Japanese mull Koizumi

July 11, 2004

Junichiro Koizumi is the longest-serving PM of Japan since Yasuhiro Nakasone's five-year term ended in Nov. 1987. Since then, eleven men have governed Japan. Today, Japanese voters go to the polls to vote on the upper house of the diet. As in most other parliamentary systems, the lower house choses the PM, not the upper; but a significant loss of seats in the Diet would constitute severe pressure on the PM to step down (Channel News Asia). Polls suggest his support ratings have fallen below 40%, which the BBC blames on his party's pension reform plan (higher premia, lower benefits) and Japanese troops in Iraq. On the other hand, in April this year the LDP won three by-elections in an apparent show of support (BBC).

Readers unfamiliar with Japanese politics should be advised that Japanese politics since 1952 has been dominated by the LDP, a party created by the Occupation forces in order to absorb conservative and business interests, while keeping a firm detachment from the hypernationalist ideologues. Since then, the LDP has presided over the regimentation, then implosion, of Japanese economic life. The LDP has survived because of the electoral system that favors multiple opposition parties, rather than a single one. Since 1998, however, six of the opposition parties have merged (into the DPJ, or Minshuto), while the far left parties have dwindled (e.g., the SDP). It is possible that Minshuto will disintegrate as so many big mergers have; but no other party stands as good a chance of becoming a serious rival for the LDP; in the past, the LDP has been defeated only by huge unwieldy left-right coalitions that disintegrated with the first crisis.

Two-Party era for Japan?

July 12, 2004

UPDATE: As of 6:24PM GMT/2:24AM Tokyo time, the LDP is reported to have held 49 seats, losing one; its coalition partner, New Komeito, gained one seat. Hence, the ruling coalition has the same number of seats. Nevertheless, the Minshuto (Democratic Party) has won 12 more seats. (KYODO) Despite the poor showing of the LDP in Sunday's elections, PM Junichiro Koizumi has ruled out the possibility of standing down. The elections were for the 247-seat upper house of the Diet (the House of Counselors). Of the 121 seats up for grabs, the DPJ has secured 46 seats, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won 45 seats, while Komeito, a coalition partner of the LDP, captured nine. In view of the gradual rate of change in Japan's upper house (half of the seats up for election every three years), this reflects a decisive concentration of opposition power into the hands of a single powerful party (Mainichi Shinbun). The LDP fell five seats short of its target, but PM Koizumi has apparently abandoned his promise (?) to resign. One could argue that his target of 51 seats was unduly optimistic.

Honestly, I don't think this says very much about Koizumi's controversial plan to send Japanese soldiers to Iraq. The plan was unpopular, naturally; but the New Komeito, which normally resists US military initiatives on principle, stood by its coalition partner. Moreover, when Japanese nationals were taken hostage in Iraq, Koizumi's party won three by-elections. However, the results emerging from the Japanese press appear to be worsening. I gather that the LDP's take must represent less than 38% of the popular vote, a devastating result in view of the sub-40% turnout (in nearly all countries, a low turnout pushes the outcome to the right; in Japan, such a low turnout would favor the LDP).

For those interested in analysis of rival political systems, the Japanese model is a dream for champions of "third parties." We can use the term "2-party system" to describe a political landscape where only two parties have a shot of winning a majority, or electing the chief executive; a 2.5 party system is one in which the third party has little chance of heading a coalition, but does act as kingmaker (such as the Freedom Party in Germany). The UK has a 2.25 party system, in which there is a third party with a significant number of votes (also known as the LDP!), but that 3rd party is seldom even a kingmaker. Japan was historically know as a 1.25-party ssytem, in which there were dozens of "3rd parties", but no 2nd party.

The reason, of course, was that the LDP had been created, first in 1946, later finalized in 1955, as a coalition of two conservative-but-anti-militarist political parties (much like the Christian Democrats in Germany; in fact, one of my textbooks on Japanese political history refers to the LDP as the "Christian Democrats"!) The constitution of Japan, however, vested most executive power in the lower house of the Diet, which has almost 40% of seats awarded on the basis of proportional representation. This is somewhat restrictive, since the 180-seats are divided among 11 regions; and that allows parties to run multiple candidates for the same seat, leading to huge campaign budgets and elaborate booster committees for candidates. This has long been associated with scandal, since Japanese politicans are so devoted to a small number of big-spending interests that support rival candidates (in a multi-seat district race, you aren't running against a single opponent; and your rival from the same party is likely to be a bigger threat than rivals from other parties). As a result, tiny far-left or far-left factions have to be cultivated by the big players, and those tiny loony-tunes with their trucks and loudspeakers, are surprisingly powerful despite the compartively cosmpolitan, enlightened character of the Japanese eletorate.