Japan Oct 22 2017

[jaichind]

Why do all these people refuse to work the the JCP? It seems like one of the most moderate Communist parties in the world.

Because Rengo, DP Right and to some extent KP all are living in the 1970s where willing the industrial working and lower-middle class was the goal and JCP was getting in the way.

[jaichind]

The reason 前原誠司 (Maehara Seiji) is doing what he is doing is because of a decades old DPJ/DP Right faction prophesy that deliverance will come in the form of a split in the LDP where a rebel LDP faction will unite with the DPJ/DP Right in a political realignment and defeat LDP once and for all while discarding Center-Left elements of DPJ/DP.  Then paradise will come with this united Center-Right LDP clone party taking the place of the LDP as the natural party of governance.  When YP and JRP were formed in 2009 and 2012 some in the DPJ/DP Right believed that those parties was the rebel LDP party promised by the prophesy and joined those parties.   But both turned out to false prophets.  It seems Maehara believes Koike's HP is that one true LDP rebel party that will bring balance to the political world and finally displace LDP and create a new LDP clone ruling party in its place.

[jaichind]

DP's leadership committee adopts  前原誠司 (Maehara Seiji) motion to not run a PR list and have the DP candidates apply to run under the KP banner.  This effectively disbands DP.



JCP already announces that it will run in all districts where the HP is running as well as HP backed ex-DP candidates.  Not clear yet if there will be a new DP Left party that will be created for those DP candidates that does not want to join HP.  HP also announces that it will evaluate each ex-DP applicant to run under the HP banner on a one-by-one basis to make sure there are policy agreements with HP. 

[jaichind]

I have to spend some time looking at polls when they come out as well as which DP candidates will run under HP and if the DP Left creates a new party.  But just based on what took place today my wild guess on what the results will look like is

LDP           270
KP              35
NPD             1
JRP             20
HP            105 (including HP backed ex-DP independents)
SDP             2
LP                2
JCP            25
Ind.             5

Which does mean a setback to Abe which barely loses 2/3 majority.

[jaichind]

Koike says HP will be a "compassionate and tolorent conservative party"   

Abe says that the LDP “cannot entrust the safety of Japan and the future of our children to a party that changes its banner just for the sake of an election.”    In other words he will provide "strong and stable" leadership.  Altough he will not use those words given how they worked out in the UK.

[jaichind]

It seems Maehara will work on a HP-DP merger after the election so the DP MPs in the Upper House will  have a home.

[jaichind]

JRP, which is fairly anti-DP since the JIP split of 2015 indicated that it will not cooperate with HP if DP joins HP wholesale. 

[jaichind]

Looks like Ozawa's LP will also merge into HP

[jaichind]

鈴木貴子(Suzuki Takako), daughter of 鈴木宗男( Suzuki Muneo) who is the founder of Hokkaido Postal reform LDP rebel party NPD has joined LDP.  Suzuki Takako ran in 2014 on the DPJ ticket and won a PR seat.  NPD has been on and off ally with DPJ since 2005 but in 2015 clearly become pro-LDP.   It is possible now that NPD might just merge back into LDP. 

[jaichind]

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/09/28/national/politics-diplomacy/abe-dissolves-lower-house-opposition-bands-together/#.Wc0AH3MpDqB

Looks like the DP MPs will be getting the Manuel Valls treatment. The bit about constitutional revision is rather remarkable. Is there a chance that Abe might lose seats but get the necessary majority to pass revision through the House? There's still the upper house to worry about, of course.

Yep.  But now is the time to see who in the DP Left are true believes.  At this stage it is too late for the DP Left to form their own party.  So since Maehara has all the cash and if Rengo supports Maehara move then these DP Left MPs will be running alone with at best JCP support in their district in a 3 way race between LDP HP and themselves.  Even if they have connections locally, in an election billed as an Abe vs Koike battle royal they are most likely to lose.  And since they are not part of a party with a PR slate their loss means the end of their political career.  I suspect a lot of these DP Left MPs will either retire or grovel to HP's terms. Only some will go it alone and many of those will be defeated. 

After the election the Center Left will have to start from nothing.   This might be a great chance for the JCP to expand toward the center.  In this election I can see JCP surging to something like 15% from 10%-11% based on the defection of the DP Left vote.

[jaichind]

In this election HP's target has to be at least 100 seats in my view for Koike to be a viable alternative to the LDP and possibility win in the 2021 election.  Getting over 100 seats for HP would also mean that there is a good chance LDP-KP is held below 2/3 majority which would also create the optics that Abe "lost" the election.

I an sort of see how it can be done.  HP can get around 25%-30% of the vote which would  be around 50-60 PR seats. Out of the 289 districts seats, if it sweeps, say, 17-20 out of the 25 Tokyo seats, win around 15 out of the 46 Tokyo suburb seats in 埼玉(Saitama), 千葉(Chiba), 神奈川(Kanagawa) where it is strong, then it just have to win another 15-20 seats in the rest of Japan. That is where it gets tricky.  There are plenty areas of DP strength in the rest of Japan that HP can add its new base to, like 北海道(Hokkaido), 宮城(Miyagi),
福島(Fukushima), 新潟(Niigata), 愛知(Aichi), and 三重(Mie).  The DP branches in 愛知(Aichi), and 三重(Mie) are more Conservative so most of that vote will go to HP.  But in the Northern DP strongholds the DP Left wing are stronger and many of those DP votes will not vote, vote JCP or even vote LDP as opposed to HP.  I can see HP winning these 15-20 seats but it would depend a lot on how the DP Left voters go.

 

[jaichind]

There are rumors that Koike will, contrary to what she claims so far, resign as Tokyo Governor and run for Lower House and that the person that will run to take over her position is none other than her de facto ally, former LDP PM Koizumi.   Unlikely to be true but a sensational rumor.

[jaichind]

Yep.  But now is the time to see who in the DP Left are true believes.  At this stage it is too late for the DP Left to form their own party.  So since Maehara has all the cash and if Rengo supports Maehara move then these DP Left MPs will be running alone with at best JCP support in their district in a 3 way race between LDP HP and themselves.  Even if they have connections locally, in an election billed as an Abe vs Koike battle royal they are most likely to lose.  And since they are not part of a party with a PR slate their loss means the end of their political career.  I suspect a lot of these DP Left MPs will either retire or grovel to HP's terms. Only some will go it alone and many of those will be defeated. 

Couldn't they join the SDP?

No better. SDP wins around 2% of the PR vote which only qualifies them for a PR seat in 九州(Kyūshū) only because they tend to get around 5% there.   To get seats a party has to get at least 5% some of the larger PR blocs or around 8% in the smaller PR blocs.  Unless SDP PR vote rises dramatically this is of little use.  Only way is the entire LDP Left MPs join en bloc and bring all their vote with them to vote SDP on the PR slate.  There are too many ifs and coordination for this to happen.  Besides the Socialist SDP has baggage as well will repel some of the DP Left voters.  Most likely it will be everyone for themselves.   And if 5 of them could get elected then they can bloc up and forma a Center-Left party and start from there.

[jaichind]

Asahi surveyed 81 DP candidates, at least 61 will apply to run on the HP ticket.

[jaichind]

Turnout in Lower House elections since 1946



One reason for LDP victory in 2014 was low turnout.  If turnout reaches above 60% LDP might be in trouble.

Note turnout went down starting in the 41th House elections.  That is that year, 1996, they started single member districts versus multi-member districts.  So in stronghold districts turnout went down since they were no longer competitive.  Whereas pre-1996 with multi-member districts all of them were competitive.

[jaichind]

The SDP is pretty far left, too, isn't it? To the left of the JCP? At least that was my understanding of the current state of the party. And I doubt they'd want dozens of former DP'ers coming in and taking over their party.

Correct.  Not as Left as JCP but pretty close.  And yes, obviously they would not want a hostile takeover from Left DP MPs.

[jaichind]

Political analyst 松田馨 (Matsuda Kaoru) newest projections



            District    PR     Seats      Implied PR vote
LDP       171        59       230             31.5%
KP            9         24        33             13.5%
JRP           4         10       14               7.0%
HP          92         56      148             29.5%
SDP          1           1         2               3.0%
JCP           1         26       27              14.5%
Ind.        11           0       11   (mostly likely 2-3 LDP rebels, rest DP Left)
------------------------------------------------
            289        176      465

I think my guess for PR vote is not too far off from what he has although I would have LDP a bit higher and HP a bit lower.  I do not think it is realistic for HP to win 92 FPTP seats but I could very wrong if all non-LDP non-JCP voters, including the DP Left, consolidate behind HP.  Anyway, if this projection is true then this is a bloody nose for Abe.  

To do an apples to apples comparison since the number of seats is going from 475 to 465. I adjusted the LDP PR seat count from 2014 if 2014 results were replicated with 176 PR seats versus 180 seats.  Then I looked at the 6 prefectures that lost a seat and figured out if LDP would have lost an seat if we ran on 2017 district borders versus 2014.

青森(Aomori) LDP lose 1


岩手(Iwate) anti-LDP lose 1


三重(Mie) LDP lose 1


奈良(Nara) LDP lose 1


熊本(Kumamoto) LDP lose 1


鹿児島(Kagoshima) LDP lose 1


I also take into account that 2 pro-LDP independents and 2 FPG MPs joined LDP.

From there if we re-ran 2014 elections using 2017 borders we get for LDP and KP seats in 2014 to be
         district  PR   total
LDP    220      66   286
KP        9        25    34

[jaichind]

HP made it clear that DP MPs that had high positions in the failed DPJ administration of 2009-2012 should not apply to join HP to avoid taint of that administration on HP.  So they are pre-rejecting former PMs 菅直人(Kan Naoto) and 野田佳彦(Noda Yoshihiko).  Kan is on the Left of DP anyway but Noda is more in the center of DP and could potentially passed the HP ideological vetting but I guess he is out in the cold.  Most likely both will lose re-election if they even tried to run.

[jaichind]

It seems Koike has arranged for a summit this Sat with the governor of Osaka 松井一郎(Matsui Ichirō) who is the de jure leader of JRP (real leader is really Hashimoto but he is in the background) and the governor of 愛知(Aichi) 大村 秀章(Ōmura Hideaki) who also leads a Aichi regional party ATJ but also backed by Right Libertarian DPJ Aichi splinter TCJ (TCJ is allied with JRP.)

All three were elected members of the LDP but all three broke with the LDP to form anti-LDP regional splinters.  It seems that even though JRP has turned down an alliance with HP after DP's decision to merge with HP Koike is trying to get an anti-LDP united from with JRP-TCJ.  If this pulls this off then it could severely damage LDP in Osaka (and Kinki overall) and even more so in Aichi where DP is strong and a HP-DP-TCJ bloc can do real damage to LDP.

[jaichind]

It seems Koike has arranged for a summit this Sat with the governor of Osaka 松井一郎(Matsui Ichirō) who is the de jure leader of JRP (real leader is really Hashimoto but he is in the background) and the governor of 愛知(Aichi) 大村 秀章(Ōmura Hideaki) who also leads a Aichi regional party ATJ but also backed by Right Libertarian DPJ Aichi splinter TCJ (TCJ is allied with JRP.)

All three were elected members of the LDP but all three broke with the LDP to form anti-LDP regional splinters.  It seems that even though JRP has turned down an alliance with HP after DP's decision to merge with HP Koike is trying to get an anti-LDP united from with JRP-TCJ.  If this pulls this off then it could severely damage LDP in Osaka (and Kinki overall) and even more so in Aichi where DP is strong and a HP-DP-TCJ bloc can do real damage to LDP.

What are the English names of these parties?

ATJ - 日本一愛知の会 - Aichi is Top of Japan (Aichi regional party only at the Prefecture level)
TCJ  - 減税日本 - Tax Cuts Japan (meant to be national but in reality only active in Aichi)

[jaichind]

Japan must have the worst politics for any democracy, right alongside Turkey.

I am frustrated for a different reason.  I am historically pro-LDP but I cannot stand Abe (mostly because the bogus non-orthodoxy Abeconomic stuff) . Once he is in charge of LDP I tend to back Third Pole parties to ally with DP/DPJ to give LDP a bloody nose  so they can kick Abe out and I can go back to supporting LDP.  But Abe seems to win landslide after landslide.  Hopefully he gets a setback here  and have to step down.  We will see.

[jaichind]

Yomiuri  poll

Abe approval 43(-7)/46(+7)

PR vote

LDP     34
KP        6
JRP       2
HP      19
LP         1
SDP      1
JCP      5


Back in 2014 before the election it was

Abe Approval/Disapproval 49/42

LDP    41
DPJ    14
KP       6
JIP      5

Result was LDP-KP at 46.82%.

If LDP-KP falls a few % from 2014 and HP picks up most the rest (a big if, undecided could go back to LDP) then LDP-KP might get a nasty surprise election night.

[jaichind]

With Yomiuri  Abe approval under water again

[jaichind]

DP MP 枝野 幸男(Edano Yukio) who was Maehara's opponent in the recent DP leadership race is the de facto leader of the DP Left.  He seems to be trying to organize a bunch of DP Left MPs that will all run as independents and if enough of them win they can form a party after the election to represent the Non-JCP Center-Left.

[jaichind]

Looks like JCP and SDP will form an alliance and have seat adjustments with joint candidates.  I am sure on a case by case basis they will also support DP Left MPs running for re-election.