Japan 2016 - July 10

[Vega]

I have to say that it interesting how young the candidates in the by-elections are. Could this be a trend in the Councillors election and beyond?

[jaichind]

I have to say that it interesting how young the candidates in the by-elections are. Could this be a trend in the Councillors election and beyond?

It is not the case in this election but many young candidates in elections in Japan are usually children of prominent politicians.   Of course there is an etiquette to this.  Children (or spouse) of a powerful politicians are not allowed to enter politics until the patriarch has passed away or retired.  Much like Victorian Era rules about non-married sisters being out in society there is only one allowed per family at any point in time.  Since there is a seniority system on being being in the cabinet around the number of times you are elected, the best way for some to make it to PM is a) be from a prominent political family b) have the patriarch pass away early in his life c) the child enter politics early as a result (often in the late 20s or early 30s) d) win reelection many many times which means being in the cabinet and then rise up in the ranks  e) become qualified to become PM before you are too old.  This is mostly what happen to Abe  and Ozawa (although Ozawa never made it to PM because he made too many enemies.)

[jaichind]

Due to the 熊本(Kumamoto) earthquakes the chances of a mid-term Lower House double election at the same time with the Upper House election has gone up.  Abe had state that he will go ahead with the consumption tax increase in 2017 unless there is some sort of emergency and gave the Lehman Brothers crisis of 2008 and earthquake of 2011 as examples of emergency.  Now we have our earthquake in theory Abe can now delay the 2017 consumption tax increase with the logic that the earthquake will reduce economic activity and that Japan cannot handle such a tax increase.  He can also then call a Lower House election just like in 2014 to give him a mandate to do so.  Main problem is that latest media surveys (most of which I claim has a pro-LDP house effect) has LDP-KP going from 325 seats won in 2014 to around 280 seats if a lower house election were to take place.  I guess Abe and the LDP will wait until the Hokkaido 5th district by-election to see the level the LDP strength before deciding.

[jaichind]

In 愛知(Aichi) it seems ORA and TCJ has agreed to an alliance and back a common candidate.   Being that TCJ already nominated a candidate most likely ORA will back the TCJ candidate.  This puts pressure on DP.  Aichi is a 4- member district.   LDP and KP has nominated one candidate each and given the size of the LDP-KP vote based both of them are a lock.  DP has also nominated 2 candidates, JCP has nominated one candidate, and now TCJ-ORA also has nominated candidate.  All 4 now have a chance at the remaining two seats.  DP should capture at least one of the remaining two but vote distribution of these remaining 4 candidates plus the SDP and PJK candidates will determine the last winner.  It is not clear how big the TCJ vote base is in a national (versus a local) election and how much that voting base overlap with the ORA vote base.  This election will hinge on the answer to that question.   

[jaichind]

I keep on writing about how many candidate each party nominates mainly because it makes a big difference in multi member seats.  From Upper House elections past there is a famous LDP disaster which took place in Hokkaido 1974.  Back then KP was an opposition party and considered somewhat radical left opposition.  There were some loose attempts by JSP JCP and KP to try to coordinate their campaigns and there were even some attempts at joint candidates on 1- or 2- member districts (like today.) 

In Hokkaido which was a 4- member district this did not really take place given the large number of seats available so JSP nominated 2 candidates while JCP and KP each nominated one candidate.  LDP's plan given that Hokkaido was one of its weaker districts even though the opposition were not well coordinated it is best it just nominates 2 candidates and lock in 2 out of 4.  But at the last minute the local chapter of the LDP insisted on nominating a third candidate which fairly strong hawkish-revisionist positions.  He ran as a LDP-backed independent.  This actually gave the JSP JCP and KP the incentive to try to coordinate their campaign.  The result was a disaster for the LDP.

1974 Hokkaido

JCP           15.7%  (elected)                                   
JSP           15.6%  (elected)
JSP           15.3%  (elected)
KP             14.2% (elected)
LDP          13.8%
LDP          13.6%
Ind(LDP)   11.8%
 
So with 39.2% of the vote the LDP ended with no seats.

When these seats were for re-election in 1980 the local LDP learned its lesson.  The LDP nominated 2 candidates as planned and won 2 seats as expected.

1980 Hokkaido

LDP          20.7%   (elected)
LDP          19.4%   (elected)
JSP           15.2%  (elected)
JCP           15.2%  (elected)                                   
JSP           14.4% 
KP            14.3%

1980 was a better year for LDP than in 1974 overall at the national level but in Hokkaido the relative balance of power were mostly unchanged with LDP now winning 40.3% of the vote versus 39.2% in 1974 but won 2 seats instead of 0 because it was wiser in nomination strategy.   

[jaichind]

Most media outlets came out with their analysis of the Hokkaido 5th district by-election this for this Sunday.  All of them are calling it neck-to-neck and are split on which way the election is leaning.  All things equal it seems LDP has a slight edge especially in light of the earthquake whose rescue efforts put less focus on various troubles of the Abe regime (like TPP which is a big deal in Hokkaido as an agriculture prefecture) and put focus on government rescue efforts.

ORA had a gaffe with respect to the earthquakes where ORA general secretary 片山 虎之助(Katayama Toranosuke) made a comment along the lives of "the earthquake changed the political discourse so it came at a good time."  He had to quickly walk it back but the damage to ORA seems to be done.

[jaichind]

Magazine 週刊現代 or Shūkan Gendai (Modern Weekly) Business came out with their projection on what a double election would look like.  It seems fairly negative on LDP's chances based on successful DP-JCP alliance, a swing away from LDP-KP, and ORA mostly being a dud outside of Osaka with anti-LDP votes consolidating around DP.  It has



Which would translate into for Lower House where LDP-KP would be reduced to a very narrow majority

           District       PR         Total
LDP       167         58          225    
KP            6          26           32
DP         105         64         169
JCP           1          19           20
ORA          5          12           17
SDP          1            1            2
PLP          2            0             2
Others     8            0             8

Overall, these sort of PR seat results would imply that LDP-KP vote share would be around 41% or even lower as the ORA could have many stranded votes in PR section outside Kinki where it has some support but not enough to cross the threshold to get seats which in turn would push up everyone else's seat share relative to their vote share including the LDP-KP.  These same PR seat results would also imply that DP would be around 36%-37% in terms of vote share which would be a complete shock.

For Upper House it has (and it is a shame it does not break out the PR seat and district seats)

LDP            44
KP              14
DP              45
JCP              5
ORA             6
AEJ             0
SDP             2
PLP              2
OSMP          1
Ind.            2

Frankly there lots of things that seems fishy about this projection other than it being to optimistic about how well a DP-JCP alliance can work on the ground.   At lot of these numbers seems inconsistent.  Namely

1) If JCP PR seat count for Lower House is 19 then the JCP PR vote share is most likely around 10%-11%.  But in Upper House they only project 5 seats for JCP.  Knowing that JCP is for sure going to win one of the Tokyo District seats (with 6 up for grab and JCP vote base being very disciplined) then that leaves JCP winning 4 PR seats in the Upper House which would more imply JCP getting around 8%-9% of the PR vote.  Even if we accept the JCP voter might tactically vote on PR section as well it is much more likely that JCP will over-perform in the Upper House PR section (which is an all Japan zone so the threshold for getting seats is low) whereas the PR section in the Lower House is by region making the threshold for getting seats much higher..

2) It has SDP getting 2 Upper House seats.  This seems implausible.  SDP does not have any prospects of winning a district seat in the Upper House so the 2 has to come from PR.  But that means that SDP PR vote share would be around 4%-5% which does not seem very likely when last few election cycles it has been in the 2% range.  With the narrative of opposition consolidation around DP in this poll a surge of SDP to 4%-5% seems even less likely.  One possibility is that in 大分(Ōita) the DP-JCP opposition unity candidate which is still being negotiated and most likely a DP candidate might end up being a SDP candidate or DP running as SDP candidate given that Ōita is the one prefecture where SDP has significant strength.  

3) It has ORA at 6 seats in the Upper House.  As long as ORA still retained some of its base on Kinki it should in theory capture 2 大阪(Osaka) and 1 兵庫(Hyōgo) district seat.  If it does not and DP-JCP can work out alliances deals in both prefectures then ORA could be reduced to just 1 Osaka district seat.  In that situation ORA will have 5 PR seats which in turn would imply a PR vote share of around 10-11%. Alternatively ORA could win 2 district seats and have 4 PR seats which would imply a PR vote share of  8%-9%.  I guess all this is possible.  My main issue with this projection is that I find it hard to believe that DP-JCP would get their act together (and withdraw candidates they already nominated)  to prevent ORA from winning 3 district seats.  But if that comes to pass then ORA would be at 3 PR seats which imply a ORA PR vote share of around 7% which I find too low.  I would think that given the DP-JCP alliance the Center-Right anti-LDP DP voter would most likely vote ORA so ORA should not be that low.

4) It has PLP winning 2 seats in Upper House.  Hard to figure out which 2.  It is clear PLP will win in 岩手(Iwate).  To fit the narrative the PLP should also win the tossup seat in 新潟(Niigata) where the PLP candidate is the opposition unity candidate.  But that would leave PLP with no PR seats which is possible but seems to contradict the narrative.  In 2013 LDP landslide PLP came very close to winning 1 PR seat.  For PLP in 2016 to do almost as bad as 2013 given the turnaround in the election climate as per this poll also seems contradictory.  

This projection has 2 independents winning.  Since this is projecting DP led opposition doing much better than expected then the 2 independents winning must be the second DP candidate in 愛知(Aichi) who is running as an independent which will now win the second DP seat in Aichi and the ex-DPJ ex-incumbent of  山形(Yamagata) who left DPJ but now is running as an independent with all opposition support.  The LDP backed independent in 神奈川(Kanagawa) under this projection is not expected to win the 3rd out of 4 Kanagawa seat.

[jaichind]

Ok. I was able to take a deep dive in the Lower House projections that 週刊現代 or Shūkan Gendai (Modern Weekly) Business came out with that had LDP+KP reduced to 257 out of 475 seats.  I was able to completely reverse engineer how they computed the FPTP seats and I have a good idea how they did the PR section.  On the whole I like their implied methodology on PR section but their FPTP projection is very poor and looks like the work from a first year college student getting involved into phenology.  

On the PR section it seems what they did was to look at all the recent polls on party support (like NHK) do some un-skewing like do (what I do is take the NHK poll for LDP+KP and add 1%-2% and that is the LDP-KP PR vote and I double the NHK DPJ vote and that is the DPJ PR vote share etc etc) to derive that LDP-KP will be around 41% in terms of PR.  They also figure KP will keep its vote share from 2014 while it is LDP that will take a large swing in terms of PR vote share loss from 2014.  From there they assume that some of the JCP PR vote will swing to DP due to the DP-JCP alliance and also assume that ORA will flop outside of Kinki.  And then all the rest they just give to DP which ends up being in the mid to high thirties.  While I cannot be sure they are right there is nothing wrong with what they have done in the sense that they get to make such calls on what the voting trend will be like relative to 2014.

The main issue I have with this is with their FPTP projections.  I was able to derive how they went about it.  What they did was to look at the 2014 LDP-KP vote in each district.  They then looked at the 2014 JIP candidate and see if that candidate joined ORA or stayed in JIP which merged into DP.  If the 2014 JIP candidate ended up DP, then they added that vote share to DPJ PLP SDP and JCP vote share in that district.  If not they they only added up  DPJ PLP SDP and JCP vote share for that district.  They they compared that number to the LDP-KP vote share in that district.  If that number is greater than LDP-KP vote share then they gave that seat to opposition bloc and if it was smaller then they give the seat to LDP-KP.  While the result they came out with might end up being accurate they made many assumptions which will end up underestimating and overestimating the opposition vote bloc vote share.  They are

1) If LDP-KP PR vote is going from 46.8% in 2014 to 41% then that must manifest itself in a swing against LDP-KP in the district vote as well.  So just using the LDP-KP 2014 district vote as a reference to compare to the potential opposition vote size is wildly inaccurate.
2) It assumes that DP (which included the original JIP vote share in some cases) JCP PLP and SDP vote shares are completely transferable without leakage to LDP-KP.  The fact DP-PLP-SDP-JCP will have a joint opposition candidate in every seat means some anti-JCP DP voters will defect to LDP-KP or not vote as well some anti-DP JCP voters might not turn out.
3) It ignores PFG which also ran in many districts in 2014.  If FPG which is now PJK is a lot weaker in 2016 versus 2014 as per their own projection in PR, then PJK is unlikely to run candidates in so many districts or even get as many votes.  Most of the 2014 PFG vote will go to LDP-KP or ORA if ORA is running which this analysis does not take into account.
4) It makes the assumption that the 2014 JIP district is the personal property of the JIP candidate so when that JIP candidate ended up in DP all that 2014 JIP candidate vote in said district all transfers into DP or opposition alliance.  And if said JIP candidate end up joining ORA then that 2014 district vote ends up in which I must assume is the ORA candidate or if there is no ORA candidate it ends up in null space (neither to LDP-KP nor DP led opposition bloc.)

Now 1) will most likely cancel out 2) 3) 4) so perhaps their projection might end up being correct in the aggregate.  It just seems that for a magazine with significant resources to publish a "cutting edge" and "exclusive" projection they can invest a bit more resources into this.  Some 2014 election data including the PR vote shares  at each district level plus some excel formulas to simulate some reasonable assumptions on vote share flows can give you a much more smarter vote share calculation engine without that much more work.

This is pretty sad.

[jaichind]

It seems that in 愛知(Aichi) ORA will back the TCJ candidate but TCJ is cool on a ORA-TCJ merger.  TCJ's objection that the ORA's name which has Osaka in it make it hard for TCJ which is a Aichi regional party to merge with it.  As for chances for victory for the ORA backed TCJ candidate, many observers gives it a solid shot at winning the 4th seat from DP.  I am skeptical it can do well when a PJK candidate is expected to split the anti-LDP center-right vote.

Likewise in 広島(Hiroshima) a fairly popular local personality is running on the ORA ticket and there were hopes that she can win the second seat from DP in this 2- seat district.  She ran in 2013 for JRP and got 15% of the vote.  Unless there is a total collapse of the DP candidate it is unlikely she can win.  Furthermore PJK is also running a candidate which further splits her vote base.   

[jaichind]

Being that Tokyo has become a 6 member district this has attracted many candidates out of the political mainstream (which I still count various small LDP or DPJ splinters which are now mostly defunct but still choose to try out their luck in Tokyo)  to run since the threshold for winning is lower. Although I write about these minor candidates because they interesting even though none of them have the slightest chance to get above say 3% of the vote.

又吉 光雄  (Matayoshi Mitsuo)

Founder of the World Economic Community Party (世界経済共同体党) whose main platform is that Matayoshi is the one and true Jesus and that he as the one true Jesus will do the Last Judgement within the Japanese political system.



鈴木信行 (Suzuki Nobuyuki)

Leader of the Monarchist extreme Right 維新政党・新風 or Restoration Political Party・New Wind Party.  The main agenda of this party is the restoration of the Japanese Emperor to power with the Emperor in control of the government and military.  Ousting USA from Japan and restoring Japanese domination of Asia by pushing back ROK and PRC power would be the next steps.  Short term goals are also to remove Korean influence in Japanese society mostly by ousting Korean immigrants from Japan.  Has connections with France's Jean Marie Le Pen.



マック赤坂 (Akasaka Mac)

Leader of the スマイル党 or Smile Party.  Akasaka is actually a successful owner of a rare earth business.  The party is sort like the Official Monster Raving Loony Party where they spend times dressed up as Superman or space aliens and making flamboyant speeches about the need to smile.



立花孝志(Takashi Tachibana)

Leader of ＮＨＫから国民を守る党 or The party to protect the public from NHK.  The name of the party speaks for itself.  This party is mostly about how NHK or the Japan version of BBC is the heart of a vast conspiracy to create an alternative false history in their news and documentary reporting for its own evil ends.  From a practical point of view this party is mostly about pushing for non-payment of the mandatory NHK subscription fee that every citizen is expected to pay.



Of course we have 幸福実現党 or Happiness Realization Party (HRP)which have not nominated a candidate yet but they will.  This party is about the Happy Science faith who is founded by
大川 隆法 (Ōkawa Ryūhō)

What this religion/cult is all about is that all faiths are really connected to this supreme spiritual being called El Cantare which speaks to Ōkawa.  The current agenda for HRP is massive Japanese re-militarization since Margaret Thatcher told Ōkawa in a dream that the PRC and DPRK will lauch a massive invasion of Japan and that Japan must launch preemptive  attacks to save itself.

[jaichind]

Election is tomorrow for Hokkaido 5th district and Kyodo 3rd district by-elections.  Kyodo 3rd district should be an easy win for the former DPJ MP running as DP since LDP-KP did not run a candidates.  Turnout should be very low as the LDP and KP machine will not be in action.   It is Hokkaido 5th district that will be seen as the bell-weather.  Both LDP-KP (with explicit backing from NPD as well as PJK  and implicit backing of ORA) and DP-PLP-JCP-SDP are pulling out of all the stops to win.  The LDP-KP candidate is the son-in-law of the LDP incumbent (who himself is a LDP faction leader) that passed away versus DP candidate is a single mom and social worker.  The images both blocs wants to project is quite stark (social mainstream and political insider versus social nonconformism and political outsider.)  Key members of DP-PLP-JCP-SDP from outside of Hokkaido are also campaigning jointly.


The party flags of all 4 parties are on this truck.  There is a JCP MP as well as several key DP figures on this truck (some are from DPJ and one from JIP.)

[jaichind]

Most predictions on Japanese political discussion board has LDP winning Hokkaido 5th district by-election but a strong minority predict predict a DP victory.  All the predictions are within the 53-47 range.

[jaichind]

Turnout for Hokkaido 5th district by-election at 11am stands at around 3% higher than 2014 general election levels at 11am in this district.  So far this is not a good sign for LDP.

[Vega]

Turnout for Hokkaido 5th district by-election at 11am stands at around 3% higher than 2014 general election levels at 11am in this district.  So far this is not a good sign for LDP.

Is there any way to find results online?

[jaichind]

Exit poll.  Neck-to-neck in Hokkaido 5th



Exit poll.  DP with a large majority in Kyodo 3rd

[jaichind]

Turnout for Hokkaido 5th district by-election at 11am stands at around 3% higher than 2014 general election levels at 11am in this district.  So far this is not a good sign for LDP.

Is there any way to find results online?

Only in Japanese

http://www.nhk.or.jp/sapporo2/senkyo/

[jaichind]

More Hokkaido 5th district exit polls.  Party polarization.   88% and 90% of KP and LDP voters voted LDP candidate.  96% of DP and JCP voters voted DP.  54% of Other party supporters (which has to include NPD ORA and PLP) voted DP and and 70% of non-aligned voters voted DP.

[jaichind]

Note the way Japanese vote count reports are by thresholds.  So every reporting cycle (which is usally around 10-15 minutes) they report the vote count rounded to some vote threshold (most likely 5000 in this case.)  So for a neck-to-neck race like Hokkaido 5th most likely the vote report will show a tie throughout the count until the very end.   

[jaichind]

NHK exit poll does show a small advantage for LDP in Hokkaido 5th



 
NHK exit poll show a DP landslide in Kyodo 5th with a vote share around 65%.

The Kyodo result does call into doubt how strong is the ORA vote base outside Osaka.  If there is a prefecture outside of Osaka where ORA can do well it would be Kyodo.

[jaichind]

Turnout in Hokkaido 5th as of 8pm is 55% which is slightly lower than 2014 general election turnout in this district.  If so then I would say that LDP could have the tiniest of advantage here.

[jaichind]

Most commentators in Japanese political discussion boards seems to feel that NHK exit polls has a pro-LDP house effect and feel, if anything, DP has the advantage now.  One way or another even if LDP does win it will be by a small margin and that is after getting ORA NPD and PJK on-board the LDP-KP bandwagon.  Most likely Abe will be too chicken to do a double dissolution in the Summer.

[jaichind]

http://www.nhk.or.jp/kyoto2/senkyo/

Is the link to Kyodo results.  NHK already called it for DP.

[jaichind]

HBC Hokkaido division exit poll for Hokkaido 5th has DP 51 LDP 49

[jaichind]

NHK breakdown by party.  LDP votes and KP voters has 44% and 5% of the electorate.  KP supporters has zero defections to DP.  Of course in polls KP are always under polled where they claim they are LDP voters so the 5% that identify as KP supporters are die hard and will go with whatever the party says.   DP supporters are 20% electorate which is fairly large by historical standards as DPJ voters historically identify themselves as non-aligned.  JCP at 5% of electorate seems small.  DP wins the 24% of the non-aligned which has lot of de facto DP voters anyway.

[jaichind]

If you do the top line numbers calculations of the NHK poll based on party affiliation in Hokkaido 5th you get LDP 52.5 DP 47.5.