Will the LDP double down in the next election?
Posted by ampontan on Tuesday, June 26, 2007
NOW THIS GUY HAS SHARP EYES: Japanese blogger Hiroshi, writing for the Japan Handlers blog (in Japanese), spotted two snippets in the Japanese press that present the possibility of the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party dissolving the Lower House of the Diet and holding a double election on the same day as that for the upcoming regularly scheduled Upper House poll.
Hiroshi found the first snippet in a Yomiuri Shimbun report yesterday of an address given by Yoshimi Watanabe, the Minister of State for Regulatory Reform, Administrative Reform, Regional Revitalization and (pant, pant) Regional Government. Speaking in Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture, Watanabe claimed that pending legislation to reform Japan’s public employment system was “the most important” of those bills presented by the Abe administration, and that a double election was possible if the Diet failed to pass it during the current session.
The article covering the speech is only a paragraph long. Perhaps it’s being overlooked because of another speech Watanabe delivered the day before in Yamaguchi City, in which the minister said that Prime Minister Abe would not abandon his post even in the event of a crushing LDP defeat in the Upper House election about a month from now. (That’s not to say the other party members wouldn’t make him walk the plank, but we’re way ahead of ourselves on that.)
It’s also worth noting that Watanabe would call this the Abe administration’s most important legislation, despite the passage of some heavyweight bills since the prime minister took office last September (including those for reforming the educational system and for holding a referendum on amending the Constitution).
The second snippet appeared in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the Japanese equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. They reported that the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition party, has been conducting a frenzied search since the end of May to find candidates to run in the single-member districts in the event a Lower House election is held. They trot out this quote by party Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama: “It is vitally important that we take dissolution (of the Lower House) into consideration.” The Nikkei Shimbun also suggests the DLP’s sense of urgency stems from the LDP’s head start in selecting candidates to run in the next election.
Hiroshi has his doubts about this scenario: he thinks the New Komeito Party, the LDP’s coalition partner, detests the idea, and that the LDP’s huge majority in the Lower House should ensure the passage of the reform legislation anyway. He suspects the LDP might be threatening its Lower House members to straighten up and vote right.
While that’s possible, it also seems to be an empty threat to me—why would the LDP cut its nose off in the Lower House to spite its face? Their huge majority is probably going to be whittled down in the next election, regardless of the circumstances, the candidates, and the polls. Why not delay the election and hold on to that majority for as long as possible?
Of the theories Hiroshi discusses, the most plausible one is that the LDP is forcing the DLP to disperse their resources for the Upper House election, which is going to be held anyway.
I’ve dismissed the idea of a dual election here in the past, and I still think it’s unlikely to happen, but then again, the LDP didn’t become the dominant force in Japanese postwar politics by asking for my opinion.
Links to Japanese newspaper articles are as evanescent as the cherry blossoms in spring, so those who can read Japanese should follow the link to Japan Handlers, where Hiroshi conveniently cut and pasted the articles in full.
infimum said
I am glad that I can be of help to (or, maybe, distraction from) your blogging. Actually, I for some reason thought that site might be the one you would be interested in the least, given its “conspiratory” nature. I mainly read that site for the information he gives about the connection between the Japanese and Americans who are in the status of so-called “establishment.”
Anyway, it should be repeated that your blog is the most penetrating blog about Japan currently available in English, not just because your entry today is about a entry from a blog I happen to read. Please keep up the good job.
By the way, does your blog get hits from interesting places, like English newspapers? Hopefully your entries about traditional Japanese culture get more hits and trackbacks from related blogs. But those blogs seem to be few and far between. (The least likely place in which you find people interested in it is anime blogs. Because a lot of animes feature snippets of Japabese culture sush as shrines and miko, a female priest, some people take time to look them up and end up knowing more about Japan than casual observers of Japan without actually living in Japan.)
haafu said
Abe needs to reset his priorities. Patriotism is all fine and dandy but what about all the folks that got their pension records wiped out? Abe and everyone in his cabinet should forfeit their salary for the rest of their elected office.
AC said
It’s unlikely that Abe would dissolve the Lower House, but doing so would force the DPJ to fight a two-front battle that it is not at all prepared for. While the LDP would be assured of losing a great many seats from its massive majority in the Lower House, the LDP-New Komeito coalition would almost certainly retain control of that chamber, and they might at the same time stand a stronger chance of holding on to the Upper House by forcing the DPJ into a much larger campaign, as the DPJ falls far short of the LDP in both funding and the organizational strength.
But if Abe does make such a move, it’s a sign of desperation.