Posters - The Last Appeal

The election is just two days away. As the voters walk through town to the polling stations the parties have one final chance to appeal, through the wordless faces of the party leaders pleading with the electorate from their campaign posters. Ignore the words on these campaign posters for the moment and let's read what their faces seem to be saying us.

DPJ, Yukio Hatoyama: "We care. We care about you and we're concerned about you. We're concerned and caring. You can see my concern and my care right here, in my eyes. Look into my eyes, and see my concern, and my care, deep in my eyes. Come close and look deep into my eyes. Look deeper, deeeper. You are feeling sleeepyy, so sleeepy. You see nothing but my eyes. You feel relaxed and happy and care only about my eyes. You will vote DPJ on Sunday. You will vote DPJ ..."

New Komeito, Akihiro Ota: "Come Sunday I know you'll vote Komeito, right? 'Cause you care about fairness, right? I got this religious cult, see, full of members that are all zealous-like about fairness, and they get disappointed when we don't get our fair share of votes, see. They're like kids to me, these people, just like my own kids, right, and I get real upset when they get all disappointed. We had dis guy disappointin' us one time, see, and I got so upset I freakin' snapped his neck with dese hands here, dry twig-like, just snapped it clean off, so upset was I, see. So you don't want to be disappointin' us in any way on Sunday, understand?"

JCP, Kazuo Shii: "Hello, um, is this thing on? Hi, we're the radical party! Um, except, you know, not radically radical, don't worry, heh. We're really reliable and stable, in fact. Um, our platform hasn't changed since before the war, and hasn't touched reality in decades, that's how stable and reliable we are. Um, what? Slogan? Oh, OK. Comrades, listen up! Let Us Boldly March - no, scratch that, sorry, forget I said anything - Let Us Gingerly And After Careful Deliberation Slowly Edge Backwards To A Past Where We Still Were The Future!"

LDP, Taro Aso:¹: "We're so fucked."

[Edit: It helps if you actually spell people's name right]

--

#1 In two weeks of idle searching I couldn't find a single Aso poster anywhere in town, so I had to get this one from the LDP website.

Diet Dissolution

The party is supported by 36% - one in three - of the population. Only 28% - one in four - thinks its leader is suitable for the Prime minister's office. That's not good numbers, you say? Open goal for the opposing party? This party - the DPJ - is the opposing party and it manages to look good only by comparison to the governing party LDP. Their latest support figure is 18%, and their leader - Prime minister Aso Tarō - is considered suitable in his job by 11%, according to the latest Mainichi poll.

Aso dissolved the diet today in preparation for the upcoming election, and the LDP is showing signs of breaking apart over it. Last week a group within the LDP announced they had the lawmaker signatures needed to force a party general meeting. The idea was to depose Aso and elect a new party leader before the general election. Only, just after rebel leader Nakagawa had his triumphant press conference a number of his signatories started backtracking, removing their names, saying they didn't really mean anything by it. The end result was a non-binding meeting today where Aso listened to complaints and grievances from disaffected members - and likely completely ignored them, of course, as he has nothing left to lose and nothing left to prove anyway. He's been Prime minister of Japan, he'll stand for election and he'll go down in history no matter what the result. From his point of view it's no doubt better to be remembered as "The Last Prime Minister of the LDP" than "Temporary Nobody #4".

The house dissolution kicks off the "pre-campaign" season, until the start of the official campaigns on the 18th of August. I have to confess I do not know the detailed election laws here - I have no authoritative sources in English or Swedish - but they are many, strict and frankly quite strange. Once the official campaign period starts, some ridiculously restrictive campaign rules come into force. They're worth a separate post, but when a single car with a loud-speaker chanting the candidate's name is the most effective allowed means of reaching a couple hundred thousand people in an electoral district something is seriously out of whack.

However, before the 18th any campaigning is forbidden, by anybody. What constitutes "campaigning" seems a muddy, stretchy concept. Any online or mass media discussion of policy or merits of one candidate over another could be considered campaigning if you were in that frame of mind. In the run-up to previous elections the "pre-campaign" period has been short. This time, however, there's a whole month of dead time, with the house out of session and election called but with no legal way to campaign. Expect to see lower-house candidates stretch the definition of "campaigning" to its breaking point in the weeks ahead.

Aso Government Death Watch

'Tis a Dark and Stormy night. In the old, run-down house, Aso, the ancient sorcerer (curiously resembling a grumpy potato) is fighting desperately to keep his tortured creation alive, even as the whippoorwills outside sing about its imminent death. Aso looks up in panic as the protective seals and sigils groan and weaken when an indescribable eldritch horror - formed in the darkest reaches of space, forged from the pain and anguish of a million betrayed LDP supporters - inexorably forces its way inside to reach the tortured ..thing that still agonizingly moves on the granite slab in some cruel mockery of life and reclaim it as one of its own.

Aaanyway, we're well into the Aso government death-watch in other words, and possibly (only possibly) the end of LDP as the dominant force in Japanese politics. Right now we have three elections and three dates to consider.

First, on July 12, the Tokyo metropolitan area holds their local elections. Yes, they're "local", but it's greater Tokyo we're talking about. They matter a lot, and they're widely seen as a bellwether for the national election.

Second, we have the upcoming national Lower House election, which must be held in early September at the latest (though the election date could apparently be prolonged into October). The exact date is decided by Prime Minister Aso.

Third, the term of office for Aso himself expires on September 30, and he has to stand for re-election as party leader in the LDP no later than that. He is hugely impopular even within his own party by now, and a fair amount of LDP members want to push him out and elect a new leader before

One question is basically if Aso calls the election before the Tokyo elections or after. Coalition partner New Komeito is dead set against calling it before, as they don't want to fight two election campaigns at the same time in the Tokyo area, but their clout with the LDP may well be on the wane.

If Aso calls them early enough he can schedule the election to August 8, during the Obon holidays. At that time many, many people return to their family villages to see their old folks and visit the family graves. And since you can't vote by post or by proxy here, it means a lot of city folks (who tends to support the opposition) will not be able to vote, while the rural population (who tends to support the LDP) can. This would be sneaky and underhanded - and frankly a creative, well-played political strategy, as long as it doesn't ruffle feathers enough to cause a public backlash.

The other alternative would be an election in early September. This would give the economic mood a bit more time to improve and perhaps lift the LDP approval ratings along with it. Of course, waiting as long as possible risk looking like Aso has no grip on the situation and is unable to take initiative.

The wild card really is how long Aso can stay in office. On one hand, most LDP members recognize that they'd stand a greater chance with the Kuidaore Tarō doll as their prime minister candidate than with Aso at the helm.

On the other hand, switching the Prime Minister for a fourth time in a row, just a month or two before the election, would come across as a cynical, transparent attempt at manipulating voter sentiment for short term electoral gain. It might actually hurt the party even worse than keeping Aso around - also, I suspect that Aso's accession was an attempt to do the same thing, and look just how well that's turned out.

Still, things have gotten bad enough that Aso apparently no longer is in full control over his own cabinet anymore. And last week some high-level LDP people even asked a popular governor and former comedian Higashikokobaru to run for a seat on the LDP ticket, who responded he'd run if he'd be a candidate for the party presidency. This did not sit well with the exisisting LDP members and underscores how the LDP is lacking in any kind of actual leadership. edit: Shisaku has a good, oven-fresh post on these events.

But the Prime Minister has the nuclear option: he, and only he, calls the election. If calls to push him out get too strident he can always push that button and end it with a political bang as it were. Consider his position: well into his 70's, at the topmost post he's ever going to hold, and most likely the last post no matter what happens. He may well want to go out fighting and go in history as the last prime minister of the LDP era, rather than be recorded as Temporary Nobody #3 in the row of short-term prime minister stand-ins.

Poll Time!

It seems Prime Minister Aso is back to working on his single digit approval ratings again now that former opposition party leader Osawa is gone. The DPJ elected Hatoyama as party leader, and Prime minister Aso finally kicked out interior minister Hatoyama¹ after Aso passively let an interministerial power struggle fester in public for the past week. Clearly time for a poll, in other words, and the major news networks have obliged.

Aso gets all of 15% personal approval in a Mainichi News poll which probably translates to the low 20's in non-partisan terms (Mainichi is not a great fan of the LDP). In a similar Kyodo News poll, Aso gets about 20%. Support for the Aso government is stated to be 19% and 17% respectively - call it 20%:². Even the LDP-friendly Yomiuri poll (which didn't ask for, or doesn't disclose, Aso approval figures) found only a bit over 20% support for the cabinet. Not a level most politicians would be comfortable with, less than three months before an election.

It is worth pointing out that Hatoyama (the elder brother, the new DPJ leader) gets about 30% support in the Mainichi poll, which is much better than Aso's figure but he is still beat by Mr. None Of The Above at around 45%. The Yomiuri poll seems to have asked people to specifically pick between Hatoyama and Aso and found Hatoyama lead with 45% over 25%; no word on what the remaining answers where Hatoyama got over 50% in the Kyodo poll, which leads me to suspect their question was similar to Yomiuri's, and perennial favourite None Of The Above was not an option³. The DPJ gets about 40% versus LDP's 20% in the Kyodo poll, 35% and 20% in the Mainichi poll, and 30% versus 25% in Yomiuri. Again, the party of None Of The Above seems to be at least as popular as the DPJ.

In other words, DPJ is not tearing up the boards here. It's popularity rests simply on the virtue of not being the LDP. If it manages to win the next election, I expect a brief and unenthusiastic honeymoon with the electorate ending in the inevitable Narita Rikon⁴ once the voters realize their new partner is no different from their previous one.


--

#1 A different Hatoyama - yes, they're brothers, and yes, I'm happy there isn't a third Hatoyama brother around in Japanese politics; it's all too similar to a Korean soap-opera already.

#2 Giving two- or three-digit precision for polls like these is pointless and actively misleading. Polls of this magnitude, and especially with a skewed, partially self-selected sample (only about 2/3 answered the questions), rarely have better precision than 4-5 percentage points or so.

#3 This is the main problem with these kind of poll articles: they don't give you the methodology, the error estimates (which vary from question to question) or the actual questions asked. It makes them impossible to compare with each other, or even to estimate the true change over time for the same poll.

#4 Narita Rikon - Narita Divorce - is when a couple gets married without first getting to know each other, discover on their honeymoon that they actually dislike each other, and immediately file for divorce on return to Narita airport.

Aso's Hidden Reserve

Tobias Harris has a good post about the pointlessness of Mr. Obama inviting Aso to the white house for a state visit, what with Aso being busy with the disintegration of his cabinet and the remains of his political career and all. Go read it, and read his blog - it's way better than anything I can write about this whole thing.

He points out that Mori in fact is not the record holder for low approval ratings; Takeshita Noboru managed to reach 7% in a Bob Beamon-like feat of lining up his political stars into a moment of singular greatness. This is a very, very hard score to beat. Fortunately, Aso may just be up to the task.

He was off to a great start on his record attempt this week, what with throwing his friend with substance-abuse problems to the lions, and manage to look indecisive and out of control in the process. In some inspired waffling, he first decided to keep Nakagawa on; then have him resign later, once the current economics bill has passed; only to finally give in to pressure and have him leave immediately. We should see a very satisfying dip in the polls from this.

But Aso needs something more to put him over the top, I think; something to yank those last few decimal fractions from his support base. And I think I know his ace in the hole: Agriculture minister Shigeru Ishiba. Note how we haven't had a single minister of Agriculture resign in disgrace for almost six months now; an almost frightening period of calm and order, like a tropical storm building strength just beyond the horizon.

And that, I think is Aso's master plan. The agriculture sector is one of his last bastions of support, and something to turn even them away is exactly what he needs. My bet is that any time now - as soon as next week, perhaps, timed to coincide with his visit to the USA, but more likely in early March - the Agriculture ministry will erupt in the kind of spectacular scandal they do so well. Perhaps they'll play it safe and go for the tried-and-true underhanded campaign donation and misused funds with faked receipts-play. Or perhaps they'll do a daring new domestic food scandal with bribed inspectors looking the other way. Only time will tell. But that, I'm sure, would be enough to truly put Aso and his government in the record books forever.

Aso, We Know You Can Do It!

A note: I have been (very gently) berated by a friend for posting too much about Japanese politics. I understand of course; these are remote events, physically and mentally, for anyone reading this in Sweden. All I can promise is that I'll post less once the next election is over. Please bear with me until then. Anyway, here goes:

Japanese Prime Minister Aso Tarō is nothing if not persistent. He has a trail of verbal gaffes and bungling of policies that would be impressive in a prime minister serving for years, not months. With deteriorating support ratings and his policies (to the extent he has any) going nowhere, a lesser man would throw in the towel and call it quits.

But with such energy and drive entirely unfettered by reflection and self-restraint it should come as no surprise that he'll boldly grab this opportunity and go for the gold. We saw the first signs of greatness when he got support below the 20% level. Two weeks ago we saw the Aso cabinet hit 14% support and people started to wonder: are we seeing history in the making? Could he do it? Could he actually manage to break the 10% barrier before being forced out and tie or surpass Yoshirō Mori for least popular prime minister of all time? And not only a national record, mind you; those numbers would be strong contenders for a world record among democratically elected national leaders.

Mind you, he has to call an election by September, and might well be forced out once the budget is passed this spring, so time is short. He's not helped by those pesky hard-line party members that will support him no matter what; every party of any consequence have their cheerleeding squad that will need more than a mere policy reversal or political disaster to change their support. Fortunately for Aso, it seem he's found the right combination of hapless waffling and intraparty bickering to uproot even this obstacle to historical greatness: Mr. Harris reports that the Aso cabinet have made it below 10%, and in plenty of time to improve further on those numbers too. He was never close to an Olympic medal but this time it looks like the brass ring just might finally be his to grasp!

Aso Polling Badly

When Tarō Aso was chosen as new prime minister and party leader after Fukuda (becoming the third prime minister in a row not actually elected by the people), my theory at the time was that the LDP would try to capitalize on his grassroots popularity and down to earth image to quickly boost the standing of LDP and call an early election. With his approval rating at a pretty good 48% it seemed possible, perhaps even feasible at the time.

Well, so much for that idea. In today's Asahi Shimbun (not online it seems) a new poll shows that the support rate for Aso is at 19%, and disapproval rating at 67%. These are lousy figures even by the standards of the LDP. Both Fukuda and his predecessor Abe resigned with poll numbers better than this. To put in perspective, Aso has managed approval numbers in only five months that not even Bush managed after eight years of incompetence and cronyism. Even worse, among LDP supporters 43% thinks he should quit, while 48% thinks he should stay on.

These numbers are interesting beyond the immediate popularity of Aso. Politicians and political parties alike have a fundamental base of support. It's the fan club, the cheerleading squad, people born into "the party", the people who will vote for them and support them no matter what the actual politics, and no matter what personal or other failings come to light. It's the people that would vote for their party if it nominated a dead sheep to party leadership; that would still vote for their candidate if he switched from the Conservative party to the Marxist-Leninists after getting caught in a hotel room with a pound of coke, two prostitutes and a pony. These people set an effective floor on any poll numbers and vote results.

For the LDP these numbers seem to say that their floor is not all that high anymore. It is no more than 19% of the electorate, and most likely lower. Remember, Aso has not (yet) done anything grossly incompetent or offensive. Sure, the economy is tanking; the social safety net is a hollow shell unable to help those at the bottom; he's forced to push an impopular and ineffective cash-handout scheme to placate his political allies; and he and his cabinet has managed to insult important constituents with clockwork-like regularity. But there's been no really serious scandal - no Watergate or Profumo affair - that would strip the party bare of all but its devoted core. So yes, these numbers can probably go lower still.

Looking forward, a general election must be held no later than September this year. Aso has to try to get his support way up into positive territory again within that time, and do so in the face of a once-in-a-generation economic recession and an opposition in control of the upper house, using a party that is now at open war with itself. Or, he could resign, give the reins to yet another unelected Prime Minister sure to tank even faster than Aso.

Things look quite good for the opposition in other words. Except that the main opposition party consists of much the same hereditary political families as the LDP - a substantial portion are ex-LDP defectors, has an impopular leader of its own and it pushes a similar center-right agenda, and so enjoy support numbers that only look good by comparison. In fact, the most popular party in most polls is not a current party, but "None of the Above".

Which sounds funny until you realize that at some point a real party may emerge to fill the shoes of "None of the Above". And as we have seen in many countries throughout recent history, there's no guarantee that it will be a moderate, secular or democratic party. There's too many examples where widespread political discontent gave power to some very scary - authoritarian, violent, racist - political movements. As much as I agree that LDP needs to just lie down, roll over and pass away already, I'm deeply uncomfortable with the lack of a moderate democratically "safe" alternative to fill the resulting power vacuum.

Fukuda resigns, Aso next

Prime minister Fukuda resigns after one year in the job. He takes his new cabinet with him, only weeks after a cabinet reshuffle. It's not surprising that something would happen fairly soon; the job was looking increasingly hopeless, with support rate in the 20's, conflict between the LDP and its coalition partner New Komeito and waning support from within his own party. The real question, I think, is why now and not in December, and why he resigned, not called an election.

As prime minister he really has two options if the situation is untenable. He can resign or he can call a general election. They are solutions to very different problems and which he'd do depends on what he perceives to be the main problem. If the problem is external - an unworkable parliamentary situation for instance, low support numbers or flagging support from coalition partners - then the right response is to call a general election and take the case to the voters. If the problem is internal, such as lack of support from within his own party or intra-party conflicts that hamstrings the cabinet, then he can resign and let the party select a leader that can resolve those internal issues.

There is also a psychological aspect: if you call an election and lose it, you're perceived as a fighter, someone who went down swinging. If you quit, then, well, you're just a quitter. A common sentiment yesterday was disappointment that he would give up and no go on until the bitter end. Fukuda probably had some fairly strong reasons to choose to resign in other words, and I think that the main reason is Aso Taro.

Aso has run for the prime minister post in the LDP twice, first two years ago when Abe won, then last year hen Fukuda was elected prime minister. In both cases it seemed he was overreaching - overestimating his own popularity and dismissing his opponents. Aso is the choice of the right wing of the party and has been grooming himself for the prime minister post for years. He is prone to inflammatory and careless statements, which doesn't bode well for a prime ministership (though it does make for entertaining political blogging). In the year since his last defeat he's been taking constant potshots at Fukuda and his cabinet, frequently harming the LDP along the way. Last month Fukuda reshuffled his cabinet and appointed Aso secretary general of the LDP. This was probably intended as a quid pro quo: Aso stops fighting the Fukuda cabinet and starts working with the team; in exchange he gets a prestigious position from which he'll be well set to launch his own campaign when Fukuda leaves.

That did not work as intended. Aso has just used the secretary general post as a convenient perch from which to launch ever more public challenges to Fukuda, including setting public support numbers for when Fukuda should give up. If you get the impression of a selfish brat used to always get his own way, then you're picking up the same vibes I do.

I vaguely suspect that Aso's scenario for the fall went something like this: Fukuda soldiers on with the fall legislative session, gives up and calls an election (the election needs to be called no later than next year in any case). The LDP gets trampled - possibly even losing the government to a DPJ-led coalition - and Fukuda dutifully falls on his sword. Aso becomes the new prime minister candidate for the LDP and reassembles the pieces while he waits a few months to a year until the DPJ implodes in internal conflict. He then leads the now purged and resurgent hawkish LDP into a new era of political dominance with himself as its saviour and undisputed lifetime leader. I'm pretty sure square-jawed bronze statues and "Dear Leader" homilies figure somewhere in there as well.

Instead, what Fukuda has done is to say "Blow this, I'm too old and too weary to deal with this anymore. You'll find me at the golf course, I'm the guy in the loud pants and happy, contented smile. Here, Aso, this unholy mess is all yours to fix." Aso is now looking to be the guy who will lead the LDP into the coming election, and unless he can pull some mighty big rabbits out of a very small hat he is looking at presiding over a historical defeat. If LDP loses badly and DPJ is able to form a stable government he'll be looking forward to an even shorter stint in the driver's seat than either of his rivals, and be remembered only as the guy who cost LDP the reins of power.

Now, he is quite popular (he polls even with "none of the above", which is good in Japanese politics), he'll have a substantial popularity boost as the new guy on top so it is quite feasible he'll be able to avert disaster and limit the election loss. But seems now that if he wants to be the saviour of the LDP and not just another caretaker he will have to pull off a real miracle to do it.

Edit: Tobias Harris of Observing Japan makes a similar point, and believes Aso is poised for failure and LDP in dire straits. Jun Okumura of Globaltalk 21 sees it a little differently; with DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro's lousy popularity numbers he predicts Aso will muddle through more or less by default. We'll see.