Ram jam city

EVERY ONE of the following statements that appeared in recent news articles is incorrect.

Reuters, 2 May

In a poll carried out after the government rammed a bill through parliament reinstating the gasoline tax from May 1…

Bloomberg, 2 May

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s ruling coalition pushed through revenue bills that will reinstate a gasoline tax…

AFP 2 May

Fukuda, concerned about a budget shortfall, rammed through parliament bills to reimpose a petrol tax that had expired, under pressure from the opposition.

Radio Australia 2 May

The bill which was rammed through parliament reinstates the 24 US cent tax. (sic)

The only way anyone can state that the bills were “rammed through” the Diet is if one is under the impression that minority parties in a parliamentary chamber should be encouraged to sign off on any legislation they oppose before it can be passed.

It’s as if these news outlets think the democratic deal is for all legislators to hold up their identification badges and vote in a display of unity for whatever idea the Great Man happens to be peddling at the time. That’s standard operating procedure in North Korea, and was in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the Soviet Politburo. But some in the news media seem not to have noticed that’s not how it works in a modern democracy.

American Presidents can veto legislation they don’t care for, but if the Congress insists, it can override that veto with a two-thirds vote, and the bill becomes law. When a veto is overridden there, however, no one talks about how Congress “rammed the bill through”. The New York Times, an unrelenting opponent of the President, dealt with an override of a Bush veto this way.

Here’s the deal: If Japan’s upper house rejects a bill passed by the lower house, or ignores it for 60 days (which is what happened in this instance), the lower house can pass the bill a second time with a two-thirds majority of the members present, and it becomes law.

It’s all right there in the Constitution.

So what the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party did was simply follow Constitutional procedures. They reintroduced the bill into the lower house and passed it on a straight up-or-down vote.

No one in the opposition was locked out of the chamber, stripped of their credentials, had the safety of their family threatened, had their genitals taped to electrodes, or was taken outside and shot.

Of course they got all hot and bothered, but it’s a bit rich to complain about constitutionally correct behavior–particularly if the legislator who would complain is one who supports the policy of “defending the Constitution” to prevent the amendment of Article 9, the so-called Peace Clause.

Perhaps for some folks constitutional law is like a restaurant menu.

Now, this does not mean that anyone has to like the legislation or the fact that the tax was restored in this manner (and most Japanese voters don’t). And you can be sure the opposition will try to win votes in the next election by reminding the voters of LDP behavior (and they are sure to win some.)

But it was a simple legislative procedure. No one was strong-armed and no one is torching Toyotas in the streets.

What is does mean, however, is that the print and broadcast media would rather titillate their consumers rather than stick to reporting the facts and nothing but the facts in a news report, and leaving their Hemingway imitations for the op-ed page.

Here it is again: If your knowledge of Japan is derived from what you see, read, or hear in the Western media, then everything you know is wrong.

A Koizumi coup?

Political realignment has now started. That’s a 100% certainty.
- Iijima Isao, former principal aide to Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro Koizumi

IT’S NOW OBVIOUS to everyone that Japan’s Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo has become the lamest of ducks whose remaining days in office are numbered. His pillar of support is the retro wing of his own Liberal Democratic Party, but they must surely be dismayed at his performance over the past six months–not that they managed to formulate a winning strategy on his behalf. And the LDP reformers wrote him off months ago.

Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan has kept intact their reputation for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity to convince anyone they’re capable of heading a government. The glittering jewel of the landslide upper house election victory that fell into their laps last summer slipped between their legs by late autumn due to internal dissension among the leadership and poor political choices.

Since gaining control of the upper house, they’ve alienated an electorate increasingly irritated with both parties by following the script of a political Punch and Judy show, whacking the LDP with a slapstick and exulting “That’s the way to do it!” Unlike the latter-day Pulcinella, however, they’ve harmed themselves as much, if not more, than the cardboard Devil of the LDP. Their poll numbers are even worse than those for Mr. Fukuda’s Cabinet, and they’re having an increasingly difficult time maintaining party discipline.

It’s the Japanese version of government gridlock, and the situation cries out for a patrolman to direct traffic—preferably one mounted on a white horse.

That’s why the recent public reemergence of former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro is leading to increased speculation that he wants to correct the course of Japanese politics now that it’s veered from the direction he set before stepping down in September 2006. Of particular concern to him must be the regression to faction-oriented politics based on hand-in-glove ties with the bureaucracy, which he spearheaded an effort to destroy during his term in office. Those weeds have been growing for a long time, and their roots go very deep.

We’ve seen before that Iijima Isao, formerly his principal political aide, floated what seemed very much like a trial balloon for a comeback in February. Then, earlier this month came the announcement that Mr. Koizumi—still Japan’s most popular politician—had formed a policy study group consisting of people both in his own party and from the opposition.

Finally, Shukan Gendai ran an article in its 26 April edition suggesting that he would join forces with fellow LDP politicos Nakagawa Hidenao (Machimura faction) and Koga Makoto (Faction leader) to stage a political coup d’etat in May and remove Mr. Fukuda from office. They also speculated that he might form a new party.

Shukan Gendai is one of those wild and wooly Japanese weeklies whose word can’t always be trusted, and the article itself seems to be a congeries of the rumors currently circulating in Nagata-cho. Nevertheless, some of it is plausible enough to make it worth presenting in English here. It’s also an excellent illustration of the opacity and Byzantine maneuverings in the palace intrigue that passes for Japanese politics. The following is a translated summary of the article, called The Great Heisei Political Realignment (Heisei being the reign name of the current Tenno, or emperor) and the voice is that of the magazine itself.

*****

The Fukuda Flop

There is an air of uneasiness surrounding Prime Minister Fukuda. He is reported to have told an associate, “If (the party makes arrangements) to pass the job to Aso (Taro), I’ll dissolve the Diet and take him down with me.”

Mr. Fukuda also exploded in frustration during the question period in the Diet with opposition leader Ozawa Ichiro. He answered few of the questions and angrily went on the attack himself, peppering Mr. Ozawa with many questions of his own.

The Ministry of Finance is now serving as a primary means of support for the prime minister. His proposal for eliminating the contentious temporary gasoline surtax for road construction and placing the funds in the general account was written by Saka Atsuo, an aide to the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary whose career started in the MOF. Mr. Fukuda’s announcement during a press conference that he intended to eventually reform the tax system concealed the fact that it would mean a boost in the consumption tax rate (currently 5%), which the MOF is desperate to implement.

The MOF plans to increase their control over the prime minister. Now that their efforts to place their own man at the head of the Bank of Japan have failed, they’ve switched to a strategy of infiltrating the Cabinet Secretariat. The ministry is focusing on deputy-level positions, and they initially planned to place Mr. Saka there after the July summit. The name of Muto Toshiro, rejected as the BOJ head, has also emerged for that position. Their free hand in the executive branch will depend on whether Mr. Fukuda can stay in office until the summit.

Are the Prime Minister’s Days Numbered?

Some people are beginning to think he won’t last that long. His itinerary for a foreign trip during the first week of May, which is a holiday period in Japan, has not been finalized, and it is suspected that this is a sign he will be stepping down. Dissolution of the Diet and the subsequent election would likely mean the LDP loses its supermajority in the lower house—making such a step the height of stupidity.

Mr. Koizumi is giving it some credence, however. In a recent speech he broadly hinted that he thinks an election will be called soon, and the LDP will find itself in a tight spot. (See a previous post on that subject here.)

In March, Mr. Koizumi seemed to think that the next election would not be held until the summer of 2009, but he’s suddenly changed his mind. Another change has been his return to active participation in the political fray. He joined former Defense Minister Koike Yuriko (LDP; Machimura faction) and former LDP Secretary-General Nakagawa Hidenao to become honorary advisors for a group of diet members working to achieve Japan’s Kyoto Protocol targets. The Koizumi Children, the political newcomers who were swept into office on the prime minister’s coattails during the LDP’s landslide 2005 victory, have been meeting more frequently behind the scenes.

For public consumption, Mr. Koizumi is now saying, “At a time like this, we should support Prime Minister Fukuda.” In fact, however, he is not sanguine about the future of the Fukuda administration.

On 20 March, Mr. Fukuda met with former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yosano Kaoru (LDP, No faction) and then immediately called Mr. Nakagawa, a Yosano opponent, to the prime minister’s residence. Mr. Koizumi remarked to a friend, “Fukuda has reached his limit. He thinks he’s trying to strike a balance, but neither one of them can stand him.”

One LDP Diet member observed that Mr. Koizumi, who is unsurpassed at reading political tea leaves, thinks Prime Minister Fukuda is finished. He also thinks the LDP will be clobbered in the next election unless the prime minister is replaced beforehand. The voters have abandoned him over his handling of the gasoline surtax and pension issues. Many in the party would have preferred to allow him to go out on a high note after the summit, but he may not last that long.

The magazine quotes an unnamed political reporter for a national newspaper saying the belief is growing that the Fukuda administration will have run its course after Golden Week (an eight-day period from 29 April to 6 May with five national holidays). If the party employs their lower house supermajority to readopt the road construction and gas tax bills, the DPJ could submit and adopt in the upper house a motion to censure him. If the prime minister then chooses to remain in office, the opposition will refuse to conduct deliberations, leaving the Fukuda administration dead in the water.

Kono Taro (LDP; Aso faction), 37 Diet members from the LDP and New Komeito, and 18 proxies convened a meeting to support the Fukuda proposal to put the funds from the gasoline tax into the general account rather than hold them separately for road construction projects. But Mr. Kono says that adopting the measure will require that the revised bill for the gasoline surtax be abandoned because they are contradictory. He told the magazine that he would revolt if both bills are readopted in the lower house. (Note: Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura Nobutaka, head of the largest LDP faction, disagrees that the bills are contradictory).

Even without a revolt, 16 absences would scuttle the readoption, which in turn would scuttle the Fukuda administration. Some observers believe that Mr. Kono would then form an alliance with Mr. Koizumi.

That would trigger the widely anticipated political realignment, and Mr. Koizumi would be at the center of it.

Yamamoto Ichita (LDP; Machimura faction), upper house member and long-time Koizumi supporter, told the magazine that the former prime minister would play a key role in the political realignment. Mr. Yamamoto said it is not an ironclad certainty that he will actively reemerge, but he is still the most popular politician in Japan and is far and away the most adept at communicating with the public. MPs have a survival instinct, and politicians instinctively place their trust in Koizumi.

Any new political grouping of this type would attract the so-called Koizumi Children, some LPD members, and also some DPJ members. This group would initially consist of LDP members and then become a multi-party group. In the future, it would merge with the reform elements of the LDP.

An LDP official characterized this as a case of the smaller eating the larger. He said that Mr. Koizumi considers the “trump card” for political realignment to be a return to the electoral system with multiple representatives for a single district. He also said that Mr. Koizumi is urging other LDP election officials to bring this about.

Koga Makoto, chairman of the LDP Election Strategy Council, is quoted as saying, “Returning to the multiple seat electoral system will be the major axis of political realignment.” The magazine finds it odd that the reformer Koizumi and Mr. Koga, the unofficial head of those Diet members who want to maintain the status quo with road construction projects, would be in accord. It points out, however, that despite their political differences, they’ve known each other for some time and have personal connections.

The magazine then speculates that Mr. Nakagawa, a member of the so-called “Ageshio group” (ageshio means incoming tide) and a critic of the Finance Ministry, and Mr. Koga, a hyper-realist, are working with the former prime minister to pull off a political coup, having written off the Fukuda administration. It quotes a commentator to the effect that Mr. Koizumi has undergone a change. Gone is his taste for orchestrating political crises for his own benefit. The commentator says that the last time he met Mr. Koizumi, he had become a policy maven interested in the global environment, food safety, and fiscal reform. The commentator concludes by suggesting that instead of choosing to become prime minister again, he might back Koike Yuriko and take on the role of backstage advisor (a common practice in Japanese politics.)

SIDEBAR: The Ageshio group are promoting fiscal reform. Their objectives are, in this order:

1. Ending deflation
2. Reducing government assets
3. Cutting government expenditures
4. Systemic reform, and
5. Increasing taxes

The first words that strike the eye on Mr. Nakagawa’s Japanese-language website are “Small Government”

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Who is the Kingmaker Thinking of?

A source close to the LDP told the magazine that Ms. Koike is really just a stalking horse, however. The source said to forget about both Mr. Yosano and Mr. Aso in this scenario. He suggested instead that people keep an eye on Watanabe Yoshimi (LDP; no faction), a champion of reform and the Minister of State for Financial Services and Regulatory Reform (who has also clashed with Prime Minister Fukuda over moves to water down reform policies).

Shukan Gendai also cautions that the so-called New Bureaucracy Faction will not stand by quietly without putting up a fight. Yosano Kaoru has close ties to the Ministry of Finance and in April published his first book, Dodotaru Seiji, or Heroic Politics. (Note that several other translations are possible, however.) Mr. Yosano uses the book to criticize the growth policies of Mr. Nakagawa and others, calling them a “sneak attack that is the ultimate in political escape.” He also thinks it’s necessary to undo the structural reforms of the Koizumi-Abe era, and he refers to them as a distortion.

One of those close to Mr. Yosano is Sonoda Hiroyuki (LDP; Tanigaki faction), who in turn is close to members of the former New Party Sakigake (sakigake means harbinger), a 10-man splinter party formed in 1993 by former LDP members that disbanded in 2002. In fact, Mr. Sonoda was himself a member of the party (as were Hatoyama Yukio and Kan Naoto until they left to form the DPJ). Another political reporter for a national paper says this group is looking into the possibility of reviving the party with like-minded people. He suggests that the Finance Ministry is backing this effort with the idea of putting Mr. Yosano in office.

The same reporter also thinks there is a chance Mr. Koizumi might ally himself with this group rather than Mr. Nakagawa because of his ties to the Finance Ministry.

But then the magazine quotes a Japanese proverb by saying that in Nagata-cho, “fear populates the night with monsters”.

The article concludes with the report that several politicians met for an old-fashioned backroom restaurant party on the night of 2 April. In the United States, political deals used to be cut in smoke-filled rooms; in Japan, those deals are settled in expensive restaurants.

The list of those attending the gathering is fascinating:

Liberal Democrats
Yamasaki Hiraku (AKA Taku) (Faction leader)
Kato Koichi (No faction)

SIDEBAR: Both Mr. Yamasaki and Mr. Kato were long-time allies of Mr. Koizumi; in January 1991 they formed a trio that operated as a sort of political chakra within the LDP called YKK after the initials of their surnames. They represented a force opposed to old-style LDP politics and favoring reform within the party. All three were considered prime ministerial material; only Mr. Koizumi grasped the brass ring after an aborted attempt by Mr. Kato to unseat Mr. Koizumi’s predecessor. They are no longer working as allies.

Democratic Party of Japan
Kan Naoto
Edano Yukio (Maehara/Edano group)

Mr. Kan is of course one of the founders of the party.

People’s New Party
Kamei Shizuka

The PNP is a splinter party that formed after Mr. Koizumi threw out of the LDP those Diet members who failed to support his postal privatization plan, and who rejected the invitation to return to the party extended by former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.

There is no word about what they discussed, but Mr. Yamasaki was quoted after the meeting as saying that an election will be held this year, and that political realignment will follow. He concluded with the words, “Anything is possible.”

Shukan Gendai observes that it is significant people in both of the main parties are more forthcoming about internal conditions than usual, and concludes that the LDP and the DPJ will split and realign.

Aftermath

After the article was published:

• Prime Minister Fukuda cancelled his overseas trip.
• Yosano Kaoru published an article in another weekly magazine calling on Mr. Fukuda to conduct dodotaru seiji.
• The Ministry of Finance openly admitted they wanted to boost the consumption tax.
• Aso Taro visited Yamaguchi twice to campaign for the LDP candidate in a recent by-election. Mr. Aso has been campaigning heavily for local candidates, and said he would run again for the LDP presidency (and therefore prime minister).
• The opposition DPJ candidate won the by-election and party leader Ozawa Ichiro said they would not file a censure motion at this time if the gasoline surtax was readopted.
• The gasoline surtax was readopted, however, and NHK reports that the DPJ is considering a censure motion after all.
• NHK also reports that unidentified LDP members are muttering about having Mr. Fukuda step down after the summit. Is the broadcaster behind the curve?
• Kono Taro has not revolted yet.

Ran (乱) dumb Commentary

The point of the article was a possible alliance between Messrs. Koizumi, Nakagawa, and Koga to unseat Prime Minister Fukuda. The magazine didn’t do a whole lot to connect those particular dots, however. Undoubtedly one factor behind their story was a desire to sell magazines. Yet it isn’t out of the question that discussions of this sort have taken place. Whether it is true or not, this story as a whole is a vivid example of how difficult it is to penetrate the multiple veils of Japanese political circles.

Here’s a case in point: In a speech earlier this year, Iijima Isao said the natural heir to Mr. Koizumi’s policies was Yosano Kaoru.

Now really–That tells you just how difficult it is for people following politics to make heads or tails of anything. Mr. Yosano just published a book saying that the Koizumi-Abe reforms are a distortion and must be rolled back. How then can he be the natural heir to Mr. Koizumi? And what would prompt Mr. Iijima, who was close to Mr. Fukuda for decades, to say such a thing?

Anyone who knows isn’t saying, and anyone who’s saying doesn’t know.

Are Japan’s political tectonic plates shifting?

JAPAN’S POLITICAL CLASS didn’t need to gulp down any coffee to get a kickstart this morning—all they had to do was scan the brief newspaper article reporting that former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro had summoned a meeting of business and political leaders last week to confirm plans for periodic confabs to discuss political issues in a Japan plagued by government gridlock.

In addition to Mr. Koizumi’s supporters and associates in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party–most notably Koike Yuriko–others with seats at the table included Maehara Seiji, current vice-president and former president of the largest opposition group, the Democratic Party of Japan, and several of his allies.

The meeting was held on the evening of the ninth—the same day the DPJ had rejected the LDP’s fourth nominee for a post at the Bank of Japan. That the rejection generated considerable frustration within the LDP is no surprise, but there are indications the DPJ’s obstructionism is causing more than a little unpleasantness within the opposition party as well.

The newspapers are calling this a “study group”, which is sometimes the form new political groupings take in Japan when the participants are scouting the prospects for creating a new faction or party. They plan to begin regularly scheduled meetings after the weeklong holidays in the beginning of May.

During the meeting, Mr. Koizumi is reported to have said:

Two (potential) candidates for prime minister are here. This could be interesting.

According to a person present, the guest list included the following:

Okuda Hiroshi, former chairman of the Keidanren, a past president and chairman of Toyota and a special Cabinet advisor. Toyota has generally kept some distance between itself and the LDP in the past because of its union’s ties with the DPJ. Mr. Okuda, however, openly mobilized Toyota support for Mr. Koizumi after the prime minister shocked (and electrified) Japan in 2005 by dissolving the lower house of the Diet and calling a new election to push through his plan for privatizing the postal ministry.

The LDP Contingent

Koike Yuriko, former Environmental Minister in the Koizumi Cabinet, and a national security advisor and briefly Defense Minister in Abe Shinzo’s Cabinet. Some observers think she has a chance to become Japan’s first female prime minister, and everyone assumes she wants the job. Her background also includes membership in the now-defunct Liberal Party, then headed by the current opposition head Ozawa Ichiro, when it was the junior partner in a coalition government with the LDP. Politics makes for some strange bedfellows in Japan.

Motegi Toshimitsu, a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, former Senior Vice Foreign Minister in the first Koizumi Cabinet and the Minister of State for Okinawa in Second Koizumi Cabinet

Hayashi Yoshimasa, also a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government, and an upper house member (unlike the previous two, who are lower house members). He has Finance Ministry connections, as does Mr. Koizumi.

Nishimura Yasutoshi, a lower house member in the Machimura faction (to which Mr. Koizumi once belonged in a former incarnation), and known to be politically close to Abe Shinzo

The Gang from the DPJ

Maehara Shinji, the second potential prime minister, is known for specializing in security and defense issues, and favors revising the Constitution to allow Japan more leeway to conduct military operations (by eliminating the second paragraph of Article 9, the so-called Peace Clause). He is also on excellent terms with Abe Shinzo, and was not averse to the suggestion for a grand coalition between the two parties that caused Mr. Ozawa so much trouble last fall.

Sengoku Yoshito, a member of the Maehara group (the DPJ doesn’t like to call them factions), he has held several shadow cabinet positions. Interestingly enough, he also directly criticized Mr. Koizumi for the deterioration of relations with South Korea during his term.

Genba Koichiro, a lower house member who is also in the Maehara group.

Fukuyama Tetsuro, ditto.

Also stopping by to say hi was Mikitani Hiroshi, the president and chairman of Rakuten, a giant in Internet shopping in Japan, and one of the 10 largest Internet companies in the world. Their website has the second highest total of unique hits in the country, behind only Yahoo!

In retrospect, neither the meeting itself nor the participants should have been entirely unexpected. Mr. Koizumi has downplayed any interest in a major post-retirement political role by referring to himself as “a man of the past”, but he has become more active since February. Was it a coincidence that his former political right-hand man, Iijima Isao, sat for an interview with a friendly magazine at the same time and floated what looked like a trial balloon for a Koizumi comeback?

In the interview, Mr. Iijima offered a white knight scenario by suggesting that Mr. Koizumi is the only person with the experience and credibility to break through the current impasse and take political reform to the next level. He further noted that it wouldn’t be necessary to form a new political party; it would be enough for Mr. Koizumi to “take the ship out of the harbor and into the sea”, and that a crew of 50 members each from the LDP and the DPJ would be enough to man the ship.

In addition to political gridlock, the Koizumi allies within the party are dismayed at LDP recidivism by failing to maintain the momentum of his political and governmental reforms. The former prime minister’s Man Friday in the Cabinet for implementing those reforms, Takenaka Heizo, has criticized Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo for allowing the LDP of the bad old days to come back “like a zombie” since he took office in September.

For his part, Mr. Maehara and his group members share some common ground with the LDP reform wing; indeed, they perhaps have more in common with them than they do the left-leaning and leftist elements of their own party. They are also likely to be among those in the DJP unhappy with Mr. Ozawa’s leadership (an unhappiness that predates the party’s strong showing in last summer’s upper house election), and his tactics in the Diet since then.

To be fair, Mr. Maehara has reportedly been telling associates since last week’s meeting that it is not a formal study group. Discretion is the better part of valor, and it’s still too soon to be burning bridges.

Whether this leads to the political realignment that everyone is talking about, to the comeback of Koizumi Jun’ichiro, or merely to informal political discussions across party lines held in expensive restaurants, Mr. Koizumi’s description of the latest development was dead on:

This could be interesting.

Oracles, pundits, pretenders, and political hacks

ONE OF THE PERKS of being an ex-president or prime minister is that people tend to take your political punditry seriously. Thus it was no surprise to see the ripples spread throughout the media after Koizumi Jun’ichiro, one of the most successful and popular prime ministers in Japanese political history, commented on the timing of the next lower house election at a Liberal Democratic Party reception in his native Kanagawa Prefecture.

Well, that’s what everyone thinks he was talking about. There was a touch of the Oracle of Delphi about Mr. Koizumi’s statements. Here’s a direct translation of the first sentence:

“It seems as if the wind of the important ’something-or-other’ has now started blowing.”

There is a well-known Japanese preference for using indirect and intentionally vague speech; in this country, a sentence that directly translates to “This is that” will be perfectly clear in context. Therefore, Mr. Koizumi’s listeners applied their considerable experience at inference to understand that he was referring to the preparations for the election.

But there was no doubt about his meaning when he continued:

“It won’t be like the overwhelming victory of the previous lower house election. We’re really going to have to brace ourselves.”

He then added, “The “distorted Diet” (i.e., with the opposition in control of the upper house) signals the advent of a major transformation. When I was prime minister, I often used the words ‘boldly and flexibly’, and those traits are critical now. This isn’t a case of just the strong surviving. Those politicians and political parties capable of responding to change will also survive.”

Koga Makoto, the Chairman of the LDP’S Election Strategy Council, was another guest at the party and almost as elliptical when discussing the looming election:

“I have continually maintained that the lower house of the Diet won’t be dissolved this year. Now, I can’t say there won’t be an election within the year, and I must be allowed to say that (the situation) is dangerous. We’ll have to use all our strength to stand up to this headwind.”

The broadcast media turned to commentator Miyake Hisayuki, known for his close ties to the LDP, for his translation, and he spelled it out in more detail. Mr. Miyake repeated the claim that Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo will not be permitted to decide the timing for the dissolution of the Diet and the subsequent election. (That will be the decision of the backroom bigwigs, and was supposedly made clear to Mr. Fukuda when he took office.) What he will be permitted to do is retire with honor (yutai in Japanese) following the July G8 summit, rather than have to face the electorate with slumping poll numbers after presiding over the probable reinstatement of the gasoline surtax. Mr. Miyake thinks the Diet will then be called into an extraordinary session just to dissolve it.

Who’s Next?

The term yutai contains the nuance that the person retiring is voluntarily removing himself to allow younger people of talent to advance. So for whom would Mr. Fukuda be getting out of the way? Nobody’s pitching a tent in public yet, but everybody knows that former Foreign Minister Aso Taro wants the job—and besides, he’s all of four years younger than the prime minister. As this Yomiuri article points out, Mr. Aso has been driving up his stock with the party’s rank and file by stumping for local candidates around the country. He’s also working to widen the base of his support and floating policy proposals to create a de facto platform.

Mr. Aso surprised many observers in last year’s intra-party election to replace Abe Shinzo by winning a substantial share of the votes after the party’s heavy-hitters lined up to put the fix in for Mr. Fukuda. Even within the LDP, there is a sizeable group that wants no part of any behavior that smacks of…well, traditional LDP behavior.

But he was criticized in some quarters, most notably by former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro, for a lean and hungry look that looked a little too lean and hungry. Circumspection is still a highly regarded virtue here. Therefore, as the Yomiuri article notes, Mr. Aso is trying to keep his head down this time around.

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them

The opposition, of course, doesn’t have to be circumspect. They can say anything they like, and in the case of the Democratic Party of Japan, often do. For example, DPJ chief Ozawa Ichiro said on NHK radio and television last Sunday that his primary target date for dissolving the Diet and holding the election was before the July summit.

And there’s the disadvantage of direct speech—one receives a direct view of the exposed speakers. Unfortunately for Mr. Ozawa, the continued exposure of his thoughts makes him seem more like a provincial pol interested only in immediate tactical advantage than a statesman with a strategy to benefit the greater good.

One doesn’t have to look far for examples. After his party won control of the upper house last July, they chose to confront the ruling LDP over the issue of refueling Allied ships in the Indian Ocean to support the NATO anti-terrorism effort in Afghanistan. The problem was not that the DPJ challenged the LDP’s political supremacy—that’s what political parties are supposed to do, and it was inevitable after the thrashing they administered to the ruling party in the polls.

His blunder was that by trying to withdraw Japanese support (and succeeding only in temporarily halting it), he weakened the trust of the world’s democracies in Japan as a dependable ally. The more responsible course would have been to choose an issue for confrontation that did not impair Japan’s standing in the developed world. Instead, he wound up wasting everyone’s time.

Mr. Ozawa’s next idea was to challenge the government over the renewal of the 25-yen-per-liter gasoline surtax, which expired at the end of March. Overhaul of this part of the taxation system is a much-needed reform and a winner with the public. A real opportunity was lost, however, due to the party’s short-sighted approach and failure to present a feasible alternative for revenue sources before throwing a wrench into the works. Instead of focusing on the accomplishment of real reform, they merely tried to gain leverage with the electorate by causing problems for the LDP.

Their effort temporarily succeeded—the tax expired and they will force the LDP into the unpopular position of using their supermajority to reinstate it. But again, the opposition party took no one but themselves into account. The central government distributes most of that tax money to prefectural governments. The expiration of the tax means that the local governments will receive nothing at all (for now) instead of the 3.8 trillion yen that had been planned. As a result, 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures had to partially freeze expenditures. Prefectural governments throughout the country are financially strapped (some are worried about bankruptcy) and need the funds generated by the gasoline surtax for more than just road construction and repair. They account for 8% of the entire budget of Iwate, to cite one example. Additionally, the failure to receive the expected outlays forced Ishikawa and Tochigi to suspend operations unrelated to roads.

The DPJ head’s response to their difficulties has been cavalier, at best. He suggested in the Diet today that all the money should be returned to “the people” because Japan doesn’t need any more new highways or major road repair.

See what happens when you spend too much time in chauffeured vehicles?

Mr. Ozawa’s next bright idea is to hold the lower house election sometime before the G8 Summit three months from now, earlier than the timing suggested by Mr. Miyake. He of course realizes this will be an unusually important election with as-yet-unforeseen ramifications. It will therefore require the concerted attention of the entire Japanese political class. He also realizes that a pre-summit election means a new prime minister will have to immediately shift gears after an intense campaign to capably represent Japan at the meeting of the world’s leading industrialized nations.

Why is a proposal for a pre-summit election selfish and myopic? Because the eight summit nations have a system with a rotating presidency, and each year the nation holding the presidency hosts the proceedings, sets their agenda, and determines which ministerial meetings will occur.

This year is Japan’s turn to be president. The new prime minister will have to do more than show up after attending a few briefings: He’ll have to run the show.

Japan’s Delphic oracle declared that it is important to be bold and flexible, and that the political survivors will be those capable of responding to change. But Ozawa Ichiro is brazen instead of bold, stubborn and unyielding instead of flexible, and hinders rather than facilitates the responsible implementation of the dynamic changes that people on both sides of the aisle know need to occur.

It’s a shame he doesn’t listen. If he were to accept counsel from someone besides himself, the entire country might benefit.

Sentaku: Getting Japan to choose

日本を今一度せんたくいたし申候
I want to clean up Japan once and for all.
- Sakamoto Ryoma

THERE’S A REASON the activist group Sentaku chose this statement by Sakamoto Ryoma (1834-1867), a citizen-activist himself, as the inspiration for its activities and the name of its organization. Sentaku in Japanese means both to choose and to clean. (They are homonyms.)

Sakamoto lived during a time of yeasty ferment in Japanese history—the old order had succumbed to entropy, and a new order was struggling to be born. When Commodore Perry brought his black ships into Tokyo Bay in 1853, Japan was a technologically backward nation whose political structure was the very essence of top-down rule. It had been governed for 250 years by the Tokugawa shoguns, hereditary military dictators who strictly enforced the country’s isolation. Local government consisted of about 260 feudal domains, and an oppressive class structure stunted the nation’s growth.

A self-described “potato digger from Tosa” (now Kochi Prefecture) and a masterless samurai, Sakamoto at first wanted to expel the barbarian foreigners, but later came to admire the Western system of representative government and free trade with other nations. He played a key role in the events that led to the downfall of the Tokugawa regime when he and others convinced the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, to resign rather than face open rebellion. That finally placed Japan on the road to modernization and interaction with the world.

Sakamoto expressed the motive for his desire to make Japan choose when he write in a letter to his sister that his intent was to “clean up Japan once and for all.”

It’s Yesterday Once More

Today, Japan’s stagnant political system shares some of the characteristics of the terminal stage Shogunate that Sakamoto wished to scrub out. Entropy has had its way with the postwar paradigm of the so-called Iron Triangle: rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (the original grand coalition), the bureaucracy, and business interests working hand in glove.

This system once worked to Japan’s advantage because it allowed the country to pull itself up by its bootstraps in the space of a generation from the havoc wreaked by the war and climb into the ranks of the advanced industrialized nations, creating in the process the world’s second largest economy.

But the arrangements that allowed Japan to remake itself have become an obstacle to its continued progress now that success has been achieved. No iron triangle has the flexibility to permit a country to move swiftly and freely in a modern global economy and to reap the benefits of the unfettered talents of individual citizens acting on their own behalf. Iron becomes encrusted with corrosive layers of vested interests more interested in gaining the political upper hand and feathering their own nest rather than in the national welfare.

The behavior of national government is stifling the emergence of the reforms necessary for the sustaining the country’s prosperity and well-being, and the political class at the national level is more often part of the problem rather than part of the solution. While significant elements within the ruling LDP would follow the path to reform created by its icebreaker, former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro, they are stymied by the party’s ties to the bureaucracy and vested interests.

There are reformists among the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, but the party lacks integrity in both senses of the word–it is composed of incompatible elements incapable of action as a cohesive unit without strict top-down party discipline, and its behavior in the Diet as a party seems designed only to create a Nagata-cho sturm-und-drang that would allow it to take power. Had the near-desperate electorate of Japan approved of their behavior, they would have given the party a mandate to form a government years ago.

But as in the latter days of the Tokugawas, a yeasty ferment is at work in today’s Japan that would transform Japan from the ground up.

One problem plaguing Japanese politics and society is that the traditional reliance on top-down control creates a tendency toward what the French call dirigisme, or government control and intervention, especially in business activity or the economy.

There’s no better illustration than the story former Prime Minister Hosokawa Morihiro told about his experience as the governor of Kumamoto Prefecture when he tried to move the location of a bus stop. “For an advanced country,” he explained, “this is embarrassing. To move the stop a few hundred meters, I had to send a delegation to Tokyo. In Japan, you can’t tie your own shoes without official permission.”

Many in Japan fed up with this state of affairs see in the current political stalemate an opportunity to finally generate a wave of reform from regional areas that would engulf and wash the center. The Sentaku group was formed with the same intention as that expressed by Sakamoto Ryoma: to clean up Japan by having it choose.

Sentaku: Choose Clean!

Officially launched on January 20, the group’s full name roughly translates to The People’s Federation for Cleaning (Choosing) Japan by the Regions and Individual Citizens.

One of the group’s founding members and its representative is Kitagawa Masayasu, who understands local Japanese politics from the inside out. A former governor of Mie Prefecture who retired voluntarily from politics after serving two terms, he is now a Waseda University professor and head of the Waseda University Political Platform Research Institute.

This is not a spur-of-the-moment commitment by Mr. Kitagawa—he has been involved with promoting bottom-up government in Japan for some years. In a speech earlier this decade, he declared:

“The excessive concentration of government and business organizations in Tokyo has resulted in a serious decline in the health of the regions. Those local governments with the intent to create reform will work together to change our social systems from the local level. Rather than fearing mistakes, it is more appropriate for us to move forward with a positive attitude and correct any mistakes. Fair competition among regional governments will surely spur our communities to engage in the reform of society.”

He is aware of the magnitude of his task. In an interview conducted a few years ago, he noted:

With local politics, it’s bad enough that the media doesn’t cover the chief executives, but they don’t even cover the prefectural assemblies. That’s both the national media and the local media.

At the Tokyo press conference held to unveil the group in January, Mr. Kitagawa explained that Sentaku was an organization for promoting true political reform for the next lower house election, expected sometime later this year. Considering Mr. Kitagawa’s long commitment to local reform and the ideas of the people he has brought on board, it seems likely that the organization’s efforts will continue after the election.

Sentaku’s parent organization is the Citizen’s Council to Create a New Japan, whose membership consists of leading figures in the private sector. That group has focused its efforts on having political parties and groups throughout the nation formulate specific policy platforms and present them to the public to offer them a choice. These goals are congruent with Mr. Kitagawa’s current efforts at the Waseda institute he heads.

At the inaugural press conference, Mr. Kitagawa seemed to be channeling Sakamoto Ryoma when he said:

“Today’s Diet is incapable of conducting debate that seeks a choice from the citizens and a systemic policy. Both the regions and the citizens still view the central government as their lord and master. We will provide a platform for encouraging serious debate among the parties and politicians.”

Specifically, Sentaku’s goals are the following:

• Reform citizen awareness, including the Japanese approach to living and working
• Achieve devolution to break free from (the ties of) the bureaucracy and central government authority and to achieve responsible political leadership
• Promote citizen debate focusing on policy that is based on regions, areas, and individual citizens, and rework the concept of the state. Cast aside the postwar democracy that leaves (policy decisions) to the politicians. Make the parties create and present specific platforms.

Mr. Kitagawa stressed that the group has no plans to endorse candidates. “We’re not a party. We’re offering a venue for debate.” He also noted Sentaku was not necessarily opposed to the idea of a grand coalition of the type discussed late last year by Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo and DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro.

Addressing Sentaku’s agenda for the immediate future, he said:

“We should have each political party present their platforms about major issues on which no agreement has been reached, and hold a general election for choosing a policy-based government.”

He also stated during the press conference:

“We are aware that this is an extremely important year that will determine Japan’s future. Yet, looking at current conditions in the government, the ruling and opposition parties, and the Diet, we are forced to say that they are far removed from the citizens’ expectations…Our past group has promoted the verification and evaluation of the platforms of the political parties, but the situation today is that those activities are insufficient. The role of Sentaku will be to seek the parties to fulfill their responsibility to explain by formulating policies and actively expressing our opinions from the citizens’ perspective in the process of creating platforms.”

The politician turned professor is not leading a solitary charge. The roster, background, and views of other founding members of the group offer an intriguing glimpse of the yeasty ferment at work at the subnational level in Japan and the diversity of the country’s political and social thought. Here are profiles of some of the members.

Matsuzawa Shigefumi

Mr. Matsuzawa is in his second term as the governor of Kanagawa Prefecture (where the city of Yokohama is located). He is a graduate of the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, an academy for training a new generation of politicians with a long-term vision for the nation’s future. It was established in 1979 by Matsushita Konosuke, the founder of consumer electronics giant Matsushita Electric Industrial, when he became distressed by the direction of Japanese politics a generation ago.

A former member of the small Progressive Party (formed by the members of a slightly larger group who chose not to merge with the LDP), he became the youngest prefectural assembly member in Kanagawa history. Mr. Matsuzawa later joined the opposition DPJ and won election to the Diet, and was quickly enlisted into the party’s shadow cabinet. A proponent of Constitutional reform and a resolute stance against the North Korean abduction of Japanese citizens, he ran against Kan Naoto for the party leadership, but lost. He left the DPJ in 2003 and won election as governor later that year. His political hero is former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Mr. Matsuzawa describes his vision for Sentaku:

“The perpetual crises generated by the two major parties are not the way to save Japan. Our objective is to have the national government implement true reform in their platforms. We will pressure the political parties to create real platforms and ask the citizens to make a choice. If devolution continues, we can smash the centralized authority of the bureaucracy and create a dynamic Japan.”

Yamada Keiji

The Governor of the Kyoto Metropolitan District, Mr. Yamada has chaired a committee in the National Governors’ Conference focusing on the devolution of governmental authority.

Furukawa Yasushi

When elected governor of Saga Prefecture in 2003, he became the youngest governor in the country. Mr. Furukawa initially entered governmental service when he joined the former Ministry of Home Affairs, now the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. He has extensive experience in working with local governments to implement reorganization and promote local development. He was asked to consider running for governor of other prefectures, including Nagano Prefecture, where he was once assigned, but returned to serve in his home prefecture of Saga.

Higashikokubaru Hideo

The bien pensant pundits of Japan are quick to dismiss Mr. Higashikokubaru (on the left in the photo) because of his previous career as a comedian and the boorish, roughhouse behavior of his younger days. A former protégé of comedian, film director, and television personality Beat Takeshi, known internationally by his original name of Takeshi Kitano, the man once known as Sonomanma Higashi was arrested in 1986 when he got carried away with himself during a visit with his boss and a few other cohorts to the offices of a weekly magazine to complain about its coverage of Mr. Kitano.

After this and several other unflattering incidents, Mr. Higashikokubaru literally decided to clean up his act. He suspended public performances, started practicing Zen, and was admitted to Waseda University in 2000. By all accounts, his academic record was superb, and he graduated in 2004 at the age of 46. The subject of his graduation thesis was election campaigns. When the former governor of Miyazaki Prefecture, Ando Tadahiro, was arrested for bribery, Mr. Higashikokubaru saw his chance and returned to his childhood home to run for office, winning handily against an LDP-backed opponent.

His ability to handle a crisis was immediately tested by an outbreak of avian flu in his largely rural prefecture, which accounts for the production of 25% of the chickens consumed in Japan. He also assumed office at a time when scandals involving slush funds were coming to light throughout the country and the Kyushu region in particular. Mr. Higashikokubaru instructed prefectural employees to come clean about any potential problems. He suceeded beyond his expectations: through his efforts the prefecture recovered roughly 91.5 million yen (about $US 883,500) generated by illegal slush funds, exceeding the 76 million yen he had targeted. The money included cash returned by the disgraced former Governor Ando and the family of the late former Governor Matsukata Suketaka

While his celebrity is undoubtedly a factor, his constituents are thrilled by his no-frills style and his tireless promotion of the products of his prefecture; at one point last year his disapproval rating was under 2%. He has become famous nationally for using a phrase in the local dialect, “Miyazaki wo dogenkasen to ikan” (We must do something about Miyazaki.)

Mr. Higashikokubaru’s current efforts mesh perfectly with the objectives of Sentaku. While campaigning for election, the governor repeatedly emphasized that his goal was to achieve political reform in the prefecture and spread those reforms nationwide. Explaining the rationale for joining the group, he said:

“I can’t see any national vision or strategy. Isn’t it time to question the approach of the country as a whole, when politics is so stagnant and confused? This (Sentaku) is not a third force between the ruling and opposition parties. Both the opposition and the government parties should offer policies easily understood by the citizens, and allow them to be the standard by which a government is chosen. I want to speak to the national government from a regional perspective.”

He also said, “The reason (the group was formed) was dissatisfaction and distrust in the national government. It will not be possible (to put) regional finances (on a solid footing) without a debate on the consumption tax. The citizens are seeking a real forum for debate.”

Some have suggested that one flaw in Sentaku’s original membership roster was their failure to include a person associated with the media. This suggestion overlooks that Mr. Higashikokubaru is a media magnet who attracts publicity with little effort. (See here, here, and here for previous Ampontan articles about the governor.)

Ikeda Morio

Mr. Ikeda is the former president and chairman of Shiseido, the major cosmetics company, and is now a senior advisor to the firm. He was a member of the so-called Education Rebuilding Council, a group established by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo for the reform of Japanese education, which was since disbanded by his successor Mr. Fukuda.

Mogi Yuzaburo

Mr. Mogi is the chairman of the food products company Kikkoman. A graduate of the Columbia School of Business in 1961, he thus became the first Japanese to be awarded an MBA. Kikkoman enjoyed extraordinary success under his leadership. Mr. Mogi believes in training people with an international perspective for the era of globalization, and thinks the key to success for Japanese enterprises abroad is to form ties with local communities and rely on local personnel instead of sending Japanese from the home office.

Koga Nobuaki

Mr. Koga is the primary representative of organized labor. He is the former President of the Japanese Electrical, Electronic and Information Union and is now an official with Rengo, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation

Sasaki Takeshi

The former president of the University of Tokyo, Mr. Sasaki’s area of specialization is the history of Western political thought. He tried to reform the structure of the university (known in Japan for its conservative approach) but was defeated for reelection. He was awarded the Japanese Medal of Honor (Medal with Purple Ribbon) for his service.

Sentaku has succeeded in attracting more reform-minded local politicians to its cause since its inauguration six weeks ago. These include:

Terata Sukeshiro

The popular governor of Akita Prefecture, he initially ran at the request of DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro when the latter headed the small New Frontier party. He won despite the opposition of the LDP, which has continued since his election.

Kada Yukiko

Shiga Prefecture Governor Kada has a doctor’s degree in agriculture and is the fifth woman to serve as the governor of a Japanese prefecture. Still in her first term, she campaigned on a platform of freezing public works projects, including the construction of six dams and a new Shinkansen station. (This stance is often a winner among the Japanese public and just as often earns the enmity of the long-entrenched political interests allied with the construction industry.)

Her political philosophy as governor is that leaders at the local level should transcend political parties and treat the prefecture’s citizens as their party, echoing the same theme presented by Mr. Higashikokubaru in Miyazaki Prefecture. Neither of the two major parties supported her during her election campaign–the DPJ, ironically, because of her opposition to the Shinkansen station. She wound up with the support of the Social Democrats, a small party that contains what is left of the former Socialist Party, and defeated the candidate backed by the LDP, the DPJ, and New Komeito.

Ms. Kada already has succeeded in freezing the construction of the Shinkansen station by refusing to prepare a budget for the related expenditures, which nearly embroiled her in a lawsuit that sought to recover damages.

Sentaku’s membership also includes the nation’s youngest mayor, 35-year-old Kunisada Isato of Sanjo, Niigata.

Joining in late February was Kojima Zenkichi, the mayor of Shizuoka City. Mr. Kojima explained that Japan was in a critical period in the second stage of reform for devolution. He said he wanted to work with the group to increase regional authority now that debate at the national level is stalled, which has created a sense of crisis among local governments. The Diet, said Mr. Kojima, is tied up in the issue of the gasoline tax and the road funds and there is little discussion reform or devolution. Sentaku, he believes, is the means to get the Diet to pay more attention.

To be fair, not every local politician is on board. Itoh Yuichiro, the governor of Kagoshima Prefecture, carped to the press, “I don’t know why (Sentaku) is necessary. It’s the job of the mass media to conduct debate regarding various issues and to create a venue for the exchange of opinions.” (Since Mr. Itoh was speaking to a reporter, it should be no surprise that his interviewer failed to follow up by asking why the mass media has so dismally failed to fulfill this function.)

Diet Liaison Group

When Sentaku was launched in January, Mr. Kitagawa also said he would seek the formation of a group consisting of members of the national Diet to work together to implement the group’s goals for the next lower house election:

We also will call on Diet members of all parties who agree with our activities and aims to form a new federation among themselves. We can provide the MPs with a platform for the debate required.

The formation of that group was announced on 3 March with the participation of 110 members from four parties, much more than the originally anticipated 70. Unlike the main Sentaku group, this is expected to be a temporary body for promoting the group’s aims in the next lower house election, expected to be held later this year.

The point was explicitly made that the Diet liaison group was not created to promote political realignment, which is the defining trend in Japanese politics at the national level and the backdrop to the tactical maneuvers of both parties that are ostensibly related to national policy. Prominent DPJ Diet member Noda Yoshihiko had this to say on his participation: “I am not one of those seeking a political realignment. I want to form a government without the LDP. I am interested in (a system) in which governments are formed alternately by the two parties.”

Kyoto Governor Yamada also explained the need for this liaison group: “The opposition of central government agencies has prevented debate on devolution. This way we can avoid the distorted connection with (the bureaucracy).”

Not everyone is sanguine about the prospects of success for the Diet liaison group. In an editorial, the Nishinippon Shimbun wondered if it would be able to focus on policy-based reform, considering that most Diet members are conducting themselves with an eye on political realignment. The newspaper also wondered whether this group would subvert the goals of Sentaku by serving as the means to accelerate the creation of alliances of politicians of different parties and lead to talks for another grand coalition. Indeed, the newspaper reported that one MP from Kyushu was instructed by his faction leader to attend the inaugural meeting for the specific purpose of confirming who was present.

Regardless of how its relationship with the Diet evolves, Sentaku now counts among its members 144 heads of local government, including 13 of the 47 prefectural governors. They have formed four committees to examine policy alternatives, including one for Diet reform and one for the reform of the bureaucracy and political leadership. The group has without question established a beachhead for itself as a vehicle for people of intelligence and accomplishment throughout the country who have long been dismayed at the inability of national politicians and other leaders to see beyond their immediate interests and recognize that without change Japan is headed toward a dead end. (Indeed, I am aware of no similar group anywhere else in the Western world; certainly no such group with anything approaching the credentials of Sentaku exists in the United States)

In the days of the post-bubble economy, the Asahi Shimbun asked executives of 200 Japanese corporations who from the past 1,000 years of world history, regardless of nationality, would be most useful in overcoming Japan’s financial crisis. The winner of the poll? Sakamoto Ryoma, the man who midwifed the birth of the modern Japanese state.

Most of the public shares Sakamoto’s desire to have the country choose a thorough cleaning, once and for all. The enthusiasm for Sentaku evinced by local politicians of different political backgrounds shows that the spirit for bottom-up reform is still alive and well.

This time, they might finish the job that Sakamoto Ryoma started.

More on the voting age in Japan

THE PREVIOUS POST reports on the debate within Japan about lowering the voting age from 20 to 18 for national referendums on Constitutional amendments. The Democratic Party of Japan, the primary opposition party, pushed for that change in the bill eventually passed by the Diet, and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan compromised on the condition that a study be conducted about the effect it would have on other laws.

According to one report, the DPJ’s position was that 18- and 19-year-olds should be enfranchised for a national referendum because a Constitutional amendment would have a greater effect on their lives than an ordinary election.

Now comes word just yesterday from the Sankei Shimbun that the officers of a DPJ committee for promoting political reform will set up a subcommittee to mull the idea of setting 18 as the age for the right to vote in all elections in Japan, as well as using the Internet in elections and ending the current ban on door-to-door election canvassing. (The latter is prohibited to prevent vote buying.)

Why the party changed its mind on the voting age (if that’s what this represents), is not known, but there are two possible reasons. The first would be to bring Japanese practices in alignment with those in other countries. That’s an argument many Japanese find intrinsically appealing. The other is that the party, with its center-left tendencies, might hope it would gain an electoral advantage from teenaged voters. (It didn’t work out that way for the Democrats in American national elections when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18, however.)

Whatever the reason, the move by the DPJ demonstrates once again that whenever any political party anywhere says, “Just this once, and just for this purpose,” it’s safe to assume it won’t be long before they’re touting it as a universal principle.

Endnote: The party subcommittee will be chaired by Noda Yoshihiko, who has an interesting background. He was graduated from the elite Waseda University, and one of his first jobs was as an inspector for a municipal gas company. He is known as one of the most persuasive (and long-winded) speechmakers in the party.

Mr. Noda also takes an interest in science and technology, and is a member of the party’s “working team” to examine the military uses of outer space. He favors a change in the government’s Constitutional interpretation that outer space cannot be used for defensive purposes, placing him in his party’s hawkish wing.

Meet Kan Naoto–DPJ poster boy

KAN NAOTO is one of the founding members and the acting President of the Democratic Party of Japan, the country’s primary opposition party.

He will always be remembered for his term as Health Minister in 1996. At that time he was a member of a small, now defunct party in a governing coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party. To his everlasting credit, he forced the ministry to release documents showing the government failed to stop the use of HIV-tainted blood products for transfusions.

This was remarkable in a country where both politicians and bureaucrats are particularly loath to admit mistakes. It was an honorable and courageous act.

This propelled him into the forefront of Japanese politics, and he was chosen to serve as the head of the DPJ from 2002 to 2004. That means he would have been prime minister had his party won a majority in a lower house election.

He stepped down from that position in 2004, however, when it was revealed that he failed to make payments into the pension fund while serving as minister. Problems with the pension fund are the third rail of Japanese politics, and improper handling of one’s accounts usually means temporary exile (at the minimum) from significant political positions. (Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo resigned as Chief Cabinet Secretary during the Koizumi Administration for the same reason.)

Mr. Kan’s pension problems were exacerbated by a particularly poor performance on a live Sunday morning television program featuring political topics. The excuses he tried to make for his behavior were so patently false that his position became untenable. He resigned as head of the party within the week.

He is still a leading figure within the DPJ, however, making him one of the most