2019 Japan Unified Local Elections(April) and Upper House elections (July 21st)

[jaichind]

I can understand why DPP wouldn’t want to merge, but why are SDP and CDP still individual parties?

SDP base these days are in the South and fairly rural.  So SDP-CDP might not be that different in terms of ideology the SDP view that CDP is too urban bases would be a problem plus SDP being the successor party of SPJ gives it a historical legacy that it might not want to throw away.

Anyway these merger talks

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=post;quote=7096005;topic=298240.650;num_replies=651;sesc=ab9e995c3a96f7e2d1998839d333afd6

always tend to take place toward the end of he year.  The reason is after New Years the government subsidies for political parties are doled out based on the number of MPs a party has on Jan 1st.  So the thinking is "if we all merge we can get a very large bloc of money !!!" followed by "wait, we actually do not agree on policy and even if we do not merge we will still get the same amount of money but just spread out over several parties"   Of course there is an argument of economy of scale argument that organizational cost overhead of a party is such so that if all like minded parties unite the combined money can be spent more efficiently.

[jaichind]

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan-s-progressive-upstart-rattles-political-establishment

"Japan's progressive upstart rattles political establishment"

There is talk of RS leader 山本太郎(Yamamoto Tarō) running for Tokyo governor next year.  The article I think overestimates  his chances even if the the opposition-JCP consolidates behind him.  The reason is the LDP tends to back the Center or Center-Right incumbent in governor/mayor elections even if the LDP ran against said incumbent in the previous elections.  LDP-KP are most likely to back Koike and with de facto JRP support Koike should defeat 山本太郎(Yamamoto Tarō) with ease even if it became a 1-to-1 battle.  Koike would have lost some of the novelty factor since 2016 but if LDP-KP and JRP back her she should win.

[Former President tack50]

I wonder if the 2020 Olympics will give Abe and/or the LDP a nice approval boost and Abe will call an election for late 2020 or early 2021.

After all the Socialists here benefited quite a bit from the 1992 Olympics, which won them the 1993 elections.

[jaichind]

I wonder if the 2020 Olympics will give Abe and/or the LDP a nice approval boost and Abe will call an election for late 2020 or early 2021.

After all the Socialists here benefited quite a bit from the 1992 Olympics, which won them the 1993 elections.

That is exactly the Abe/LDP plan.  That is why most do not buy the latest snap election rumors.

[urutzizu]

I could actually see the opposite narrative working better, that returning the strong and stable incumbent Government is needed to see the Olympics through. This argument was instrumental in returning Korean pro-military President Roh Tae-woo (노태우) in 1987, ahead of the Seoul Olympics. Given the Cultural Similarities, the Idea that screwing up an Olympics would be perhaps the worst way of collectively losing face, a nightmare in E.Asian cultures, and the Fact that the Japanese Opposition is seen as anything but a safe pair of hands, I could see this working very well. 

[jaichind]

KP leader 山口 那津男(Yamaguchi Natsuo) just stated that Abe will likely hold a lower house election after the Olympics. 

I guess, KP, correctly assumes that with time and the aura of a successful Olympics Abe Approval support levels will rise from Dec 2019 levels