Japan 2021 Tokyo Metropolitan assembly elections (July) and Lower House Election Oct 31st

[jaichind]

Hachioji (八王子市) 5- member was a rare TPFA underperforming to the benefit of the CDP

KP          22.8% elected
JCP        14.4%  elected
LDP        13.2% elected
LDP        11.7% elected
CDP       11.0%  elected
TPFA      10.6%
TPFA      10.1%  (Rengo)
JRP          4.1%

TPFA made the mistake of nominating two candidates but with one being pro-Rengo and one not they might not have a choice if they wanted to Rengo vote.

[jaichind]

Other opposition misses were in the larger districts where LDP did a better job of distributing their vote.  

Setagaya City (世田谷区) (8- member)

TPFA             13.1% elected
JCP               10.4% elected
KP                 9.8%  elected
LDP               8.1%  elected
LDP               7.9%  elected
CDP               7.8%  elected  (backed by Rengo)
CDP               7.3%  elected
LDP               6.7%  elected
JRP               6.1%
TSN              5.8%
TPFA             5.2%
RS                5.0%
LDP rebel      2.4%
DPP              2.4%

TPFA failed to distribute their vote well while a strong RS performance ate into the TSN vote leading to LDP sneaking in 3 winners.


Nerima City (練馬区) (7- members)

KP               14.2%    elected
CDP             13.5%    elected   (backed by Rengo)
JCP             12.6%     elected
TPFA           10.0%     elected
TPFA            9.6%      elected   (backed by Rengo)
LDP              7.9%     elected
LDP              7.8%     elected
Minor Left     7.5%                   (backed by CDP TSN)
LDP              6.8%
JRP              6.5%

CDP did a worse job of allocating its votes than TPFA and LDP.  Knowing that one of its candidates is backed by Rengo CDP should have put effort into pushing marginal votes toward the CDP-TSN backed Minor Left candidate.  Failure to do so led to LDP winning an second seat.  The LDP and CDP voting blocs in this districts were similar (22.5 vs 21) and with 2 candidates instead of 3 the CDP backed candidates should have won 2 seats instead of LDP.  Poor vote allocation let LDP win 2 seats.

[jaichind]

Beyond Meguro City (目黒区) other LDP over-nomination disasters are

Ota City (大田区) (7- members)

JRP surge plus Rengo backed CDP and TPFA candidates won out over 2 out the 3 LDP candidates.  LDP won 1 out of 3 candidate when they most likely would have won 2 had they nominated 2 (at the expense of KP although I would think KP would have other rabbits in their had in such a situation.)  This is a victory of Rengo over LDP



Shinagawa City (品川区) (4- member district)

In a shock, TPFA rebel surged to second place while Rengo backed CDP won the 4th and last seat.  The 2 LDP candidates were pushed to 6th and 7th place.  It seems clear the TPFA rebel took some LDP votes and not only prevented LDP from winning a seat but also pushed the official TPFA candidate to 5th place.

[jaichind]

Nagano prefectural poll, voting intention
https://twitter.com/yadanetnagano/status/1412146678782562308?s=20

立憲　28％
自民　22％
共産　10％
公明　  4％
維新　  3％
社民　  1％
れいわ  1％
国民　  1％
嵐　　  1％

Article this comes from also seems to imply that the JCP is competitive in the 4th, which I highly doubt is true

長野(Nagano) has a heavy anti-LDP lean so these numbers are bad for LDP but not disastrous.  But what is bad news for LDP is that DPP was pretty strong here in 2019 but now the entire 2019 DPP vote has go over to CDP which makes the upcoming CDP-JCP alliance in the Lower House election more threatening.

The district level polls mostly matches what I have.  My current projection has CDP winning 1st and 2nd while LDP wins 3rd 4th and 5th with 3rd being neck-to-neck but lean LDP.  For 5th this poll has it close and I agree the fundamentals of this seat make it very competitive and even lean Opposition but the candidate quality gap is too large and LDP should be able to win with ease.

[jaichind]

With this latest setback for the LDP the rumors coming out of LDP are

a) Move the Lower House election which is due Oct 22nd to AFTER the Sept 15th LDP Prez election.  It was expected that Suga dissolves the Lower House for an election before Sept 15th but one idea coming out is to do it the other way around so LDP could kick out Suga and bring in someone that can win the election.  The wishers of Abe coming back grows louder.

b) Go for some big economic stimulus package to boast cash in everyone's pockets before the election

c) Provoke some conflict with PRC to consolidate the nationalist vote behind LDP.  KP will have a big problem with this of course.

a) b) and c) are not mutually exclusive ideas of course.

[xelas81]

The next trial of strength is the July 18th governor election for 兵庫(Hyōgo).  兵庫(Hyōgo) has historically, like next door 大阪(Osaka) has had an anti-LDP lean.  That change in 2012 with the rise of JRP which ate into the anti-LDP vote leading to the even split of the anti-LDP vote between the Center-Left and JRP.  This has resulted in 兵庫(Hyōgo) becoming one of the safest prefectures for the LDP.

The 5 term incumbent pro-LDP governor is retiring but that has led to an open civil war within LDP.  A significant bloc of the 兵庫(Hyōgo) prefecture LDP caucus have split off from the LDP and backed as former lieutenant governor as a opponent to the official pro-LDP candidate.  This rebellion seems to have the backing of the retiring governor.  This sets up the race into a 3 way race between the pro-LDP candidate, LDP rebel (with the backing of CDP-DPP) and JCP candidate.  In order to beef up its chances the official LDP managed to get the JRP to back the pro-LDP candidate.  This sort of triggered a war of words between the retiring governor and the 大阪(Osaka) JRP governor.  In a recent speech the retiring 兵庫(Hyōgo)  governor in response to a surge of COVID-19 cases in 大阪(Osaka)  threatened to "be just like Trump" and build a wall between 大阪(Osaka) and 兵庫(Hyōgo) to cut off the virus.  He also referred to the need of an "independent"  兵庫(Hyōgo) as an indirect slat at the more powerful influential and JRP controlled 大阪(Osaka).

Anyway I suspect the race is now neck-to-neck between LDP-JRP and LDP rebel-CDP-DPP and election night two weeks from now will be pretty exciting.  

https://twitter.com/miraisyakai/status/1412200453622796293
If google translate is accurate, Komeito appears to not back any candidate.

[jaichind]

The next trial of strength is the July 18th governor election for 兵庫(Hyōgo).  兵庫(Hyōgo) has historically, like next door 大阪(Osaka) has had an anti-LDP lean.  That change in 2012 with the rise of JRP which ate into the anti-LDP vote leading to the even split of the anti-LDP vote between the Center-Left and JRP.  This has resulted in 兵庫(Hyōgo) becoming one of the safest prefectures for the LDP.

The 5 term incumbent pro-LDP governor is retiring but that has led to an open civil war within LDP.  A significant bloc of the 兵庫(Hyōgo) prefecture LDP caucus have split off from the LDP and backed as former lieutenant governor as a opponent to the official pro-LDP candidate.  This rebellion seems to have the backing of the retiring governor.  This sets up the race into a 3 way race between the pro-LDP candidate, LDP rebel (with the backing of CDP-DPP) and JCP candidate.  In order to beef up its chances the official LDP managed to get the JRP to back the pro-LDP candidate.  This sort of triggered a war of words between the retiring governor and the 大阪(Osaka) JRP governor.  In a recent speech the retiring 兵庫(Hyōgo)  governor in response to a surge of COVID-19 cases in 大阪(Osaka)  threatened to "be just like Trump" and build a wall between 大阪(Osaka) and 兵庫(Hyōgo) to cut off the virus.  He also referred to the need of an "independent"  兵庫(Hyōgo) as an indirect slat at the more powerful influential and JRP controlled 大阪(Osaka).

Anyway I suspect the race is now neck-to-neck between LDP-JRP and LDP rebel-CDP-DPP and election night two weeks from now will be pretty exciting.  

https://twitter.com/miraisyakai/status/1412200453622796293
If google translate is accurate, Komeito appears to not back any candidate.

This does happen from time to time for local elections.  In most cases KP is implicitly backing the pro-LDP candidate but does not go all out to get said pro-LDP candidate elected.  In this case I suspect it will be the same although KP might be more reserved as to stay away from the LDP civil war.

The poll the tweet mentions seems to be from Kobe News

https://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/sougou/202107/0014475841.shtml

Where it has the LDP vote split 30%-20% between the pro-LDP candidate and LDP rebel-CDP-DPP.  It also has the usually anti-LDP independent vote split 20%-20% between the two, 50% of JPR voters are for the pro-LDP candidate and 40% of the CDP voters are for the LDP rebel-CDP-DPP candidate.  This race seems to be neck-to-neck with a lot of undecided.

[jaichind]

If you just focus on 4- member and bigger districts where every party pretty much runs everywhere in a everyone for themselves you can get a proxy PR vote estimate comparison between 2017 and 2021


4- member district and larger seats  (I lumped rebels and independents that are backed by a certain party with the parent party)

                        2017                 2021
LDP                22.19%              24.68%
KP                  16.99%              17.22%
JRP                  1.74%                4.74%
Minor Right       0.53%               1.13%
TPFA              32.95%              19.99%
DP                   8.77%               
DPP                                          0.64%
CDP                                        13.22%
TSN                1.53%                 1.35%
Minor Left        0.97%                0.77%
RS                                            1.42%
JCP               13.25%               13.35%


KP and JCP mostly stable (although you would expect both to gain a bunch du to lower turnout.)  TPFA loses ground to LDP, JRP and CDP with more being lost to CDP and JRP than LDP.

[jaichind]

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/6dc52391b33088a9265e31a83656a2952353936c

Another plan from LDP emerges (or from a faction of the LDP.)

中谷元( Nakatani Gen) a MP from Kochi (高知) 1st district, former Minister of Defense, and a member of the small 谷垣(Tanigaki) faction led by the former LDP Prez of 2009-2012 came out with a suggestion for LDP for the path forward.  He proposed an alliance between LDP-KP and TPFA to form a majority in the  Tokyo Metropolitan assembly.  He also proposed cooperation of LDP-KP and a conservative "Koike New Party" after the Lower House elections.  What he is implying is that Koike form a new Center-Right party to contest the upcoming Lower House elections where she can win a bunch of Centrist and Center-Right but anti-LDP voter and after the elections these 3 parties can form a government.

Of course to openly say this defeats the entire idea.  At least the 2017 "Koike New Party" HP was anti-Abe and, mostly anti-LDP, which allowed it to eat into the anti-LDP vote.  If it is known that such a new "Koike New Party" (which is almost too late to be formed to be able to contest the upcoming Lower House elections) will join hands with LDP-KP post-elections I am not sure how much of the anti-LDP vote they will get and if anything eat into the LDP vote.

[jaichind]

https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2021-07-07-japan-to-declare-state-of-emergency-weeks-ahead-of-tokyo-olympics-report/

"Japan To Declare State Of Emergency Weeks Ahead Of Tokyo Olympics: Report"

Pretty much means Olympics will be held without specters.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2021-07-07-japan-to-declare-state-of-emergency-weeks-ahead-of-tokyo-olympics-report/

"Japan To Declare State Of Emergency Weeks Ahead Of Tokyo Olympics: Report"

Pretty much means Olympics will be held without specters.

Oh, good. I don’t want a haunted Olympics.

[jaichind]

https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2021-07-07-japan-to-declare-state-of-emergency-weeks-ahead-of-tokyo-olympics-report/

"Japan To Declare State Of Emergency Weeks Ahead Of Tokyo Olympics: Report"

Pretty much means Olympics will be held without specters.

Oh, good. I don’t want a haunted Olympics.

Sorry for typo

[NewYorkExpress]

https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2021-07-07-japan-to-declare-state-of-emergency-weeks-ahead-of-tokyo-olympics-report/

"Japan To Declare State Of Emergency Weeks Ahead Of Tokyo Olympics: Report"

Pretty much means Olympics will be held without specters.

Could it mean the Olympics, at this late date, will be canceled? I'm curious whether the government will finally just tell the IOC to **** off and say, we're not doing this.

[jaichind]

https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2021-07-07-japan-to-declare-state-of-emergency-weeks-ahead-of-tokyo-olympics-report/

"Japan To Declare State Of Emergency Weeks Ahead Of Tokyo Olympics: Report"

Pretty much means Olympics will be held without specters.

Could it mean the Olympics, at this late date, will be canceled? I'm curious whether the government will finally just tell the IOC to **** off and say, we're not doing this.

I doubt it.  Suga already doubled down on Olympics.  At best some if not all venues will have no spectators but they will for sure go ahead.  If Suga backs down now the entire morale of the LDP and government will collapse  Suga has to hope for a non-eventful Olympics and try to check that off as an example of the government being firm saw Japan through a crisis. 

[jaichind]

In the past the previous Tokyo Metropolitan assembly which were always held in early July were a harbinger of national elections a month to a few months later.

1989 - SPJ surge foreshadowed a SPJ breakthrough in the Upper House elections
1993 - JNP surge foreshadowed the 1993 Lower House elections where JNP and Ozawa's JRP denied the LDP a majority
2001 - LDP success foreshadowed the LDP landslide in the Upper House elections
2005 - LDP had a solid win but in Sept Koizumi won in a landslide victory in Lower House.  In between the Tokyo Metropolitan assembly elections and the Sept Lower House election Koizumi shifted snap Lower House election into a referendum on his postal reform plans
2009 - DPJ surge foreshadowed a DPJ landslide in the Lower House elections
2013 - LDP landslide foreshadowed a LDP landslide in the Upper House elections
2017 - Historical LDP defeat did not prevent a LDP landslide in the Lower House elections with Abe making the election about how Koike was betraying her duties to Tokyo by trying to get into national politics

2005 and 2017 broke the patter because the PM was able to change the dynamic of political discussion between the Tokyo Metropolitan assembly election and the national election.  Now we will see if Suga could do the same.

[PSOL]

At this point, I don’t see LDP holding it together for long no matter if the Olympics are held or not. Covid is still ravaging the country and any claimed economic growth is gone. I expect a center (possibly a bit left) party/alliance around Koike and JRP to eat heavily into the LDP, finally bringing an end to the dominant party system. Maybe JCP gains a little from anger at the Olympics.

Unlike previous tries, the opposition seems to have learned a thing or two from previous failures in the 1990s and early 2010s on how to govern. The economic and wider societal declines are too great too fast for the LDP to manage to get out of the rut, like holding snap elections, as any political move in the short term actually raises the chances of a grenade going off in their hands instead of throwing it.

The grenade will go off, but it will also blast Japan itself and keep the country so broken that I doubt the country can position itself back to being a regional power. Without any political influence and with such a lack of prestige, the country’s elites then can only turn inward and attempt to squeeze gold out of blood from the people and other elites. Like the UK now, the country could get more clamorings from the periphery—Osaka, Okinawa, Hokkaido—while getting hit by increased class tensions not just by the workers being furious, but of the lesser elites stabbing upward. The shopkeeps, salarymen in private and public offices, and the Yakuza will absolutely lose it to degrade even further. With the LDP disintegrating, that will let the Hard Right to fill in the gaps without a strong Left to take the country for the masses.

[jaichind]

The Japanese government and organizers are set agree to hold the Tokyo Olympic events in Tokyo and 3 surrounding prefectures (Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama ) without any spectators, the Asahi newspaper reports, citing several unidentified officials.

[jaichind]

In light of its poor performance in the Tokyo Metropolitan assembly elections DPP came out to blame CDP-JCP alliance saying that DPP alliance with CDP who in turn had an alliance with JCP drove DPP voters toward JRP and TPFA.  It seems DPP is looking to break from the CDP-JCP alliance.  At least for Lower House election this is mostly bluster.  DPP is now organizational weak outside the 東海(Tōkai) region and is not in a position to spoil CDP chances in most seats anyway as it does not have quality candidates.   Furthermore in the dozen seats where DPP does have a quality candidate they do at least need CDP to stand down for DPP to have a chance of winning in most of them.  So the alliance will continue in de facto terms.  DPP is mostly doing this to try to win over some DPP-JRC marginal voters on the PR ballot.
 

[jaichind]

At this point, I don’t see LDP holding it together for long no matter if the Olympics are held or not. Covid is still ravaging the country and any claimed economic growth is gone. I expect a center (possibly a bit left) party/alliance around Koike and JRP to eat heavily into the LDP, finally bringing an end to the dominant party system. Maybe JCP gains a little from anger at the Olympics.

Unlike previous tries, the opposition seems to have learned a thing or two from previous failures in the 1990s and early 2010s on how to govern. The economic and wider societal declines are too great too fast for the LDP to manage to get out of the rut, like holding snap elections, as any political move in the short term actually raises the chances of a grenade going off in their hands instead of throwing it.

The grenade will go off, but it will also blast Japan itself and keep the country so broken that I doubt the country can position itself back to being a regional power. Without any political influence and with such a lack of prestige, the country’s elites then can only turn inward and attempt to squeeze gold out of blood from the people and other elites. Like the UK now, the country could get more clamorings from the periphery—Osaka, Okinawa, Hokkaido—while getting hit by increased class tensions not just by the workers being furious, but of the lesser elites stabbing upward. The shopkeeps, salarymen in private and public offices, and the Yakuza will absolutely lose it to degrade even further. With the LDP disintegrating, that will let the Hard Right to fill in the gaps without a strong Left to take the country for the masses.

While it now very clear CDP will make a lot of gains in this upcoming election I an very skeptical that they can deny a LDP-KP majority in the upcoming election.   It is not clear at all that there will be a "Koike New Party" and even if there were they lack quality candidates.   There is no parallel to 2017 when DP was imploding so HP was able to import most of DP candidates to add to the HP/Koike brand.  Suga is looking for a Lower House election before LDP Prez race on Sept 15h so there is no time for Koike to set up a party AND recruit quality candidates across the board.  At best such a party can cut into LDP and JRP PR vote but that will not be decisive. 

Even if you look at the de facto PR vote in Tokyo Metropolitan assembly elections

If you just focus on 4- member and bigger districts where every party pretty much runs everywhere in a everyone for themselves you can get a proxy PR vote estimate comparison between 2017 and 2021


4- member district and larger seats  (I lumped rebels and independents that are backed by a certain party with the parent party)

                        2017                 2021
LDP                22.19%              24.68%
KP                  16.99%              17.22%
JRP                  1.74%                4.74%
Minor Right       0.53%               1.13%
TPFA              32.95%              19.99%
DP                   8.77%                
DPP                                          0.64%
CDP                                        13.22%
TSN                1.53%                 1.35%
Minor Left        0.97%                0.77%
RS                                            1.42%
JCP               13.25%               13.35%


KP and JCP mostly stable (although you would expect both to gain a bunch du to lower turnout.)  TPFA loses ground to LDP, JRP and CDP with more being lost to CDP and JRP than LDP.

Once you take into account that turnout in the Lower House will be higher which will cut down the KP vote share, and even if you then assume something like 2/3 of the TPFA vote will go to CDP-TSN-JCP you still end up with something like LDP-KP 50 CDP-TSN-JCP 40 which means  the fundamentals still point to a LDP-KP majority even in Tokyo despite a possible perfect CDP-JCP alliance.  This will most likely be replicated across Japan which will for sure cause LDP-KP to lose seats but not is majority.

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-08/tokyo-olympics-to-exclude-spectators-in-city-as-virus-resurges

"Tokyo Olympics to Ban Spectators in City as Virus Resurges"

As expected.

[Lachi]

Koike confirms she won't be reentering national politics at this time "not even at the back of my mind"

国政復帰「頭の片隅にもない」と小池都知事
https://nordot.app/786110339528998912?c=39550187727945729

[Lachi]

JCP to remove the 'abolition of the security treaty with the US' from it's pledges this election

[jaichind]

Candidate map for LDP-KP.

Things are simpler here as given the strength of LDP candidate quality they have solid candidates pretty much everywhere.  

1) KP (pink) will run in 9 seats.   They swapped 神奈川(Kanagawa) 6th which they unexpected lost in 2017 and think they are unlikely to regain in 2021 with 広島(Hiroshima) 3rd with LDP which I suspect they will lose as well.

2) Dark Blue are where there are two LDP candidates from two different factions.  In some LDP will have both of them run as independents and the winner be retroactively made the LDP candidate and in others the LDP will back one of the two and the other most likely will run as a LDP rebel.  Every election we have 2-3 of these cases.  So far the number of problem seats for LDP seem larger than normal which is a bad sign.  Good news for LDP is they have another month or so to try to work out a deal in some of the seats.  In most of them I still expect the LDP to win since almost all of them are safe LDP seats so these rebellions are not problematic by themselves  but it is more about the number of these rebellions shows the unease within the LDP ranks that is the bigger issue.

3) White are where LDP has no candidate.  This is either because of a last minute LDP incumbent retirement in a relatively safe LDP seat (神奈川(Kanagawa) 3rd, 石川(Ishikawa) 1st, 島根(Shimane) 2nd) or last minute LDP incumbent retires because he is almost certain to lose (埼玉(Saitama) 10th,  東京(Tokyo) 9th, 東京(Tokyo) 15th) or where the Opposition incumbent is so strong LDP is struggling to get someone to run(栃木(Tochigi) 2nd, 長崎(Nagasaki) 1st.)  The latter two types are especially hurtful for LDP because without a quality candidate to keep them close would free up opposition resources to contest elsewhere to take down LDP in marginal seats.  The LDP will most likely come up with someone but the quality gap between them and the incumbents will be large.

4) Grey are the LDP incumbent has resigned from LDP due to scandal but are still looking to contest.  The LDP are likely to lose these seats if the ex-LDP incumbent does not run so the LDP are looking at how to handle them.  Either bring them back as LDP candidate or allow them to run as a pro-LDP independent and retroactively nominate them if they win as the voters would have "cleansed" them of their scandal.

[jaichind]

JCP to remove the 'abolition of the security treaty with the US' from it's pledges this election

I doubt this matter that much. What JCP has to understand is that opposition to JCP is less about policy differences but general social stigma (KP has the same problem but as least KP high command has managed to make friends with all parties except for JCP, of course.)  In 2019 Upper House when CDP-DPP-SDP-JCP formed an alliance in 1- member districts JCP candidates running as independents well outperformed JCP candidates with the JCP party label.  So what is the problem is not any one policy  difference but the overall view the JCP is not in the Japanese mainstream and no socially acceptable.

The acid test is the generic middle class parent reaction at their daughter bringing back her boyfriend.  If it is revealed that he is non-political or LDP supporter that is fine.  If is revealed that he is KP or JCP supporter that is bad.  Changing this policy position or any other will not change this.

[Logical]

Candidate map for LDP-KP.

Things are simpler here as given the strength of LDP candidate quality they have solid candidates pretty much everywhere.  

1) KP (pink) will run in 9 seats.   They swapped 神奈川(Kanagawa) 6th which they unexpected lost in 2017 and think they are unlikely to regain in 2021 with 広島(Hiroshima) 3rd with LDP which I suspect they will lose as well.

2) Dark Blue are where there are two LDP candidates from two different factions.  In some LDP will have both of them run as independents and the winner be retroactively made the LDP candidate and in others the LDP will back one of the two and the other most likely will run as a LDP rebel.  Every election we have 2-3 of these cases.  So far the number of problem seats for LDP seem larger than normal which is a bad sign.  Good news for LDP is they have another month or so to try to work out a deal in some of the seats.  In most of them I still expect the LDP to win since almost all of them are safe LDP seats so these rebellions are not problematic by themselves  but it is more about the number of these rebellions shows the unease within the LDP ranks that is the bigger issue.

3) White are where LDP has no candidate.  This is either because of a last minute LDP incumbent retirement in a relatively safe LDP seat (神奈川(Kanagawa) 3rd, 石川(Ishikawa) 1st, 島根(Shimane) 2nd) or last minute LDP incumbent retires because he is almost certain to lose (埼玉(Saitama) 10th,  東京(Tokyo) 9th, 東京(Tokyo) 15th) or where the Opposition incumbent is so strong LDP is struggling to get someone to run(栃木(Tochigi) 2nd, 長崎(Nagasaki) 1st.)  The latter two types are especially hurtful for LDP because without a quality candidate to keep them close would free up opposition resources to contest elsewhere to take down LDP in marginal seats.  The LDP will most likely come up with someone but the quality gap between them and the incumbents will be large.

4) Grey are the LDP incumbent has resigned from LDP due to scandal but are still looking to contest.  The LDP are likely to lose these seats if the ex-LDP incumbent does not run so the LDP are looking at how to handle them.  Either bring them back as LDP candidate or allow them to run as a pro-LDP independent and retroactively nominate them if they win as the voters would have "cleansed" them of their scandal.

1. Am I colorblind because I don't think I spot any dark blue.

2. I can see a few more LDP retirements in the next few weeks given how old some of their veteran MPs are.