Here are some of the songs I sang at an epic karaoke session tonight:

My Chemical Romance – “I’m Not Okay”

Judy and Mary – “Sobakasu”

Oda Kazumasa “Kira Kira”

Kiroro – “Best Friend”

Who is likely to win?

No one can say for sure, but so far polls consistently favor the DPJ to pick up a large number of seats. Tobias Harris at the Observing Japan blog sees DPJ advantage wherever he looks, and so do the major weekly magazines. As I see it, there are three realistic scenarios, in order of likelihood:

1) The DPJ picks up a large number of seats but not enough to form a government alone or with its current opposition partners.

For the DPJ to win 241 seats, the number required to form a government without any help from coalition partners, it will have to expand its current standings from 112 seats by 129. Alternately, to form a coalition government with current opposition forces, the DPJ would need to pick up 98 seats (assuming all other parties stay the same).

Either result would be a true blowout. I haven’t checked, but one expert on the subject has told me that a gain of 129 seats would be the biggest win under the current constitution. However, that’s the result that most in-depth analysis is predicting.

But what if it doesn’t happen? It’s entirely possible that the DPJ could pick up just 90 seats, eight seats short of a clear win. In that case, as yesterday’s Nikkei notes, immediately after the election the parties would have 30 days to negotiate a government coalition before the extraordinary Diet session must be held to choose a prime minister. In that case, minority parties such as Your Party could end up being the deciding factor – they could go either way. The Nikkei predicts this could lead to some party defections as various groups jockey for position.

A DPJ loss would be an enormous shock considering the momentum and expectations for a DPJ win. For some it would be a relief, while others (including many in the foreign press, apparently) would be sorely disappointed.

2) The DPJ picks up a historically unprecedented number of seats and can form a government either on its own or in a coalition with the current opposition.

This is the easiest scenario to envision and it’s the one most widely reported. If the DPJ can pick up at least 98 seats, assuming other opposition parties stay the same, it wins. It can form a government headed by DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama.

3) The LDP pulls off an upset and manages to stay in power somehow.

Expectations for the LDP seem next to non-existent. While the mainstream domestic media are maintaining a more or less neutral tone, polls consistent show a clear advantage to the DPJ. The foreign media seems to discount the possibility of an LDP win (in at least one case conducting a pre-emptive post-mortem), opting instead to play up the historic nature of the election. But it’s not at all an impossible scenario. If all of Aso’s political gambles, his smears of the DPJ, and his insistence that the LDP is the most responsible party to lead Japan end up paying off somehow, he will have pulled off a major achievement that could lead to his own long term in office.

This scenario does seem unlikely, however. As Hiroshi Yamaguchi and Tobias Harris have been showing, election predictions by people who have analyzed each district are all showing major DPJ gains.

***

And so ends my introduction to the lower house election. From here on in, I’ll be focusing on my local race in Tokyo’s 13th district.

Moving forward with my series on this upcoming election, today I would like to talk about the main issues at stake and outline the main parties in the race.

What are some of the issues in this election, and where do the main parties stand?

Bureaucratic control – As I mentioned in the last post, Japan’s bureaucracy has maintained control of the ship of state for most of the postwar period. The DPJ wants to fix that and create a system more like the British executive branch, while the LDP pledges to do some trimming around the edges.

Pensions – With the aging of Japan’s population, there is a widespread concern that the country’s pension system won’t be able to keep up. These concerns are no doubt bolstered when the government acts to limit benefits, as it has several times in recent history, or is caught losing records and misappropriating large chunks of the pension fund. As a result, the pensions issue turns up as the top priority for voters in most polls. A general consensus seems to have formed that the only way to fund the pension liabilities is to raise consumption taxes, but that remains a political third rail.

Depopulation – As mentioned above, the issue of population decline is a major source for concern, as the entire model for economic growth more or less hinges on a growing population. The prospect of relative economic decline has many Japanese putting off childbirth until later in life and settling in for a long-term period of mediocre lifestyles. To help assuage these concerns all parties have pledged one form or another of childcare support – The LDP pledges to make school affordable, while the DPJ has promised to give cash handouts to couples with children while levying tax penalties on single-income families with no children.No party is talking about expanding immigration as a way to stem depopulation, a move that would be controversial but has been widely argued for.

Economic turmoil/unemployment – The LDP has made the current economic downturn its top priority. Aso has repeated that it will take three years for Japan’s economy to fully recover (though it’s odd that he started saying that more than six months ago and he’s still saying “three years” in TV ads. Shouldn’t it be 2.5 years by now?) and will continue efforts to combat the short-term deficit.

Structural reform – Though the 2005 election was fought on the merits of privatizing the postal service, both parties appear set to revise the terms of privatization if they win this time around. Aso’s LDP pledges to “say goodbye to excessive market fundamentalism” while the DPJ has pledged to freeze the planned stock offerings of Japan Post’s banking and insurance arms. On other fronts, however, the DPJ seems to be more active in pursuing some structural reforms – namely, eliminating “special accounts” that are managed by various ministries, and taking on bureaucratic rule as a whole.

One area of policy where the DPJ and LDP differ very little is support of less central government control over Japan’s local administration (which is incidentally a long-term goal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication).

Both the LDP and DPJ have also proposed reforming the legislative branch of government. The LDP wants to reduce the size of both houses by 30%, while the DPJ has only proposed eliminating 80 of the 180 lower house proportional representation seats.

Foreign policy – Though it might not decide the election, the parties have real differences when it comes to foreign policy. The LDP is seen as willing to maintain the status quo of the US-Japan alliance, while the DPJ has made it clear they would seek some more fundamental renegotiation. Meanwhile, the DPJ is viewed as more willing to build close relations with China, as evidenced by DPJ president Yukio Hatoyama’s pledge not to visit Yasukuni Shrine as prime minister. The prevailing view of US Japan-watchers seems to be that if the DPJ takes power, these differences would mean real but manageable change, as outlined in this WSJ op-ed by Dan Blumenthal and Gary Schmitt.

What are the main parties and what are their platforms?

Liberal Democratic Party – This is the party that’s been in power for almost all of Japan’s post-war history. There’s some truth to the cliche that the LDP is “neither liberal nor democratic… nor a party” – the members tend to be more right-wing (closer to the European definition of “liberal”) though the internal factions have widely disparate policy objectives. Their campaign centers on positioning themselves as the more responsible party versus a spendthrift DPJ that can’t be trusted with power.

(You can take a look at an English-language policy brochure here (PDF))

Democratic Party of Japan – The current main opposition party was formed in 1998 and took its current form in 2003 from an merger of several smaller parties that had either formed or evolved from the messy political reorganization of the 1990s. The LDP was removed from power in 1993 only to take back the premiership in various convoluted coalition governments until things stabilized in 1998, when the New Komeito and the LDP solidified an alliance that continues to this day. The DPJ, therefore, is a wide mix of former socialists, moderates, and conservatives united principally in their desire to gain power (this is very similar to the LDP’s uniting factor).

People’s New Party (Kokumin Shinto in Japanese) – A breakoff of the LDP, Kokumin Shinto is the party I like to call the anti-postal privatization party. This party was formed in 2005 when Koizumi ousted dozens of his own party for voting against his bill to privatize Japan Post, an effort aimed at helping restore Japan’s financial soundness while cutting off the political base of some of his political rivals. These included some long-time political heavyweights such as Tamisuke Watanuki of Toyama and Shizuka Kamei of Hiroshima, who now lead Kokumin Shinto. Their entire platform boils down to opposition to postal privatization, as the postal interests have long been the members’ source of support and funding. They are allied with the DPJ on the condition that the DPJ support the bill to freeze the impending IPOs of the Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance.

While Kokumin Shinto is somewhat single-minded, they have at times proven an adept opposition party, thanks to Shizuka Kamei, who is a foremost Soka Gakkai hater and opposition researcher.

New Party Nippon – This is another party formed in the wake of the LDP’s “postal rebellion” in 2005. It’s led by Yasuo Tanaka an author-turned-politician who led the fight against wasteful spending during his term as Nagano governor. This party remains tiny and in this election they are only fielding a few candidates.

Your Party – This is yet another party formed due a split in the LDP split, only this time the defectors are pro-structural reform elements. This party is led by Yoshimi Watanabe, a Tochigi Prefecture politician and former administrative reform minister who left the LDP after the party refused to implement his policy initiatives. His small party is also not expected to make much of an impact in this election, though if the results are close all small parties could become critical to forming a government.

New Komeito – This is the populist/pacifist party that serves as the political arm of lay Buddhist movement Soka Gakkai. With the third largest number of seats in the lower house, they are the LDP’s coalition partner and have pledged to stick with the LDP win or lose (yeah, right). They have a fairly stable voter base of Soka Gakkai believers, and so are expected to keep their current standing. They are campaigning on promises of administrative reform and enhanced social spending.

Japan Communist Party – The communist party in Japan has essentially renounced revolution as a means to achieve socialism and instead campaigns on labor and other populist issues. This election, as in 2005, they are emphasizing their role as a check on the conservative tendencies of the other parties. For instance, they devote the back page of their manifesto to criticizing some of the DPJ’s policies, though they are expected to enter into a coalition with them should the DPJ win. The DPJ’s success is likely to come at the expense of some of the JCP’s seats, especially in the proportional representation voting. Though the revival of 1920s communist propaganda The Crab Canning Ship has renewed interest in the JCP, it’s unclear whether that will help the party in this election. In last month’s Tokyo assembly election, the JCP actually lost seats. In my district the JCP is fielding a candidate against the LDP and DPJ.

Social Democratic Party – This center-left party is what remains of the Japan Socialist Party, the longtime permanent opposition under the 1955 system of semi-permanent LDP control. Since the 1990s their numbers have dwindled and they are struggling to remain relevant. They are also considered likely to coalition with the DPJ if they take the reins of government.

Happiness Realization Party – The sudden decision of new religion Happy Science, a personality cult of guru Ryuho Okawa, to form the Happiness Realization Party and run in the general election has raised eyebrows in Japan but not garnered much local press coverage. As I noted in my posts on the Tokyo assembly election, their campaign pledges make promises that don’t even seem physically possible – they want to eliminate most taxes, invade North Korea, and build a massive bullet train system all over the world. What does this have to do with reality? Not a whole lot, but the party seems to be betting that people are stupid enough to vote for “no consumption taxes.”

There are a couple other parties running, including Muneo Suzuki’s Shinto Daichi, a Hokkaido-specific party designed primarily to keep Suzuki in office. But they are too minor for me to bother with at this point.

***

In my next post, I will discuss the three likely post-election scenarios: Will the LDP stay on top, will the DPJ score a landslide and take over, or will the DPJ gains not be enough to form a government with the current opposition parties?

On Tuesday, I took a long bike trip from my home in Ayase to Kasai Rinkai Park in Edogawa-ku. While I recover (going long distances on a mamachari can be tiring), I will post some photo highlights (you can see the whole album here).

First up we have this guy fishing on the tetrapods. Not sure what he is trying to catch, but maybe these tetrapods in the middle of the river give him a strategic position away from other fishermen.

This photo was taken from the Kasaibashi bridge.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of my first journey to Japan, as a Rotary Youth Exchange student going to school and generally getting in trouble in Osaka.

Since then, I have flown a hundred thousand miles, earned three diplomas, and have seen my Japanese high school closed down and stupidly renamed while my American high school gets shuttered due to the swine flu.

I still have many memories of that first year, and for the next eleven months, will be sharing some of those memories here on the blog. (Those of you who don’t care can simply avoid the jump, and Adamu will still regale you with tales of the Adachi-ku ballot). Read the rest of this entry »

Quick update here, I’m heading off for home (Montclair, New Jersey) in a few hours, by way of San Francisco. I’ll be in the NJ/NYC area until September 10 and then in San Francisco until the 15th, before I head back to Kansai. While at home I’ll probably also make a brief visit to DC for a couple of days. I’m going to try to stay mostly off-line and read more books while I’m at home, but anyone in those areas feel free to drop me a line and I’ll see if I have room in my schedule to meet up.

Just for fun, here’s a (hopefully) complete list of electronics on my person and baggage as I travel.

iPhone (SIM-locked for Softbank, Japan)

External extra battery for iPhone.

Creative Zen Vision:M 60GB (Just in case I run out of iPhone juice entirely.)

Samsung Blackjack (my old phone from last time I lived in US, intend to use with prepaid SIM card while at home.)

Some junky generic Motorola phone (my travel phone when going around Asia. Just in case.)

Asus eeePC 1000

Canon 50D w/ two 8-GB memory cards, 3 batteries and a charger

^ Canon 50mm 1.8F lens

^ Canon 17-85 EF-S lens

^ Tokina 11-16 lens

Sharp electronic dictionary

External USB hard drive (backup of my important files, to leave at home as ultimate emergency off-site backup and swap for a fresh backup drive.)

Note Howard Dean’s statement toward the end of this video:

BTW, the Talking Points Memo blog’s “Day in 100 Seconds” and “Sunday Show Roundup” are great. This way I don’t have to actually watch those painful news shows.

On Tuesday, parts of Japan’s political net-osphere will go dark as the official campaigning period begins for the August 30 general election to select members of the nation’s lower house of parliament. Considering that this election has the potential to take government control away from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party for the first time in 13 years, national and international attention on this race is high.

So what can I add to the conversation? My interest in Japanese politics and other current events is fairly intense, so I plan to follow this story with the same rigor I apply to my other favorite topics.

Mainly,  I plan to profile the candidates up for election in my district (Tokyo’s 13th) to give a worm’s-eye-view of the election from my perch in Adachi-ku, Tokyo. Some readers will recall my series of candidate profiles leading up to last month’s Tokyo prefectural assembly elections.

But first, some opening remarks:

What will this election decide?

On Sunday, August 30, Japanese voters will go to the polls to elect all 480 members of the House of Representatives, the more powerful house of the country’s bicameral legislative branch of government. After the election, the Diet (Japan’s word for its parliament) will be convened to choose a prime minister, who will then form a cabinet. The upper and lower house will each conduct a vote, but if the upper house vote differs from the lower house’s, the lower house’s choice will prevail. If one party has won an outright majority of seats in the lower house, it can elect a prime minister without the aid of any other party, but if not various parties will have to negotiate and form a coalition government.

The lower house is where most substantive legislative business is done. It controls the passage of the national budget, can override an upper house veto with a two-thirds vote, and most importantly decides the appointment of the prime minister. The DPJ currently controls the upper house, which is a less powerful but still significant part of the legislative process.

The party (or coalition of parties) that wins this election will ostensibly gain control over essentially the entire country—if the DPJ gains control it will preside over the executive branch, dominate both houses of the legislature, and possess the power to appoint Supreme Court and lower court justices.

In practice, however, the prime minister and cabinet’s power has been limited – to give a very broad outline, powerful ministries set the agenda on most important national issues, the legislature exists mainly to ratify that agenda and distract the public with loud but ineffectual drama and scandal (in exchange for funneling money back to their districts), and the judicial nominees are almost never decided by the elected officials themselves.

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan are on track to make significant gains in this election, though it will be a tall order to increase their current standings (110) to exceed the LDP’s total of 303. The DPJ are campaigning on many issues, but perhaps first and foremost on a revolutionary vision of administrative reform. They believe that the bureaucrats in the country maintain power based on, in Secretary General Acting President Naoto Kan’s words, a “mistaken interpretation of the Constitution” that bureaucracy has the inherent right to control government administration, while it’s the job of the cabinet and legislature concentrate on passing laws. The DPJ would like to wrest control away from the “iron triangle” of unelected bureaucrats, powerful business interests, and their cronies in the Diet and place power squarely in the politicians’ hands. But more on that later.

How are members selected?

Since the law was changed in 1993 following a major LDP electoral defeat, members of Japan’s lower house have been chosen using two parallel systems – 300 are selected through single-member districts nationwide similar to the US House of Representatives, while the remaining 180 seats are allotted through a proportional representation system (or PR for short).

Under Japan’s PR system, the parties running in the election field candidates in each of 11 regions. On election day, voters write down two votes for the lower house – one for their preferred individual in their district, and the other to choose a party they’d like to receive the PR seats in their region. In the interest of counting as many votes as possible, votes will still count if a voter writes in the name of an individual running in the region or the party leader’s name instead of the party name.

For example of how this works, in 2005 the Tokyo PR district had 17 available seats. To win a seat, a party would have had to earn at least 5.88% of the vote, or 389,682 votes. Only one party that ran (Shinto Nippon with 290,027 votes) failed to gain a seat in this district.

The fact that relatively fewer votes are needed to win a PR seat has convinced smaller parties to try their luck. Most recently, the Happiness Realization Party, a newly formed political wing of new religion Happy Science, has decided to field more than 300 candidates in all single-member and PR districts (though as of this writing it is unclear whether they will actually go through with it). The religion’s leader Ryuho Okawa has announced his intention to run in the Kinki PR district with the top position. To do so he will need 3.45% of the vote, which would have been around 375,000 votes in 2005. His party would have to seriously improve its performance after winning a dismal 0.682% (13,401 votes in 10 districts) of votes in the Tokyo prefectural elections. Okawa had originally planned to run in Tokyo, but Tokyo has a higher 5.88% hurdle to overcome.

How does voting work in practice?

After entering the polling station, voters will be handed a paper ballot and a pencil (yes, a pencil, not a pen). They will be directed to a table with a list of candidates and instructions on how to vote. There they will write in the name of their preferred candidate along with their PR vote. To make it easier for voters to remember, many candidates spell their names using phonetic hiragana instead of kanji, which can be harder to write and have many different readings.

Since this election will also include a people’s review of nine of Japan’s 15 Supreme Court justices, voters will be required to mark an X next to the names of justices they would like to see dismissed. Blank votes will be counted as in favor of keeping them on.

In my next post, I’ll talk about the issues and outlook for this specific election before getting into the more provincial task of profiling my local candidates.