Japan General Discussion: Abe Carries On

[jaichind]

Abe's uncertain grip on power

https://asia.nikkei.com/Viewpoints/Michael-Cucek/Abe-s-uncertain-grip-on-power?utm_content=buffer023cd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[jaichind]

Post election Yomiuri poll of party support

LDP     43 (+10) - standard post election, will decline over time
KP        4 (+1)
JRP       2(+1)
HP        5 (-3)
CDP     14 (+10)
SDP       1 (nc)
JCP       3 (nc)

[jaichind]

Post election bounce puts Abe Cabinet approval above water again

[jaichind]

It seems everyone is waiting on
a) Will Koike quit HP leadership and who will be in the HP leadership
b) What are the various heavyweight ex-DP MPs are going to do
c) What will the DP Upper House MPs going to do

All three will affect each other.  But no one is making any moves until there is some clarity on any of the issues above.

[jaichind]

Asahi post election poll has

Abe Cabinet approval 42(+2)/39(-1)

Party support

LDP  39
KP     4
JRP    2
HP     3
CDP  17
SDP   1
JCP    3

[jaichind]

As I have already posted, Koike has already stated that she will NOT step down.

I know. But that could change any time.  Koike said as HP was being formed that she will NOT be the leader.  Then out of nowhere she came out and surprised her own people saying that she will lead HP.

[jaichind]

So my understanding is that even though LDP-KP has the 2/3 majority it needs in both houses to pass its constitutional amendments through the Diet, it will still need to pass in a popular referendum. Have there been opinion polls on this? Are the people still generally pacifist despite consistently delivering supermajorities to revisionist parties? How would the referendum campaign shake out once it actually began? Would turnout be higher than the rather low GE turnout? Which sides would prefer higher/lower turnout?

Polling is all over the place but I suspect it will be negative.  The way things work is the more Abe is for  something public opinion usually turns against it.   Also KP is not really on board. I am beginning to think nothing will happen on this.  Abe just wants the issue and will never take the risk of trying and getting totally humiliated if and when not all of LDP or KP is on board or is beaten badly in a referendum.   I think Abe's goal is to stay PM until 2021.  All this Constitutional change is a bunch of baloney.   

[jaichind]

Asahi post-election poll on Constitutional change on Clause 9.  For/Against 36/45.  I am sure if you change the wording on how it will change in theory you can get a majority for.  But it really depends.

[jaichind]

Japan's deputy PM says party won election 'thanks to North Korea'
Friday, October 27, 2017 01:38 AM
Tokyo (DPA) -- Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso on Friday tried to explain comments he had made attributing his party's election victory to North Korea.
"It's the government that decides how to address the series of threats from North Korea, so I believe the Japanese people chose the government or the combination of political parties that can best respond" to the matter, Aso told reporters on Friday. Aso, who also serves as finance minister, said on Thursday the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) resounding victory in Sunday's general election was "clearly partly thanks to North Korea."
Aso's remarks were "outrageous," said Akira Nagatsuma, a senior lawmaker of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party. They suggested Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition "exploited" the North Korean nuclear threat for political gain. Abe's LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito Party won a major victory in Sunday's election for the powerful lower house. In August, Aso appeared to defend Adolf Hitler's motive for the genocide of Jews during World War II.
"Hitler, who killed millions of people, is no good even if his motive was right," Aso told lawmakers then.

[jaichind]

Party of Hope to forgo immediately naming Diet leader
Friday, October 27, 2017 03:22 AM
TOKYO, Oct. 27 Kyodo
The opposition Party of Hope, led by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike from outside the Diet, is planning not to pick a leader for its parliamentary operations until after the upcoming special Diet session starting Nov. 1, sources close to the party said Friday.
The special session is set to run for only about a week to take care of procedures following Sunday's House of Representatives election in which the Party of Hope performed poorly while the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe maintained a two-thirds majority.
The party absorbed the conservative wing of the collapsing Democratic Party ahead of the election, but ended up gaining fewer seats than the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, which was formed to take on the liberal Democratic Party members who could not or would not join the Party of Hope.
Koike's party will hold a meeting of its lawmakers Friday afternoon to plan its next steps. She apologized to party members Wednesday for the party's disappointing performance in the election but insisted she wants to remain its leader.
She is likely to appoint former Democratic Party Secretary General Atsushi Oshima as both secretary general and policy chief, and make former Democratic Party member Hirofumi Ryu chief of Diet affairs, the sources said.
In the Diet vote for prime minister set for Nov. 1, the party is considering voting for former Democratic Party member Motohisa Furukawa in light of his relatively long career in parliament and previous Cabinet experience, the sources said.
Separately Friday, the leader of the still-extant Democratic Party said he will step down as soon as the rest of the party decides what to do about its regional branches and its remaining lawmakers in the House of Councillors.
Seiji Maehara made the remark at the outset of a meeting of the party's upper house members and those in the lower house who ran as independents in Sunday's election, having refrained from joining either the CDPJ or the Party of Hope.
"I am painfully aware of my responsibility. I will resign after determining a certain direction (for the party)," Maehara said.
In the meeting, the lawmakers are expected to deliver their verdict on Maehara's decision to attempt to essentially merge the Democratic Party with the Party of Hope after the House of Representatives was dissolved on Sept. 28.
Maehara, who had at that point been in charge of the party for less than a month, repeatedly urged Koike to run in the election so she could lead the party in the Diet.
But Koike refused either to run or to take on all of the Democratic Party's candidates, prompting the emergence of the CDPJ. The CDPJ ended up taking 55 seats to the Party of Hope's 50, both dwarfed by Abe's Liberal Democratic Party with 284 seats.

[jaichind]

I'm surprised that no one has defected to another party yet. Unless it isn't being reported on.

Me too.  I guses everyone is looking at what the Upper House DP MPs will do and who Koike puts in charge of HP.   If In the end Koike steps down or takes a nominal leadership of HP the the old DP Right will just take over HP completely and then go from there to figure out what to do next (like if HP will get an alliance with CDP and/or JRP)   What is also suprising is how few ex-DP independent MP have moved.  I guess they are wait and see as well. 

[jaichind]

Clause 9 is the one renouncing war of course.

Correct.  I am sure getting rid of Clause 9 will not pass the diet or a referendum. A version that could but seems less and less likely is to update Clause 9 saying Self Defense Force exists and is legal.   

[jaichind]

It seems there are pressure for on Osaka governor 松井一郎(Matsui Ichirō) to resign as JRP leader given the JRP poor performance, especially in the Osaka district seats.

[jaichind]

I can understand uniform restrictions, but dyeing hair within a natural range? It's not like it's green or anything.

I have no idea what the laws in Japan would say about this.  It would seem to me if the school is a private school then they should be able to have whatever rules they want.  The child can always choose not to attend and attend another school (public or private) instead.

[jaichind]

Latest NTV poll (change on Sept)

Abe approval/disapproval 41.7(-0.4)/44.2(+3.2)

Party support
LDP    36.5 (-1.4）
KP    　4.7 (+0.8）
JRP  　3.1 (+1.8）
HP   　 4.2 (new)
DP   　0.7 (-7.8）
CDP　13.8 (new）
JCP    4.5 (+1.3）

No post-election victory bounce for Abe/LDP

[jaichind]

Was a bounce expected though?

Usually after an election victory the cabinet and ruling party (which is LDP most of the time anyway) gets a bounce in support.  In some polls this is the case and in other not.  I think there was a bounce that is already wearing off after a week.  We are back to a mode where Abe popular support is not high even as the opposition in is a total mess and cannot take advantage of it.   

[jaichind]

Abe approval curve.  Still above water for now



Party support.  Purple is LDP.  CDP is Deep Blue.  Grey is no party.
CDP support at the highest level of any non-LDP party since 2012.

[jaichind]

DP leader Maehara resigned to take  responsibility for the disarray following a failed merger with HP.  He will join HP. 

Ex-DP leader 岡田 克也(Okada Katsuya) who resigned in 2016 after DP's defeat in the 2016 Upper House elections will form a group of ex-DP independent MP.

[jaichind]

It seems there are pressure for on Osaka governor 松井一郎(Matsui Ichirō) to resign as JRP leader given the JRP poor performance, especially in the Osaka district seats.

How much control does Toru Hashimoto have of JRP?

Hard to say.  I think last year I would say a lot.  But this year it seems Hashimoto has mostly disappeared and most likely have given up on the JRP project as a way to capture national power. It would not surprise me for him to re-appear to join the national LDP since his relationship with Abe has always been positive. 

[jaichind]

One of the reasons for the lack of defections to CDP from HP is that CDP leader 枝野 幸男(Edano Yukio), just like Koike before the election, seems to be prioritizing ideological purity over party growth. If seems Edano and Koike is learning the wrong lessons on why DPJ/DP failed.  They seems to think that DPJ/DP could not get their support up is due the ideological diversity of the party.  It seems to me that the ideological diversity in the LDP is just as great if not greater than DPJ/DP.  The real reason why DPJ/DP could not take off post-2012 is because DPJ was seen as incompetent after its 2009-2012 experience.   

I do agree  that the opposition cannot M&A its way back to victory and that it will take a few election cycles to beat LDP.  It seems to me the way to do it is not ideological purity but success at the prefecture government level.   I think CDP and HP should form an alliance and together work to do well in the 2019 prefecture level elections.  The resulting CDP-HP clout at the local level can demonstrate that they are parties that can rule and not just win elections.

[jaichind]

One of the 3 JRP winners in district seats in Osaka resigned from the party.  JRP at the national level might be falling apart even as it did slightly better than feared at the PR section.

[jaichind]

I think this fundamentally misunderstands what the appeal of the opposition is and why people vote for opposition candidates. The opposition parties have to stand for something to get people to vote for them. They can stand for *different* things (i.e., the opposition parties don't have to present a cross-party ideologically unified front), although tactically this becomes harder to the extent they have electoral alliances in an FPTP system. But they have to stand for something. They can't just be an inferior version of the LDP, which is what an ideologically diverse, cobbled together opposition party is. The inferior version of the LDP might be able to win on the rare occasions when the LDP totally discredits itself (see 2009), but they can't hold on to power because they don't give anyone a reason to continue to support them once the unpopularity of the LDP has had time to wear off.

The important thing is that the opposition parties can never beat the LDP at its own game. The opposition parties will never be able to be all things to all people and will never be able to be the establishment or default choice (at least, not until they've won a second government term in a row). It is therefore irrelevant that the LDP has a great deal of internal ideological diversity (though less internal diversity, I think, than you are crediting it for, at least nowadays).

In fact, internal ideological diversity is a significant weakness for both the LDP and the opposition alike since it lends itself to disarray and ineffective governance. However, there is a distinct double-standard where the opposition parties are held to much higher standards of competence than the LDP, primarily because voters vote for the opposition for essentially optimistic reasons (thinking the country can be better than it is) but vote for the LDP for essentially pessimistic reasons (thinking what they know is the safest choice), so opposition voters have higher expectations of their politicians. The LDP therefore overcomes the disadvantage of ideological diversity causing disarray by being the low-expectations party, while the disarray that results from ideological diversity serves only to discredit the opposition parties.

Its is hard to argue against your position.  In this particular case the nature of the election system puts a premium on candidates quality.  If this election was fought on ideological grounds you can argue LDP-KP actually lost the election.  If we had the German election system with a 176 member D'Hondt PR district with a 5% threshold then LDP-KP would have been reduced to 82 out of 176 seats and Abe would be scrambling around to form a Grand coalition of LDP-HP or its Jamaica coalition of LDP-KP-JRP to form a government.  But the nature of the FPTP district seats and the voting pattern of electorate shows that candidate quality is key.

To have good quality candidates one needs a farm league of prefecture and city level politicians where issues that CDP seems to be running such as  Constitution and national security matters little.  For CDP to put ideological litmus tests  on these issues seems as foolish as Koike's reverse litmus test and will prevent the growth of CDP at the local level.  If they persist on this then they will just become a more moderate version of JCP  which would have dedicated core of supporters but little prospect of coming to power.

[jaichind]

A slew of polls has Abe's post election bounce getting his approval ratings to around the high 40s

[jaichind]

Koike resigns as head of HP.  玉木 雄一郎(Tamaki Yūichirō) who was elected as joint HP leader awhile ago will now be the sole leader of HP.  The entire HP caucus with the exception of few MPs are all former DP members with an ex-DP leader as it s head.

So the original DP has now split into 3.  Left DP (DCP), Right DP (HP), and Upper House DP (DP).  Plus a bloc of ex-DP independents.  Most of the ex-DP independents will join a party (most likely one of HP CDP or DP) by December since the party fund allocation will be based on the number of MPs so each one of these parties will have an incentive to get these ex-DP independents to join.   

Over time most likely we will see these 3 parties either merge or form an alliance.  With Koike moving into the background I suspect the HP-JRP-TCJ alliance will dissolve.

[jaichind]

If HP stays on as Conservative Center-Right opposition that would cut of any revival attempts of JRP.  The JRP has been losing vote share since 2012 and it seems that will continue.

PR vote of JRP

2012   20.4%
2013   11.9%
2014   15.7%  (after merging with most of YP in the form of YP splinter UP)
2016    9.2%  (after most ex-DP and ex-UP members left to merge with DPJ to form DP)
2017    6.1%

As long as HP in some form is around for 2019 Upper House elections JRP would most likely fall to 2%-3% with LDP gaining most of the vote lost by JRP and others going to HP.  I suspect JRP will devolve into an Osaka regional party which is strong at the regional level but will become weaker for national elections even in Osaka.