DPJ objective: Forming a minority coalition in Japan

HERE’S A FURTHER INDICATION the opposition Democratic Party has adopted a strategy of forming a coalition government if they win enough seats in the next lower house election but fail to gain an outright majority.

The Sankei Shimbun reported that during a televised interview on the 17th, DPJ Diet Affairs Committee Chair Kenji Yamaoka said, “A petit coalition is possible after the next lower house election. The possibility is extremely high that we will form a government with some other group.”

The Sankei suggests the DPJ might try to match up with a group of MPs who would split from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, but the newspaper does not indicate who those people might be.

The LDP currently has a 100-seat advantage over the DPJ in the lower house, and while that margin almost certainly will be reduced in the next election, few people think the DPJ would win an outright majority. Some observers have speculated that if the DPJ wins the most seats in the lower house, but still lacks a majority, they would try to convince the New Komeito Party, currently the junior coalition partner in the LDP-led government, to switch sides.

Mr. Yamaoka’s supreme confidence is in keeping with the bluster that has lately emerged from some members of the DPJ leadership. He also said, “The reversal of the position of the two parties in the upper house has been solidified. The only possibility is for a (DPJ-led) administration. This will happen automatically even if we do not ‘meddle with’ the LDP.” (自民党へ手を突っ込まなくても自動的にそうなる。)

Such a turn of events is certainly a possibility, but considering the recent volatility of the Japanese electorate and events on both sides of the aisle in Nagata-cho, Mr. Yamaoka might well keep in mind the Japanese proverb, Toranu tanuki no kawa zanyo: Counting the skins of a badger you haven’t caught.

In other words, don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.