“Your Democratic Party”: An Urgent Antidote to the LDP-Abe Regime By Junichi Fujimoto
June 28, 2013
Junichi Fujimoto was born in 1958. He is a journalist. After working for newspapers and magazines, he became a freelance journalist. Since 2003, he writes a series of political articles published under the heading of “Nagata-cho Waido-sho” for the daily newspaper “Tokyo Sports”. Among other books, he wrote “Nagata-cho Kitan (Curious Incidents at Nagata-cho)”(Fusosha Publishing). His blog is: http://fujimoto-junichi.blogspot.jp/
As expected, with no disputed policy issues, the Tokyo metropolitan assembly elections ended up with a decisive victory of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito, the former being backed by the public support of the Abe administration. The two parties secured 82, nearly two thirds of the 127 assembly seats. Apparently the poll outcome reflected last December’s Lower House national election which brought the ruling bloc back to power.
What can be said about opposition parties? That the Democratic Party of Japan has seen its seats plummet from 43 to 15 was not astonishing. Among third parties, with 34 candidates, the Japan Restoration Party won only 2 seats paying for its co-leader Toru Hashimoto’s “remarks on comfort women”. The Social Democratic Party, the People’s Life Party, and the Greens Party did not gain any seats, while Your Party took advantage of this setback and succeeded in securing 7 seats. The most outstanding party in the race was definitely the Communist Party which toppled the Democratic Party of Japan by doubling its seats from 8 to 17, becoming the third majority in the assembly.
Is the outcome of the next month’s Upper House national election also going to be a sweeping victory for the ruling coalition LDP-New Komeito? Are there any projections for the opposition, particularly the Democratic Party of Japan, to have their revenge? Everything hinges on the success or the failure of the cooperation between opposition parties and the trends in polls of the independent voters.
Compared with the 54.49 percent poll turnout that brought the Democratic Party of Japan to power in 2009, the metropolitan assembly election witnessed an 11 point decrease with 43.50 percent of voters, becoming the second lowest turnout in history. It means that 6 in 10 people did not exercise their voting right, but an originally urban formation such as the Democratic Party of Japan whose popularity depends on its capacity to increase the number of its independent voters is likely to have a hard time.
Moreover, a glance at the percentage of votes obtained by each party indicates that the Liberal Democratic Party scored 36.04 percent making inroads in the electorate by 10 points, while the Democratic Party of Japan got 40.79 percent suffering a slump of 15.24 points. But, if this figure is added to the 6.87 percent and 8.25 percent respectively obtained by Your Party and the Japan Restoration Party, it is at least going to match the Liberal Democratic Party’s percentage.
Without being too optimistic, at least in view of the upcoming Upper House election isn’t it advisable to create a new political formation merging the Democratic Party with Your Party? Adopting “Your Democratic Party” as the formation denomination, the actual President would be Yoshimi Watanabe and the Secretary-General of the Party would be Goshi Hosono. Undecided independent voters who seek out an anti-LDP Abe platform will certainly resume the polls. As far as can be observed across the actual opposition, Ichiro Ozawa would be the suitable person to act as a go-between the two political parties. As is well known, Ichiro Ozawa and the actual executive management of the Democratic Party of Japan are on friendly terms. Also, at the time of the Japan Renewal Party, Ozawa tried to persuade a big gun of the LDP, the deceased former LDP Secretary-General Michio, father of Mr. Watanabe, to run for the premiership. Criticisms will denounce an illicit alliance between opposition parties, but only Mr. Ozawa, who is used to no-holds-barred political escapades, can carry out such an important mission.
Such a move would be better than placidly waiting for one’s death on account of the looming victory of the LDP-New Komeito coalition. After all, in politics what is going to happen to somebody on the morrow is unknown!
[Excerpt from the blog “Fujimoto Junichi ga “Seiji wo Yomitoku”]
(Translated from Japanese by Willy Lukebana Toko)
