Japan 2022 Upper House elections July 10

[PSOL]

The NHK obsessed party and Sanseito are at 10% according to recent polling. CDP and JCP at 8 and 5% in the PR vote, to the benefit of Reiwa and SDP at 7% and 3% respectively.

The traditional parties are really taking a beating.

[CascadianIndy]

The NHK obsessed party and Sanseito are at 10% according to recent polling. CDP and JCP at 8 and 5% in the PR vote, to the benefit of Reiwa and SDP at 7% and 3% respectively.

The traditional parties are really taking a beating.

Where did you find the poll for RS at 7%? I haven't seen anything close to it on either miraisyakai's Twitter or from Go2Senkyo.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

The NHK obsessed party and Sanseito are at 10% according to recent polling. CDP and JCP at 8 and 5% in the PR vote, to the benefit of Reiwa and SDP at 7% and 3% respectively.

The traditional parties are really taking a beating.

Where did you find the poll for RS at 7%? I haven't seen anything close to it on either miraisyakai's Twitter or from Go2Senkyo.

https://twitter.com/AsiaElects/status/1559942882668298248

[CascadianIndy]

The NHK obsessed party and Sanseito are at 10% according to recent polling. CDP and JCP at 8 and 5% in the PR vote, to the benefit of Reiwa and SDP at 7% and 3% respectively.

The traditional parties are really taking a beating.

Where did you find the poll for RS at 7%? I haven't seen anything close to it on either miraisyakai's Twitter or from Go2Senkyo.

https://twitter.com/AsiaElects/status/1559942882668298248

Okay, I COMPLETELY missed this one. Good lord.

[kaoras]

Guys.. Asia Elects excludes undecideds, 60% in this case. And I'm guessing they only did this because is one of the few polls when it doesn't result in LDP 80% (Something they used to publish!)

If you read this thread, you should know that you can't take japanese polls at face value.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

From what I've seen from Gunosy, they tend to overestimate the newer parties with younger voters (Ishin, Reiwa, Sanseito) at the expense of the parties disproportionately reliant on the votes of the elderly (CDP, Komeito, JCP). Still, I wouldn't be surprised if they're accurately picking up the direction of change even if they're overstating the magnitude.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Kishida cabinet is lucky that the most recent polls don't necessarily represent something that marks a mortal threat to it and it can ride this out...seemingly.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000820206.pdf
Found a PDF going into what the next round of redistricting in Japan will likely look like, courtesy of Japanese wikipedia.

[jaichind]

More polls came in with Kishida cabinet approval falling so this is the current average of Kishida cabinet approval/disapproval with the momentum being very much against the Kishida cabinet


As for party support, the average looks like




With KP falling which makes sense post-election but LDP also falling as well but not as dramatically mostly because, I suspect, KP voters hiding out again as LDP voters as is customary outside of election season.  

As for the opposition parties, RS and DIY are keeping their election surges while CDP closes the gap with JRP to make it neck-to-neck again which is the larger opposition party.

In any election, the battle would, of course, be over the opposition-leaning independents which used to lean heay for CDP but is now up for grabs by JRP and increasingly DPP and RS.

[jaichind]

Even though Kishida has COVID-19 and could only meet reporters remotely the reporters are all packed in together.  If it is remote then why bother gathering the reporters in one room?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What options does the Kishida government have to deal with this Unification Church issue? How do they regain control over the narrative?

[jaichind]

What options does the Kishida government have to deal with this Unification Church issue? How do they regain control over the narrative?

In theory, a cabinet reshuffle tends to be the way to rebook the government but it seems it did not work.  It seems it will get worse.

A headline from tomorrow's issue of Shūkan Bunshun: The head of Prime Minister Kishida's s koenkai was the chairman of a Unification Church affiliate organization.


When the Unification Church issue blew up, Kishida should have leveled with the Japanese public (which he would never do): "The campaign finance and spending laws make it impossible for a politician to get their message out there.  Because of this politicians of all stripes have to rely on dedicated organizations that will work for free to get their message out.  These organizations will have their own agendas.  Understand that a government that works for the good of all exists only in a fairy tale.  Governments of all types are merely the battlegrounds of different interest groups and if you constrain campaign spending to curtail one kind of interest group that merely opens things up for other types of interest groups to move in to influence government policy.  All this does not mean that the LDP should not do a better job vetting the groups that we work with.  We will strive to do a better job but do understand that the nature of campaign finance and spending laws mean that we in LDP, as well as other parties, will continue to need to work with aligned groups to get our message out there during elections."

Once Kisishida did not say anything like this then it becomes a slow death by a thousand cuts of leaks of more connections between LDP and Unification Church.  At this stage, Kishida will have just hoped that this dies down over the next few months and not have any long-term damage to his standing as PM and LDP electoral prospects.

[jaichind]

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/66ad9b4cf2c9e0f78fb8a454bb2023e3ef052511

An investigation by the CDP shows that former CDP leader and founder of CDP 枝野幸男(Edano Yukio), as well as twice former DPJ leader and once DPM of Japan 岡田克也(Okada Katsuya), also had links to Unification Church. 

I guess the game now being played is "who is a crypto Unification Church supporter"?

[jaichind]

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/10d97e796738eeb8e99ee3c37923846f00fc5906

Former LDP PM Suga comes out in favor of changing laws to allow different surnames for married couples.  I guess being under the shadow Suga was never able to express some of hits views and with Abe moving on Suga is outing himself as a closet liberal.

[jaichind]

FNN poll on support/opposition to Abe state funeral

Clear age gap with the youth for and the elderly against.  It seems LDP youth voters (along with JRP youth voters) are for the Abe state funeral while older LDP voters tend to be split on this.

[jaichind]

Osaka mayor and JRP leader 松井一郎(Matsui Ichirō) had indicated that he will not run for re-election as mayor of Osaka in 2023 and as a result resigned from the leadership of the JRP to make way for new leadership. 

An election of JRP party members produced MP 馬場伸幸 (Baba Nobuyuki) as the new leader of JRP.

[jaichind]

KP will also change leaders soon.  KP leader 山口 那津男(Yamaguchi Natsuo) who took over in 2009 after KP was soundly defeated in the 2009 Lower House elections in the DPJ landslide is stepping down after what is viewed as a setback in the 2022 Upper House elections where KP was reduced to 6 PR seats which most had expected 7 going into the election campaign.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

KP will also change leaders soon.  KP leader 山口 那津男(Yamaguchi Natsuo) who took over in 2009 after KP was soundly defeated in the 2009 Lower House elections in the DPJ landslide is stepping down after what is viewed as a setback in the 2022 Upper House elections where KP was reduced to 6 PR seats which most had expected 7 going into the election campaign.

Despite a tenure that lasted thirteen years, he's only the second-longest serving leader of the Komeito party. 竹入義勝 (Yoshikatsu Takeiri) served almost seven years longer.

[jaichind]

In local polls for the upcoming 沖縄(Okinawa) governor election, the anti-base anti-LDP-KP incumbent has a lead over the pro-LDP and pro-JRP candidates.

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-30/activist-investor-s-daughter-wants-more-women-in-japan-politics#xj4y7vzkg

"Activist Investor’s Daughter Wants More Women in Japan Politics"

Generally, this is not going to work.  Politics in Japan are personal and not ideological so you cannot get elected on brand/image/ideology alone.  Campaign finance and spending laws also mean that you cannot outsource getting your message out via mass media so for a politician to win you need to spend a lot of time meeting with groups (like Unification Church) that can work as a free GOTV or get the message out organization.

I pointed out last year that successful women politicians are usually childless in oriental electoral democracies which just means many women are not interested in getting involved for that cost.  You actually see the same thing on PRC.  The CCP used to, for ideological reasons, get a lot of women in politics in the 1950s-1980s but now the CCP has turned into a meritocratic based system that rewards getting things done at the grassroots level, and the number of women in politics or even being a member of the CCP (I think it is 80/20 male/female these days) has been decreasing last two decades.

This is one general pattern in Oriental electoral democracies (Japan ROK ROC.)  All women politicians are   

a) never married, no children
b) married to another politician with no children
c) joined politics after their children are grown up usually a successor to another male politician (father or husband) 

 
The reason for this trend is that Orientals democracies

a) politics tend to be transactional and non-ideological which means that an up-and-coming politician has no personal time
b) have a clear pattern of female hypergamy so capable women that became an up-and-coming politicians will be looking for a husband with greater career success.  But these same possible husbands are looking to raise a family and that is pretty much impossible with a politician for a wife who has no personal time.

I think at the township level there is some room for married with young children women politicians but anything above that becomes extremely rare.

[jaichind]

https://apnews.com/article/shinzo-abe-japan-assassinations-religion-state-funerals-51a8271e5c9452c5c0c74bfe148f8ca4

"Japan PM apologizes for party’s church links, will cut ties"

Kishida says LDP will cut all links to Unification Church

[jaichind]

https://www.sankei.com/article/20220831-AVADHTD3ZFMKHL6CCCTRIFSXHE/

Sankei's article on the meeting of all opposition parties to coordinate efforts to go after LDP on Abe's state funeral and links to Unification Church.

This meeting included CDP DPP JRP JCP RS SDP.

The Abe assassin made history by triggering a series of events that got JRP and JCP to be in the same room together.  What is taking place is the opposition parties smell blood.  With Kishida apologizing for LDP links to Unification Church he mostly conceded to the anti-LDP narrative and now every opposition party does not want to miss out on possible gains from this.

The Sankei article referred to this meeting as 呉越同舟 or Wu and Yue on the same boat which is really an "Alliance of rivals" which refers to the story of citizens from rival ancient Chinese kingdoms of Wu and Yue being stuck on a  boat that is about to capsize and wall working together to get the boat to safety.  

Sankei picture of the meeting

[Logical]

Of all the possible outcomes I thought of when Abe was assassinated I certainly could not have imagined that it would bring JCP and JRP together in one table to plot against LDP. Interesting how DIY is left out of this though.

[jaichind]

Of all the possible outcomes I thought of when Abe was assassinated I certainly could not have imagined that it would bring JCP and JRP together in one table to plot against LDP. Interesting how DIY is left out of this though.

DIY is excluded for the same reason why I lump them into PNHK as an "anti-system" party.  Ultimately as much as JRP and JCP totally oppose each other both will agree that the other is a "serious" party.  Both view parties such as PNHK and DIY as jokers and not a "real political party."

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Of all the possible outcomes I thought of when Abe was assassinated I certainly could not have imagined that it would bring JCP and JRP together in one table to plot against LDP. Interesting how DIY is left out of this though.

Sharks can smell blood in the water.