Japan General Discussion: Abe Carries On

[Tintrlvr]

Has there been any chatter or developments on the future of the opposition?

I think the opposition (or at least the left-opposition in the form of the CDP) is actually probably best served by staying divided; one of the big problems for the DPJ was always that its coalition was too fractious, such that it was unable to set forth what it stood for other than opposition to the LDP, which was never enough except when the LDP was catastrophically unpopular (and then led to three years of divided and feckless governance). A more ideologically unified opposition party stands to do better and carve out its own niche.

[Tintrlvr]

Has there been any chatter or developments on the future of the opposition?

I think the opposition (or at least the left-opposition in the form of the CDP) is actually probably best served by staying divided; one of the big problems for the DPJ was always that its coalition was too fractious, such that it was unable to set forth what it stood for other than opposition to the LDP, which was never enough except when the LDP was catastrophically unpopular (and then led to three years of divided and feckless governance). A more ideologically unified opposition party stands to do better and carve out its own niche.

Would it though? It's not like the Japanese Socialist Party did much better for forty years before reforming into the DJP.

The JSP was much more left-wing than the CDP is, and subject to stronger competition on the left by the JCP. And the JSP also was opposing the LDP in a period of almost continuous, rapid economic growth - it was always going to be difficult for an opposition party to make headway in good economic times.

And the successor to the JSP is the SDP, not the CDP (or the DPJ before it).

[Tintrlvr]

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.

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.

[Tintrlvr]

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.

It's important to have good candidates who are also cohesive with the party message. CDP can't afford to have even local government candidates who bang on about how Japan should have the ability to wage war. Sure, those issues aren't especially important at the local government level, but they embarrass the party and harm the party's image on a national stage. It's not like there is a dearth of potential skilled politicians who are dovish.

Clearly, voters are responding to the CDP, or else it wouldn't be polling higher than any opposition party since 2009. Right after an election is a bad time to peak, of course, but the CDP has to hope that they can continue to carry forward the image of being something different - a party that actually stands for something - through the next election. Or else what's the point?

[Tintrlvr]

the CDP is doing quite well for an opposition party in Japan. Why would they want to merge with a falling center-right party? It just doesn't seem logical.

Well. that is not what the talks are about.  The talks are between DP and HP, not CDP and HP.  DP still exists as a Upper House only party and at the prefecture level.  There have been some recent trickle of defections from DP members at the prefecture level to CDP.  These merger talks between HP and DP are away to stop that trend and be able to form pre-elections alliances with CDP on a more equal footing. 

Presumably at least some of the Upper House DP members would prefer CDP to HP - wouldn't this cause some further defections from DP at the Upper House level?

[Tintrlvr]

It seems in the 静岡(Shizuoka) 4th district by e-elections the PNHK tactic of nominating a candidate with the same name as the united opposition candidate is an attempt to disrupt the election system.  This is because in Japanese elections there are no pre-printed ballots and instead the voter just writes down the name of the candidate they wish to vote for.  Now the election commission is stuck on how to count a vote for 田中健(Tanaka Ken) since there are two of them running.

This seems like a problem they must have encountered before in 70 years of democratic elections...

[Tintrlvr]

What is the SDP then?

Traditionally, the non-communist left, but of course as the JCP is no longer communist in any reasonable sense of the word, that distinction isn't there any more. The SDP is realistically an anti-American-military-base local Ryukyuan party these days and barely wins any support outside of Okinawa. Their main issue has been pacifism/disarmament since the early 00s and was what caused tensions with the DPJ when they were briefly in government after the 2009 election. Outside of some pretty extreme pacifist positions, they'd fit in quite comfortably with most left-wing parties around the globe.