Japan’s Ozawa not the man of the hour
Posted by ampontan on Monday, August 6, 2007
SOME ENGLISH-LANGUAGE BLOGS ON JAPAN would have you believe that one reason for the opposition Democratic Party’s stunning success in the recent upper house election was due to the efforts of party leader Ichiro Ozawa.
In fact, I ran across one blog before the election that referred to him as “the wily Ozawa” and said the upcoming victory, which had been widely anticipated, would be a great success for him.
Once upon a time, it might have been possible to shower this sort of praise on the DPJ kingfish–he was, after all, the fair-haired boy of the late Kakuei Tanaka, the Boss Tweed of Japanese politics a generation and a half ago. But he’s been on a losing streak that lasted for more than a decade, which included several failed splinter parties and the trouncing former Prime Minister Koizumi and the ruling LDP administered to the DPJ in the 2005 lower house election, when Ozawa was in charge of the opposition’s campaign.
Now there’s a report in the Japan Times’ Media Mix column today with the following passage:
An Asahi Shimbun survey found that only 4 percent of the people who voted for the DPJ said they support party chief Ichiro Ozawa.
There’s no question that Mr. Ozawa has skills as a vote-gathering technician, but it’s worth saying again: He’s the most overrated politician in Japan.
MTC said
Ampotan –
When you disparage, please provide references. Your readers should be allowed to form their own judgments based on the original source material.
ampontan said
Sorry MTC, but I’m not going to get in a pissing contest with bloggers. As with 95% of the bloggers, that guy didn’t offer an argument. He just stated it as fact. Based on sunspot activity, I suppose. That’s one of the reasons I avoid most blogs.
Here’s another aspect to consider. A has a blog. I like A’s blog and A’s posts, but it’s a group blog. B sometimes posts there. B doesn’t know squat about Japan, but posts about it anyway. I don’t care to cause problems with A. So I do not mention names sometimes.
As with my post with Oliver Kamm, I do mention names and provide links when the other person has an argument and actually backs it up.
If I keep a blogger anonymous, it’s because they’re just talking without saying anything.
Aceface said
Japan’s most overrated politician is Ishihara Shintaro.
Ozawa did nailed LDP in ‘92.Something nobody had done in 37years.
He did created DPJ,a reliable(comparatively)opposition party which was non existence before.He is also a career states man in dealing the gulf crisis and has vision as seen in many interviews and his (said to be)book “Blue Print for New Japan”,definitely a better read than Abe’s”Cool Japan”.
Sappy numbers in Asahi’s survey is predictable,because they’ve been hammering Ozawa’s reputation in everyway imaginable in the 90’s.Calling exactly what they are calling Abe now.
Even the Kakuei-esque vote gathering tactics can be legitimize for that is the only way to beat LDP in rural areas and rural areas are what counts in Japanese political landscape.Anyone wants to change this,has to reject LDP dominance first.Ozawa is Mick Gorbachev.His raison d’etre is to destroy the old world he was gloomed.Building new one is the task for somebody else,I think.
ampontan said
Aceface: You have a good point about Ishihara. BTW, Murakami Masakuni, former LDP upper house member who left under a cloud, is convinced that Kan Naoto could have beaten him in the last Tokyo election.
Ken said
Google, Yahoo and Technorati searches didn’t turn up any blogs except for this site for the phrase “the wily Ozawa.”
Yahoo did find a Yahoo India piece: http://in.news.yahoo.com/040518/137/2d5c2.html
Battered Japan opposition looks to new chief, May 18 2007
Perhaps a blogger lifted a bad phrase?
At any rate, I agree that Ozawa had little to do with the DPJ’s success. In fact, I think he limited it from reaching its full potential (which might be a good thing in some quarters).
Garrett said
Ampontan,
Are you a lobbyist? One really has to wonder.
I agree that Ozawa is overrated, but to support the LDP in general, as you seem to, then pick only on Kakuei Tanaka in order to go after Ozawa sounds a little early-’90s-Republican to me.
I’d call it cherry picking, but there aren’t even cherries.
You’re ripping into a vaguely defined set of bloggers without a link to any to illustrate your points. You can do better than that.
ampontan said
Garrett: Guess you missed the post last week about the election, the point of which was that the LDP blew it badly.
Or the post a few days before that in which I spent a lot of time summarizing a magazine article that blasted Abe for being immature and not ready for prime time.
The bloggers are not vaguely defined. They’re anyone who attributed the DPJ victory to Ozawa. (He was a factor in agricultural districts, but again, only because the LDP blew it.)
Wish I were a lobbyist. That would mean I was getting paid.