while DPJ JIP JCP SDP PLP MPs voted no.  It seems that all JIP MPs followed the whip and voted NO or abstained even as some of them will most likely end up defecting to Hashimoto's new party.

[jaichind]

After the security bills passed the Abe cabinet approval ratings are falling again.

Kyodo News poll has 38.9/50.2
Mainichi News poll has 35/50
Yomiuri News poll has 41/51
Ashai News poll has 35/45
Nikkei News poll has 40/47

All these polls are about -3 to -5 in terms of approval of Abe Cabinet from the previous poll

All questions on support for the security law seems to have support around the low to mid 30s.

[jaichind]

Running average of Abe Cabinet approval once all these post-security law passage polls are taken into account.  The 70 anniversary of WWII Abe speech bounce seems to have dissipated for the obvious reason that the new security bill and now law took center stage again.

[jaichind]

The passage of the new security law seems to have triggered a change in strategy in the JCP which could trigger a significant realignment in the nature of party competition in Japan.   In the Central Committee meeting of the JCP yesterday it seems a resolution was passed to pursue JCP-DPJ cooperation for the goal of repealing of the new security laws up to and including electoral alliance on a broad basis versus a rare and localized basis depending on local conditions. 

[jaichind]

The passage of the new security law seems to have triggered a change in strategy in the JCP which could trigger a significant realignment in the nature of party competition in Japan.   In the Central Committee meeting of the JCP yesterday it seems a resolution was passed to pursue JCP-DPJ cooperation for the goal of repealing of the new security laws up to and including electoral alliance on a broad basis versus a rare and localized basis depending on local conditions. 

DPJ leader Okada Katsuya (岡田 克也) responded positively to the JCP proposal for electoral cooperation and possible alliance to defeat the ruling alliance.   Okada pointed that in the 2009 elections the JCP only contested 152 out of 300 FPTP seats which greatly helped the DPJ.  While I totally agree that DPJ-JCP alliance in single member FPTP seats in Lower and Upper House elections would be quite a game changer, I would dispute the impact of JCP running in only 152 seats in 2009 as opposed to its usual practice of running in every seat.  Looking district by district in the 2009 Lower House elections, and even taking into account some JCP tactical voting seats that JCP, the DPJ led alliance only won an extra 21 FPTP seats as a result of non-JCP or unusually low JCP participation.  But in 2009 out of the 300 FPTP seats the DPJ led alliance won 228 seats versus 64 for LDP-KP-NPR.  So even if we shifted these 21 seats from the DPJ alliance to LDP-KP-NPR the DPJ led alliance would have still won a large majority.  In 2009 the Japanese electorate was determined to throw out LDP come hell or high heaven.  What the JCP did only added to a rout.   

[jaichind]

For the 11/22 Osaka city mayor and Osaka prefecture governor races, ORA will nominate current JIP MP Yoshimura Hirofumi (吉村洋文) for mayor and re-nominate current governor Matsui Ichirō (松井一郎).  Matsui had said he will not run for re-election due to defeat in the Osaka merger referendum but now it seems he will run for re-election.   I guess Hashimoto will also not honor his promise to retire from politics.  Most likely Hashimoto will go national and run in the 2016 Upper House election leading his new national party based on ORA.

[jaichind]

Looks like we are getting close to the end of FPG.  Both FPG founder and ex-leader  Hiranuma Takeo (平沼赳夫) and FPG heavyweight Sonoda Hiroyuki (園田博之) who recently left FPG to lead a revived Sunrise Party only to merge it back into FPG again will both leave FPG, most likely both back top LDP.  These two PFG members were the only FPG MPs that won their own districts in the 2014 Lower House elections.  This leaves PFG with only 5 MPs, all in the Upper House.  2 of them will be up for re-election in 2016 and PFG can win 1 seat on PR at most.  So after that PFG will not have enough members to form a Parliamentary Caucus which comes with it government subsidies.   Seeing this I suspect FPG members will most likely merge the party with LDP of perhaps AEJ or just disband and go their separate  ways to LDP or AEJ.