I realise most of you probably don't
care about politics, never mind Japanese politics, so I'll wrap up
this series as briefly as I can before returning to what I do best. I
originally promised an overview of the various contenders for PM, but
once it became clear Abe was going to win I thought it might be more
interesting to examine how things stand after the fact. Even still,
we're going to focus on the leaders, because that's the part of
politics that I like best.
Abe Shinzou, Jimintou (LDP) – 294
seats
You have to give
Abe some credit here for winning such a massive victory. You could
chalk it up to voter apathy, or to the lack of competition, or to the
current political climate or anything else you want to spin it
towards, but a two-thirds majority is a job well done as far as I'm
concerned. On the other hand, just about any criticism that could be
levied at him has some degree of merit. He's vapid and bland, a
career politician from a family of career politicians, he's got oddly
shaped bones in his closet, and while he's no Ishihara or Asou he's
not the most articulate or exciting speaker, either. What he does
have going for him is experience, in particular his one-year PM stint
in which he demonstrated his foreign policy prowess in the area of
the North Korea kidnapping crisis. Well, actually Koizumi started
that, but Abe finished it out, and now the Japanese public tends to
view that at his big accomplishment. And if you're going to be
defined by just one thing, you could do worse than “saved some
people from being tortured to death.”
Noda Yoshihiko, Minshutou (DPJ) –
57 seats
This
was a huge blow, funny enough pretty much a reversal of the last
election, in which the Minshutou smashed the Jimintou. And like in
the aftermath of that election, in which Asou took responsibility for
the catastrophic loss and resigned, Noda has announced his withdrawal
from the party's ruling council, so we're now waiting to see who ends
up as leader of the opposition. Not that it'll make all that much of
a difference anyway, what with that huge gap they left the Jimintou
to stretch their legs in. It looks like he won't be retiring from
politics entirely, though, as he did win his own seat, and it sounds
like he intends to continue legislature service as an ordinary
legislature guy.
Ishihara Shintarou, Ishin no Kai
(Japan Restoration Party) – 43 seats
This is where
things get a little more fun. With a clear winner almost from the
beginning, the big story this election was the formation of the new
Ishin no Kai party, and what they were going to do about the
election, and who was going to lead, and what the hell was on their
minds exactly. Well, now we have the answers to those first two
questions, and as you can see, things worked out pretty well for
them, as they're now within striking range of the Minshutou. In a
surprise move, Hashimoto, the Mayor of Oosaka, ceded leadership to
Ishihara, his ostensible senpai and decrepit lunatic of a co-founder.
This was a bit of a personal disappointment for me since Hashimoto is
so much more charismatic and assholish, although, it may be a
strategic move on his part since Ishihara is going to retire or die
within the next like ten seconds, at which point Hashimoto can take
charge, make use of the groundwork Ishihara has lain, and appear that
much more legit in the long run.
Yamaguchi Natsuo, Komeitou (New
Komeitou) – 31 seats
This
is where my initial premise falls apart as I realise I only know the
Big Names, and start focussing on the parties instead. I mentioned
this before but it's still funny: Japan's ruling party is right-wing;
its opposition was formed by refugees from the ruling right-wing
party; the third-place party is made up of wacko right-wingers; and
the fourth-place party is a right-wing religious offshoot party. But
at least it's Buddhist, which is a nice change of pace. Oh, right,
and it's called the Komeitou in Japanese but the New Komeitou in
English. That isn't stupid or anything.
Watanabe Yoshimi, Minna no Tou (Your
Party) – 18 seats
Everyone's
Party.
Kada Yukiko, Nippon Mirai no Tou
(Tomorrow Party) – 9 seats
Japan Party of the
Future? Party of the Japanese Future? Future Party Japan? Hey, I
think we've just hit upon a great title for an anime, or album, or
band, or blog. Have at it. Also, they're down from 61 seats. It's bad
to go from heavily relevant to significantly less relevant, it must
be awful to go from barely relevant to meaningless.
Shii Kazuo, Nihon Kyouzantou
(Japanese Communist Party) – 8 seats
Down one seat. A
minor tactical loss, but, with the Jimintou's landslide victory,
strategic devastation.
Fukushima Mizuho, Shakai Minshutou
(Social Democratic Party) – 2 seats
Down from five.
Very lonely.
Jimi Shouzaburo, Kokumin Shintou
(People's New Party) – 1 seat
One seat. One.
Also, note how the staunchly left-wing parties all kind of bunch up
near the end? That's symptomatic of a general inability to form a
united leftist front. The Minshutou is theoretically centrist and the
Jimintou has its moments, but if they keep splitting the leftist
votes they'll never get anything they really want. Admittedly, if
they all amalgamated tomorrow they'd still only have 11 seats, but
maybe in some future election they'd be able to win a handful more if
they weren't forcing their base to choose between the socialists and
communists.
As
was the case prior to the election, I'm still mostly interested in
Hashimoto and wondering if he'll do anything spectacular. And to
reiterate something else I said before, it's my personal wish to see
Abe either bookend the one-year Prime Minister thing by being both
the first and last, or to break the tradition he himself started and
actually last a while. Not sure it's wise to bet on either, though.
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