Japan 2012

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Consumption tax hike is never happening. Supposedly, the hikes only kick in when Japan registers consistent 2% GDP growth for an entire fiscal year.

That is never ever going to happen. Hah. Hah. Hah.

Regardless, I'm excited about these new elections. Even though the polling is scary, I don't think there's anything to worry about. The DPJ and LDP should still take the bulk of the votes (being the only serious parties running people everywhere), with YP taking a respectable third (at least running candidates everywhere in the Kanto plains). Of course, I'll be rooting for my DPJ homeboy, but I'm fine with all three of these parties.

Also, I haven't met anyone who actually thinks Hashimoto will do anything in the snap election. If he really wants a national audience, he'll wait for the next upper-house election.

Any result that keeps the green/anti-restart nutjobs out of power is okay with me and luckily, that seems like every conceivable result.

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I don't think Japanese demographics are as bad as everyone says.

I mean, they're bad, but they're not outside of the Asian norm. The birth rate has even recovered to 1.4, which makes Japan the best nation in East Asia (compare to .89 for Taiwan, 1.18 for Mainland China, and 1.21 for South Korea).

Plus, debt might become an issue, but I don't think MoF is seriously concerned. They've been trying to inflate the yen for decades (enyasu, whoooo), so there's not a huge rush towards austerity yet.

I actually oppose Article 9 and all, but I'm fairly confident in our ability to ignore it if/when convenient (like the American commerce clause!), so it's not a huge issue.

If I could vote, I'd probably vote for YP on the proportional rep. ballot and for my (former) local DPJ man, largely because I really like him.

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There is no such thing as a moderate JCP member. The JCP understands why the JSP collapsed. They are probably the most ideologically homogenous political organization in all of East Asia. Which is why their true believers show up to vote for them in every single election even though they have no chance of winning.

Also, party isn't as important in non-JCP Japan as it is in say, the West. Who the local representative actually /is/ is probably far more important than their party. After all, the DPJ is filled with former JSPers /and/ former LDPers, very few who have changed their basic political orientation.

That being said, my homeboy is wonderful.

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I don't see why everyone thinks Hashimoto is going to have "an outfit". I simply cannot see him building a national party, or even a regional party (in Kansai) in a matter of weeks. Plus, third parties never break in during general elections. If he's smart, he's going to wait until the next upper house election and pull what YP did.

Also, I don't think the LDP is going to do that well. The problem with the LDP is that very few people actually like it. I could see them with a plurality of 160-170 or so, but 200 is a little difficult.

The member of the district I once lived in was Seiji Maehara, who I still very much like.

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Anyways, if you're looking for a votematch/political compass type test to help you in Japanese politics, the Yomiuri has a good one for the 2010 House of Councillor's Election.

http://vote.yomiuri.co.jp

I got what I expected, 69% for the DPJ and Your Party.

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Yeah, my third party was Tachigare Nippon, which weirded the hell out of me. But it's probably because the Constitution question gave them a huge boost. The LDP also scored fairly low.

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The LDP has largely lost their electoral edge in the rural "farm leagues". Nokyo stopped endorsing LDP candidates by default in 2003 and I'm pretty sure the urban-rural gap vanished by 2005.

Keep in mind, the DPJ, especially on the FPTP level, are still largely staffed by long-term politicians from other parties. Most of them have been around since at least the eight-party period of the 90's and some of them are long-serving LDP/JSP members.

A lot of the institutional support for LDP candidates (ie, counting on corporate cash, doctors, farmers, postal workers), this was all vanishing even before 2009. And it hasn't come back. Some members in the LDP have yet to understand that they are simply no longer the default party of government. I do think they are poised to do well, but not 200-seats well.

Also, I'd like Your Party a lot more if it weren't for their decidely anti-bureaucrat rhetoric, which although very popular among the public, turns me off a lot.

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Is there a version in a language I can understand?

Uh...you could try google translate. It would probably be a complete fail though. If I have a lot of extra time tonight, I might try and translate it.

Thanks for your insights.  Say that LDP gets 160-170 and New Komeito gets is usual 25-30 (22-23 PR plus a few FPTP seats), where does that leave government formation as LDP-New Komeito will have about almost 200 seats.  Under this situation DPJ will most likely have about 140 seats.  I just do not see any viable government unless it is a LDP-DPJ grand coalition.  Even if LDP-Komeito or DPJ manage to cobble up a coalition government it almost will not have a majority in the upper house unless it is a massive coalition which most likley will collpase under its own weight soon anyway.  But without a majority in the Upper house it will just be a re-run of the twisted diet of 2007 to 2009 and 2010 to now where nothing gets done.  This whole comsumption tax business of Noda seems to me a desperate attempt to get anything done but pushing for something that was actually in the LDP manifesto.  So if so are we not looking at a LDP-DPJ government?

Komeito does not have any FPTP seats. It is very unlikely to gain any FPTP seats. I'm not even sure if Komeito can pull of that respectable 22-23 PR.

Also, a grand coalition would be unbelievably bitter medicine. The relationship between the DPJ and LDP is very rocky and angry. The DPJers believe the LDP has blocked them on everything in a sole attempt to win the next election. I know people point to the JSP-LDP coalition as inspiration, but contrary to popular beliefs, the LDP and JSP actually had a pretty good working relationship after the 70's. After all, most of the major scandals hit people from both parties.

Of course, it seems very unlikely that any bill could get passed in the new Diet without both LDP and DPJ support, but that's essentially the situation we ALREADY have. The LDP is really pushing for a new diet for three reasons

1) Tanigaki is running out of time. LDP leadership elections are in September. He will probably lose them.

2) The LDP has a tiny sliver of a chance in that if the DPJ completely collapses and their support goes EVERYWHERE ELSE, the LDP could be in a position where they could pass bills with either DPJ support OR the support of several smaller parties. This would be much better for them than the current cohabitation.

3) Under a new diet, the LDP could probably unilaterally trigger a loss of confidence and new elections if their support ever recovered from the total base minimum fail that it is currently at.

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Hmmm... you might have to educate me here.  I thought that Watanabe formed Your Party in 2009 before the 2009 elections and actually ran candidates in the 2009 elections.  Granted Your Party did much better in 2010 elections but I have to assume that Your Party built on its efforts in 2009 which led to its good results in 2010.  Also what is different between 2009 and 2010 is that in 2009 DPJ captured most of the anti-LDP vote and that vote got split over many parties in 2010 as disappointment in DPJ set in.  It seems a 2012 election will be more like 2010 than 2009 where there will be a lot of anti-LDP/anti-DPJ votes up for grabs.  I  agree it would be hard for Hashimoto to put something togeather that quickly which means it might not be able to realize the opportunity it has been given but I would think the opportunity is there in 2012.

YP did exceptionally well in 2010 because of how Upper House elections work. They had enough support in the Kanto plains to take a seat in several of the multi-member districts, but not enough to outright win pluralities. In short, YP would have won very few FPTP districts, but could come second or third in prefectures that they were strong in. People knew that and knew that if they lived in the Kanto plains, voting for a YP candidate would not be a waste.

I mean, Hashimoto very well could run people in 2012. And he's filed enough paperwork so that he could if he wanted to. At the same time, his performance would probably be underwhelming if he did.

On the other hand, waiting until 2013 to run for the Upper House is also a tricky position considering Hashimoto wants to abolish the upper house.

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Well, damn. Looks like I was completely wrong. I suppose he did change his mind over the last six months. Perhaps the Bunraku thing forced his hand?

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While I agree with you that given the way lower house elections work versus how upper house elections works (FPTP vs some multi membered seats) does make it easier for YP to do well for upper house elections.  In the case of 2009 vs 2010 performance of YP I feel a much greater factor is just raw number of votes.  In 2009 lower house elections YP got .87% of the district vote and 4.27% of the PR vote, which translated into 2 FPTP seats and 3 PR seats out of the total 480 seats available.  In 2010 upper house elections YP got 10.24% of the district vote and 13.59% of the PR vote, which translated into 3 district seats and 7 PR seats out of 121 seats available.  YP ran a lot less candidates in 2009 FPTP than in 2010.  That is most likely because what you pointed out that in 2010 these candidates are more likely to win due to the systems.  But another and I feel bigger factor just has to be that YP was much more popular in 2010 versus 2009 as seen in the jump in the PR vote share from 2009 to 2010.   

Well, I don't think anyone actually knew who YP was. Those small lower house seats gave them a platform to advertise their new party. On the other hand, I think people already know who Hashimoto is.

How well can the Japanese Communist Party perform in the upcoming election ? If I recall well, it's still the fourth largest party in Parliament after DPJ, LPD and New Komeito, and they always reach a 6 to 10 % share of votes. Also, do they have any influence at all on who will form the next government ?

The JCP has a very high floor (dedicated support base) and a very low ceiling (everyone else in Japan thinks they're batsh**t insane). They'll do the same as always.

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So word on the street is that Tanigaki may not even have the signatures neccesary to run again for the leadership elections, because the Koga faction may not be behind him again.

Anyways, that means every single possible replacement candidate will be far more hawkish on international issues (Tanigaki being generally considered a moderate), which may to lead to funtimes if/when the LDP retakes a plurality.

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It all depends how badly the Democratic Party gets wiped out, doesn't it?

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Hashimoto may not do as poorly on the FPTP as people expect. For one, his base of support is in the Kansai region, which is not the LDP's most robust region for FPTPers (you know, Tanigaki withstanding).

That being said, I wouldn't mind casting a proportional vote for Hashimoto. There are a handful of local DPJers I like, but I like Hashimoto, although personal experience is probably prejudicing me in this.

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People tend to overestimate well...how important Shintaro Ishihara is. He makes a lot of nasty statements but he actually does very little governing. He's more of a public celebrity than an actual politician - since its Inose Naoki who basically does all the actual governing that Ishihara's position would suggest one would do.

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People tend to overestimate well...how important Shintaro Ishihara is. He makes a lot of nasty statements but he actually does very little governing. He's more of a public celebrity than an actual politician - since its Inose Naoki who basically does all the actual governing that Ishihara's position would suggest one would do.

That is quite interesting.  I did not know that.  I always had a certain level of respect for Ishihara Senior for his ablity to govern Tokyo.  I always thought that his reelections were mostly based on his technical compotence.  I always thought of him as a Narenda Modi (CM of Indian state of Gujarat) who is a horrible record on communal harmony but has a done a good job as a technical adaministrator and responsible for all sorts of progress in Gujuarat, communal riots notwithstanding.

This is what I thought too. Or, at least, what I wanted to think.

Well, not delegating important tasks to terrible incompetent people is a sometimes rare skill in of itself. Very unfortunately.

The DPJ's reaction to the Senkaku incident baffles me. Consider the upcoming elections and the assets both powers have on the ground, there is very little downside to taking the most hawkish position imaginable. Japan clearly holds most of the cards in this dispute. And worst comes to worst, there's a rally around the flag effect. It's probably old JSPer's holding the DPJ back.

Of the three I still like Ozawa the most.  I think he has good vision and he is very good at recruiting and building up good politicans that can win elections.

Ozawa has a vision? Is this same Ozawa we're talking about here? The same Ozawa that has jumped from hard-right to hard-left and then to whatever the hell he's doing now.

That being said, if the election were held today, I think I'd be backing Hashimoto. A LDP-Komeito-Hashimoto coalition seems like the possible outcome to me now. I have long since lost faith in the DPJ to actually function no matter the best intentions of some - the Senkaku affair only be one incident in a long string, and I'm not too sure if handing back to the LDP total power would be a good idea And strangely enough, the more I read about Hashimoto, the more I like him.

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Fun fact: I know this guy who was almost called Yukio by his parents as a nod to Mishima. The days of Yugi-oh would have been dark ones, he admits.

See, I recognize that Mishima is a great author, but he's...not...someone I would name someone after...

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I don't think so. For people in the West who aren't Asian studies academics I've always had the perception that Japanese name order (unlike, for instance, Chinese) is more a stylistic matter than anything else.

It's also a pen name. And uh, naming someone after a pen name is just really going into uncharted, weird waters.

Also, I didn't get the yukio/yugioh joke at first because "huh? the first syllables are the same and the second is only hardened, but there's four in yugioh...wait a second herree"

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I do not believe this was the outcome that many people actually expected. I already like this leadership election. It opens the possibility of a LDP-Hashimoto coalition after the election. Because not only is Abe not particularly popular (hurting the chances of gaining an absolute LDP/NKP majority) he'd probably be more likely to be open to such a coalition.

Though I never thought of a LDP/NKP majority as being terribly likely, because the best-case LDP scenario would be to sweep the FPTP seats, but I don't see that happening in Kansai.

I am not particularly enamored with the man myself, but of the candidates, I am probably the most sympathetic towards his views on the recent territorial issues.

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39.4% is insane. Koizumi didn't even break 39%.

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Well, the Yomiuri tracker is interesting.

LDP: 31 ---> 36
DPJ: 14 ---> 18
JRP: 16 ---> 13

So yeah, I think we can be certain that the "chikai mirai" will not come about very soon.

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Oh. I just checked that Kyodo poll. It was 30.4%, not 39.4%. That makes a lot more sense.

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Words cannot describe how worthless I find much polling. There seems to be an assumption that cabinet support rate determines how many votes one get and then another assumption that polls where over half the voting population are undecided are somehow useful. Argh.