Raw Japan

from Global News Journal:

Japan PM under fire — from his wife

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan faces plenty of grilling from the opposition camp but his toughest critic might be the one he calls "the opposition party within his own household" -- his wife.

"Since I know him very well, I wonder -- is it okay that this person is prime minister?" Nobuko Kan, Naoto's wife of 40 years, writes in her new book titled "What on earth will change in Japan now you are prime minister?"

The 64-year-old Nobuko -- who calls herself "Japan's most nagging voter" -- also reveals in the book that her husband is a terrible cook and has given up on studying English, and she pooh-poohs his fashion sense, describing how he once got caught walking around in public with a price tag sticking out of his sleeve.

Ouch.

"I am too scared to read it," the prime minister, a 63-year-old former grassroots activist, admitted to reporters when asked about his wife's book about their life together.

The book may not be the best way to cheer up her husband, whose support rate has been sliding since his ruling Democratic Party got clobbered in this month's upper house election.  Kan faces a tough balancing act trying to rein in Japan's huge debt while getting the wobbly economy back on track.

from Global News Journal:

Japan voters seek change, may get chaos

Five years ago, Japanese voters seeking change from stale politics and a stagnant economy backed maverick leader Junichiro Koizumi's calls for reform, handing his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a huge win in an election for parliament's powerful lower house.

Two years, several scandals and one incompetent prime minister later, they dealt the same LDP a stinging setback in a 2007  upper house election, creating a "Twisted Parliament" where the upper chamber could stall bills and delay policies.

The gridlock toppled the LDP's Shinzo Abe and his successor,  each after about a year in office, and finally last summer the same electorate -- still longing for something new and better -- swept the novice Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to power, ending more than half a century of almost non-stop LDP rule and ejecting  Taro Aso from the PM's seat. The DPJ, voters hoped, would make good on promises to change how Japan was governed, ending bureaucratic control of policies, and somehow ensuring that Japan emerged from two decades of the doldrums.

Now, after less than a year  of chaotic policymaking,  indecisive leadership and more scandals under DPJ premier  Yukio Hatoyama, followed by sudden talk of a sales tax hike from former grassroots activist Naoto Kan, who took over when Hatoyama suddenly quit,  frustrated voters did it again.

On Sunday, they delivered a harsh rebuke to the DPJ and a tiny ally, depriving them of an upper house majority and setting the stage for another bout of deadlock as Japan struggles to engineer growth in a fast-ageing society and curb a gigantic public debt.

"Voters were not trying to create political confusion, but that is the result," said independent political analyst Hirotaka Futatsuki, adding that calls for a snap lower house election that might not solve anything would grow. No lower house poll need be held until 2013.

Scenarios abound for possible ways out of the political bind.

from Global News Journal:

Japan’s not-so-hot election

Candidates on the campaign trail in Japan are sweating through the summer heat but voters have been cool towards this Sunday's upper house election.

Sure, the government won't change because the ruling Democratic Party will still control the more powerful lower house.

But the election matters because failure for the Democrats to win a majority would split parliament and stall policymaking, blocking Prime Minister Naoto Kan's pledge to cut Tokyo's huge public debt, create jobs and fix the creaking social security system.

So why aren't voters fired up? For one, the campaign has been pretty dull.

Rules require media to give equal coverage to all the political parties -- not great for viewership when there are more than 10 of them. TV debates have had no fewer than seven party leaders arguing over issues ranging from the economy to diplomacy.

The debates are squeezed into shows lasting an hour or less, and include brief intervals showing pre-recorded comments from other party heads. Even Yasuo Tanaka, leader of New Party Nippon with just one seat in parliament, gets air time.

from Global News Journal:

Japan’s “political deflation”

"Political deflation" - that's how one quipster described the woes besetting Japan's political sphere as support for both the new ruling party and its main conservative rival slips on concerns that neither side is capable of steering an economy plagued by falling prices, decades of lacklustre growth and a fast-ageing, shrinking population.

Six months after the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) swept to power  for the first time in a landslide election win that ended more than 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the conservative Liberal Democrats, support for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government is only about half the exuberant 70 percent level enjoyed when he took office.

Pundits are predicting the DPJ will have trouble winning an outright majority in an election, expected to be held in July, for parliament's less powerful upper house. The Democrats need a majority to break loose of a tiny coalition partner -- outspoken banking minister Shizuka Kamei's People's New Party  -- as well as another small partner, the Social Democrats, so they can avoid policy squabbles and pass bills smoothly. An outright ruling bloc loss threatens parliamentary deadlock.

A survey published in the Nikkei business daily on Monday showed support for Hatoyama's cabinet has slid seven points to 36 percent and support for the DPJ  is down eight points at 33 percent.

Providing some comfort -- albeit cold -- for the struggling Democrats is the fact that the ousted Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is faring even worse. Even before last year's election, former financial services minister Yoshimi Watanabe had bolted the party to form the small pro-reform Your Party, and since that defeat several other lawmakers have defected while some still in the LDP are publicly criticising their uncharismatic leader, Sadakazu Tanigaki, and mulling creating rival forces.

The LDP internal strife isn't playing well with voters, who may be disappointed with the Democrats but appear to have little appetite for a comeback by the Liberal Democrats. Support for the LDP in the Nikkei poll dipped one point to 23 percent, while that for Your Party, by contrast, doubled  to 8 percent.

Are Japan’s rookie lawmakers being treated like kids?

Name tags on their chairs so their “teachers” can take attendance; instructions on how to greet their elders politely; orders to turn up on time.

Rookie lawmakers in Japan’s ruling Democratic Party are, critics say, being treated like first-grade students instead of a talent pool the government can draw on to tackle tough policy problems from a bulging debt to strained ties with Washington.

Political mastermind Ichiro Ozawa’s strict control of the 141 new lawmakers swept into office by the Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) huge August election victory that ousted their long-dominant rival has cast a spotlight on the paradoxical power of the man many credit with engineering the historic win.

Fears that Ozawa, who bolted the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1993 and spent the following years plotting its overthrow, would pull the strings in Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government have simmered since he took over as the Democrats’ No. 2 after their stunning win at the polls.

His grip on the party grabbed fresh attention recently when he scuppered a plan to draft 14 first-term lawmakers for a new task force set up to identify wasteful projects that can be cut from the national budget, an urgent chore now that Japan’s public debt looks set to exceed 200 percent of its GDP this year.

“Why is Ozawa doing this? Because for him, political power means numbers and numbers mean elections, so the Democrats need to keep the seats they won and to get ready for the next election now,” said political commentator Hirotaka Futatsuki.

“But taken to an extreme, the result would be that all the new lawmakers have to do is raise their hands to pass laws.”

It’s only been a week

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama stepped onto the world stage last week, just days after formally being voted into his post. After his party’s decade in the obscurity of opposition, the sometimes dour academic seemed exhilarated by the whirlwind of top-level meetings at the United Nations in New York and the Group of 20 in Pittsburgh.   Some other party officials along on the trip appeared a little lost. “We’ve only been doing this a week,” followed by an embarrassed chuckle, was the answer to some of the more probing questions put by the Japanese press corps flying with the prime minister.   Hatoyama’s Democratic Party has made much of its determination to do things differently from the long-ruling Liberal Democrats, including how they treat the media.   Signs of change appeared almost immediately his official plane took off from Haneda airport bound for New York, when Hatoyama made an appearance among the journalists at the rear of the plane. That’s a rarity in itself in status-conscious Japan, but he caused even more of a stir by bringing along his wife, former musical star Miyuki, who handed out boxes of cakes for reporters to share.   Buns aside, the biggest sign of change was the regular briefings during the trip, which were given by a politician, rather than a bureaucrat. Some sessions turned into a bizarre game of Chinese whispers, with the briefer passing on information passed on by a bureaucrat present at the meeting.   But Hatoyama himself seemed eager to talk to reporters in person. After a detailed run-down of his first meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama left one interviewer speechless, he caught himself in mid-flow with: “Oh, did I go on too long?”He also chatted freely with reporters off the record.   Less of a joker than popular former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who initially attracted popstar-like adulation, Hatoyama could yet win fans in the press with sheer enthusiasm.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Unknown territory for bureaucrats and media

Japan’s new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party scored a historic victory in last month’s election, wants to radically change how the country is run and in particular reduce bureaucrats’ control over formulating policy. 

And his government has taken a symbolic approach – it has decided to ban top bureaucrats from holding news conferences to explain its policy stance. The Hatoyama government has also abolished twice-weekly meetings of top bureaucrats, which have discussed, coordinated and decided policy agendas before cabinet meetings so that cabinet ministers can rubber stamp them. Naoto Kan, the new deputy prime minister, has dubbed the so-called vice ministers’ meetings “the bid-rigging meetings” of bureaucrats.

I covered Japan’s Finance Ministry for nearly 10 years and I now cover other departments such as the Foreign Ministry.  Each ministry is different, but usually vice ministers hold press conferences Mondays and Thursdays to clarify the ministry’s stance on the development of policy-making as well as technical and historical background. In addition, there are many different types of press briefings by ministry officials of various ranks. Those are all in addition to regular news conferences by cabinet ministers every Tuesday and Friday.  Yes, there are a lot of press opportunities here – maybe too many.

Still, as soon as the Hatoyama government decided to allow only lawmakers — namely cabinet ministers and their deputies – to hold news conferences on policy ideas, reporters started to ask lots of  “what if” questions. 

“What if we want details on a disaster or the spread of the new H1N1 flu immediately when there is a new development?”, “What if ministers are not available right away or not fully aware enough of technical issues to be able to answer reporters’ questions, as has been the case in the past?”  

Similar questions dominated the first news conference by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano, Japan’s top government spokesman, just hours after the government was formed on Wednesday. Even a few days later, Hatoyama, Hirano and other cabinet ministers were still being repeatedly asked to clarify their stance on media access.  The widely circulated Yomiuri newspaper on Friday questioned the government’s approach in its editorial ”Muzzling bureaucrats might be step too far“, saying restricting press conferences would make the policy-making process less transparent.

Political paparazzi

It’s been a scramble for journalists to follow Yukio Hatoyama’s every move after his Democratic Party won the election by a landslide, making him the next prime minister. 

From his opulent home to gatherings with political and government figures, reporters chase him all around Tokyo, with pit-stops at the Democrats’ headquarters in Nagatacho, the heart of the capital’s political district.

The Democrats’ modest HQ makes the chase harder. Several dozen reporters, including TV crew and photographers, tussle to catch Hatoyama in just the few metres he has to get from his car to the elevator of the building. Another few dozen reporters are standing by in the very narrow hallway on the eighth floor in front of the offices of party executives, including Hatoyama’s.

“He entered the building,” a reporter shouts after getting a call from a colleague downstairs.

All the cameramen rush to get ready to film 15 seconds of Hatoyama walking into his office.

Historic win in Japan. Now what?

Historic is usually a word that makes my skin crawl when I see it in the news. Journalists are prone to overuse it, so when I saw it in our election stories I had to stop myself deleting it — because this election truly is historic.

The Liberal Democratic Party had never lost an election since its founding in 1955. Even when it lost power for a few months in 1993/94, it was because of LDP lawmakers defecting rather than an election loss.

So the Democratic Party, under prime minister-elect Yukio Hatoyama, has a huge mandate. What will he do with it?

It’s clear that the last two elections were votes for a change to the old system where the ruling LDP, big business and bureaucrats ruled the place. Remember the 2005 LDP landslide was led by Junichiro Koizumi running on the destruction of his own party’s pork-barrel history.

The question is whether voters also rejected deregulation in the wake of the financial crisis and slumping exports that put large numbers of unprotected contract workers out of work.

The Yomiuri newspaper, Japan’s biggest seller, certainly subscribed to that view in its editorial on Monday. Along with the undisputed argument that voters were disgusted with the LDP’s failures, it said the defeat “was brought about by the collapse of its structural reforms that went too far”.

Watching the giants fall

Some elections count more than others, and never more than when a longstanding dominant party is sent packing. I’ve been lucky enough to witness turning points in four countries on two continents.

France, India, Italy, now Japan — all have rejected one-party dominance for the rough and tumble of alternating majorities. In each case, I was fortunate to behold history.

Japan’s election on Sunday marked the end of an era that started not long after World War Two and saw Japan rise from the ashes of defeat to a global economic power. Japan’s revival took root in an iron triangle locking the Liberal Democratic Party, bureaucrats and Japanese industry.

Now the LDP is tasting the same bitter fruit as paramount parties in other countries whose voters decided a few decades in power for one party were enough. The circumstances in each country were different, but the democratic impulse was similar and the result much the same.

In 1981 Francois Mitterand became the first leftist president of France since the Fifth Republic was created in 1957. I watched as ecstatic French voters poured into the streets after Mitterrand’s victory. France then trembled as this imperious socialist did the impossible by sharing power with his Gaullist rivals.

The Indian National Congress spearheaded that nation’s independence movement and then became the dominant political party led by the Nehru-Gandhi family. Eventually corruption allegations caught up with Congress and it had to yield power first to Hindu nationalists, then to a coalition of upstart leftists and regional parties.

I remember the sight of chastened ex-Congress leader P.V. Narasimha Rao standing in the dock in a Delhi court accused of corruption charges, for which he was later acquitted.