Tomorrow, an election in Japan.
Tobias Harris in The New Republic:
In September 2005, Junichiro Koizumi, then Japan’s prime minister and leader of the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), defied expectations and led his party to a smashing victory over the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in that year’s general election. The LDP won 296 of 480 seats in the House of Representatives, the first absolute majority for the ruling party since Japan introduced a new electoral system in 1994–and, together with its junior coalition partner Komeito, the LDP-led government wielded a supermajority for the first time since the party’s creation in 1955.
Now Koizumi, three years removed from the premiership and retired from politics, is surveying an entirely different political scene: an almost certain defeat for the LDP on the same magnitude as its victory in 2005. It will probably lose its position as the largest party in the Japanese House of Representatives for the first time in its history.
Polls by leading dailies in advance of the August 30th vote all point in the same direction, predicting that the DPJ can win at least 300 seats, coming close to a supermajority of its own, while the LDP is in danger of falling below 100 seats–with a number of senior LDP politicians, who have rarely had to sweat reelection, fighting for their political lives against young and (often female) DPJ challengers.
Here is a quick tutorial on seven words you might find helpful to follow the Japanese election on Sunday.
どぶ板選挙 （Dobuita Senkyo) means a grassroots election campaign. The term became popular to illustrate how veteran lawmakers from the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), struggling in the campaign and worried about losing their previously safe seats, have been running around in their constituency to meet as many voters in person as possible. ”Dobuita” means wooden boards laid across a ditch to cover and “senkyo” means election. So the term suggests that candidates visit voters door-to-door, walking on the “dobuita” to enter homes. But the Japanese election law forbids candidates to visit individual houses during the official campaign period.
ねじれ国会 (Nejire Kokkai) means twisted parliament. The term has become a buzzword since the opposition Democrats and their allies won the control of the less powerful upper house of parliament in 2007, allowing them to delay bills and jamming up the government’s policy plans.
だるま (Daruma). Japanese use daruma dolls, which are usually bright red and shaped like a human head, to seek luck for everything from passing exams, finding love, to winning elections. The tradition is for election candidates to paint in one eye and then if they win, paint in the other. Sales of daruma dolls have risen as candidates seek a little help ahead of the election.
小沢チルドレ ン (Ozawa children): This expression comes from “Koizumi children”, a term for candidates picked by charismatic former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi four years ago to run against his party rivals who opposed his postal reforms. Former Democrats leader Ichiro Ozawa, who in charge of the party’s election campaign strategy, has created his own “Ozawa children” (or Ozawa girls) by sending young, often female, candidates to run against veteran, LDP lawmakers.
政権選択 (Seiken Sentaku): Many Japanese media outlets have called this election an election of “seiken sentaku”, which literally means choosing a government. If you think about it, every election is about choosing a new government but the term reflects how hard it has been to even think about an opposition victory in past elections in Japan.
世襲 (Seshu) means hereditary. It has become a topical term as criticism grows of the practice of influential political families handing over power in their local district to the next generation.
惨敗 (Zanpai) means a huge loss. Polls suggest the opposition Democrats might win two-thirds of the seat in the parliament’s lower house in Sunday’s election, although analysts say the victory may be less overwhelming than forecast.
More from Tobias Harris at Foreign Policy:
The stark shift in political tides is perhaps best described as the LDP’s loss, more so than the DPJ’s gain. But the opposition party has transformed itself from an inchoate also-ran to a disciplined and united political movement. That change is mostly due to one man: Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ’s recently disgraced and highly powerful former leader. And though he won’t be at the head of the party, his role within it is one of the big questions facing the DPJ as it looks toward victory this month.
Ozawa has loomed large in Japanese politics since the end of the Cold War. He took over his father’s seat in the Japanese Diet, the country’s legislature, in 1969 and became a popular LDP leader in the late 1980s. From early in his career, he was the political godson of Kakuei Tanaka, the legendary leader who refined the LDP’s political machine and paved over Japan in the process.
By the early 1990s, Ozawa became disenchanted with the LDP’s pork-barrel politics. He started advocating for the “normalization” of Japanese security policy — a commitment of forces outside Japan, as with Operation Desert Storm. Most of all, he became convinced that the country needed more vigorous democracy, in which parties competed for votes by crafting the best policies. Ozawa gathered a group of loyalists who shared his ideas. Eventually, his faction pulled out of the LDP entirely, toppling its government in 1993 — the first time since 1955.
Ozawa, though not in the Cabinet, was the key player in the short-lived non-LDP coalition government. (The LDP regained power in 1997.) He supported the fragile coalition from behind the scenes, helping to broker the most important political deals. Additionally, he published Blueprint for a New Japan, a highly influential manifesto, calling for electoral reform and more assertive foreign-affairs and defense policies.
As a fulfillment of his Blueprint, he sought to build a stable and strong opposition party throughout the 1990s. This led to a few misfires. He helped create the New Frontier Party, which contested one general election before dissolving in 1997. Then he supported the Liberal Party, already composed mostly of politicians loyal to him. It briefly joined the LDP in a tumultuous coalition government, but never gained political traction.
Dov Zakheim at Foreign Policy:
The DPJ has repeatedly called for a more equal relationship with the United States, and some observers fear that its ascension to power will lead to its demand for a renegotiation of the cost sharing provisions of the US-Japanese Guam agreement that could result in the agreement’s abrogation. The withdrawal to Guam may well be delayed, if not halted, but less as a result of actions by a DPJ-led government than by legislation initiated by Congressman Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) to reserve 70 percent of all military construction jobs on Guam for American workers. Should the U.S. Congress pass Abercrombie’s initiative, the resulting increase in the cost of developing Guam’s infrastructure may well put the project on ice, given the increasing pressures on the US defense budget. Should there be a long-term delay, however, the DPJ is unlikely to object, much less offer to pour more Japanese funds into the effort.
On the other hand, the DPJ is unlikely to take a passive stance with respect to the relocation of the Marine Air Station from Futenma to Camp Schwab in Nago, both in Okinawa prefecture. The arrangement is highly unpopular in Japan, especially in Okinawa, where the local administration seeks to relocate the Marines to a more remote area off the island’s coast The United States has resisted any change to the overall arrangement regarding the relocation to Guam, of which the move to Camp Schwab is an integral part. Any change would not only make training for the Marine Air Wing exceedingly difficult, but could result in demands for changes to other parts of the agreement, which has never been popular with the US military. For its part, the DPJ is holding firm on its demand for a renegotiation of the Futenma arrangement, and it will face little domestic opposition if it walks away from the deal regarding the Air Station’s relocation.
All in all, the DPJ’s foreign and security policy stance is unlikely to bring about fundamental changes in the relationship with the United States, or for that matter, with other countries in East Asia. The real danger to the US-Japanese relationship lies not in what Tokyo might do, but what Washington might not do. Since it became clear that Japan Inc. would not buy up the United States, past Administrations have tended to pay far more attention to China, often treating Japan as an afterthought, despite pious promises of developing a closer relationship with what is supposedly our closest Asian ally. With the DPJ in power, led by personalities who might be perceived in Washington as less accommodating to American interests in Asia and elsewhere than their Liberal Democrat predecessors, U.S. policymakers may be tempted once again to pay less attention to Japan than objective American interests call for. That would be a serious mistake. It is, moreover, a mistake that is easily avoidable, and it should not take place.
John Feffer at Huffington Post:
Political scientists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out why Europe, but not East Asia, managed to overcome internal animosities to create a regional organization after World War II. In Europe, Germany played a key role in apologizing and providing reparations for its conduct during the war. It also spent a great deal of political capital to engage East Germany, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union in a multi-tiered Ostpolitik. Japan, by contrast, has continued to be coy about its wartime conduct and, except for occasional forays, has spent very little political capital to build an East Asian community. The bilateral relationship with Washington has always taken precedence.
The Democratic Party might change all that. With words, symbolic acts, and behind-the-scenes diplomacy, Hatoyama might steer Japan back to Asia.
This is far from a done deal. Because it has promised sweeping political and economic changes, however, Japan’s opposition party may have little time or energy left over to help create a new East Asian community that rivals the European Union, however beneficial this development might be for Japan’s economic and geopolitical power. Also, a reduction in the alliance with Washington might push Tokyo toward building up its own military capabilities as a substitute. And that won’t win any friends in Beijing or Seoul.
Still, with the prospect of a Democratic Party victory on Sunday, it is pleasant to contemplate not only a brand new Japan but a brand new Asia as well.
More at HuffPo
UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias
UPDATE #2: Daniel Larison
Around The Sphere 