Posted on 08/30/2009 9:18:40 AM PDT by altair
The Democratic Party of Japan won the Lower House election by a landslide Sunday and was poised to grab more than 300 seats in the 480-seat chamber.
The victory by the main opposition party would end more than half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party. It would also usher in DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama, 62, as the new prime minister by mid-September.
As of 11:40 p.m., the DPJ-led opposition camp had already secured 296 seats against just 100 for the LDP-New Komeito ruling bloc, early results from Kyodo said.
Flush with victory, DPJ executives started full-fledged preparations for launching a new administration in the evening, party sources said, adding that talks were also planned with its two allies — the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) — on forming a coalition government.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Taro Aso said he will step down as LDP president to "take responsibility" for his party's defeat. An election to pick his successor as LDP chief will be held soon, he said.
LDP Secretary General Hiroyuki Hosoda also said on NHK the party's top three executives have all expressed their intention to resign to Aso.
"We'd like to straightly face the severe results. We will search our souls and start preparing for the next election," Hosoda said, adding that the LDP will overhaul its policies to gain more support.
The LDP was projected to lose some big names in single-seat races, including former Foreign Ministers Nobutaka Machimura and Taro Nakayama, as well as Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano and former Finance chief Shoichi Nakagawa.
DPJ deputy chief Ichiro Ozawa declined comment before the poll results were complete but said "there is nothing (for voters) to worry" about concerning an impending change in government.
"We'd like to steadily implement what we have promised to the nation," Ozawa told NHK.
Pre-election media polls showed the DPJ leading the LDP thanks to strong populist tail winds propelled in part by frustration with years of stagnation and mismanagement under the LDP.
As many as 1,374 candidates, including a record 229 women, competed for seats in the 480-member chamber — 300 in single-seat districts and 180 in the 11 proportional representation blocks nationwide.
Due to strong voter interest, final turnout could reach 69.52 percent, exceeding the 67.51 percent in the previous general election in 2005.
A record 13.98 million people, or 13.4 percent of all eligible voters, cast early ballots.
Most of the nearly 51,000 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 8 p.m.
The DPJ had just 115 seats before the election. The LDP, in contrast, was projected to capture as few as 100 or so, a shocking decline from its 300 seats before the race. New Komeito was also likely to lose some of its 31 seats.
The LDP's fall would only be its second since it was founded in 1955. It was out of power for about 11 months between 1993 and 1994.
After campaigning officially began Aug. 18, Aso made clear his priority was to stimulate the economy, saying the economy is only halfway through its recovery.
He argued against giving a popular mandate to the DPJ on the grounds that the opposition party tends to waver on national security matters, and that his LDP is the only party responsible enough to govern.
The DPJ's Hatoyama promised to up support to households, saying a DPJ-led government will "cut waste created in bureaucrat-reliant politics and reorganize the budget in such a way as to spend money on what's really important."
The change in the Lower House will clear the legislative deadlock in the Diet, which has plagued the LDP-New Komeito ruling bloc for the past two years, when the less-powerful Upper House came under control of the opposition.
If the DPJ captures 321 seats or more, it would give the party more freedom to set the legislative agenda because the two-thirds majority would allow it to pass bills that are rejected by the Upper House.
But doing so could upset the DPJ's likely coalition partners and possibly destabilize their coalition government.
The DPJ and its likely coalition partners also differ over foreign policy and security issues, among other areas. The SDP, for example, opposes the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces overseas, while the DPJ allows it conditionally.
Campaigning effectively began July 21, when Aso, 68, dissolved the Lower House. Since then, parties had pitched their policies to voters based on their campaign platforms.
In its platform, the DPJ pledges to cut wasteful spending, offer cash to households and keep the 5 percent consumption tax intact for the next four years, the duration of the term for new Lower House lawmakers.
But its big-budget policies, like the monthly child allowance to families, have been criticized as lacking specifics about sources of funding.
Aso was widely expected to call the poll soon after taking office last September after two of his immediate predecessors quit after about a year in office each. But as the recession deepened, he vowed to focus on reviving the economy and delayed dissolving the lower chamber.
But hey, this is regime change done The Right Way - through the ballot box.
Ping. I didn’t see any Japanese sourced article for this, so I posted one.
This is basically the conservative party in Japan, isn’t it?
Message to the DC beltway crowd: CUT SPENDING or you are TOAST in 2010!
According to an article I read, the DPJ is more liberal than the LDP.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090830/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_politics
"The [DPJ] have embraced a more populist platform, promising handouts for families with children and farmers, a higher minimum wage, and to rebuild the economy."
"The party is also proposing toll-free highways, free high schools, income support for farmers, monthly allowances for job seekers in training, a higher minimum wage and tax cuts."
Sounds like more "hope and change" to me. I'll bet it doesn't work any better for them.
Unfortunately, the guy who will be PM of Japan (Yukio Hatoyama) next month has been a member - in the past (early 90s) - of the Liberal Democrat Party in that country.
So who really knows how much different the Japanese government will be.
Japan really doesn’t have a conservative party, but this is the next closest thing.
Aw, sh*t. I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case. You think the Japanese would look at how poorly Obama is doing here and reject socialism.
I don’t think going from What is seen as Centrist liberal to the left with a coalition with the far left is a good thing, especially with Japans current economy.
Then again, spending huge amounts of money trying to implement stupid social programs like monthly child allowance checks might laeave a real bad taste in taxpayers mouths so that this will be the first and last time this party ever wins a large number of seats again.
I often wonder how much influence and attention is paid to the United States from countries like Japan with upcoming elections. I wouldn’t necessarily look at the successes of Angela Merkel of Germany and vote for our own candidate for president based on her record.
But do other countries pay attention at all to US politics? Even at the level of the masses?
The LDP is the "conservative" party in Japan, at least according to this article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090830/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_politics
"The loss by the Liberal Democrats — traditionally a pro-business, conservative party — would open the way for the Democratic Party..."
"The left-of-center Democratic Party of Japan was set to win 300 or more of the 480 seats in the lower house of parliament...."
The LDP has ruled Japan for almost all of the past 50 years ( except for a very brief almost ignorable interlude ).
This is like 1994 in the USA.
Could this be a portent of the elections next year in this country ? ( hoping against hope ... ).
Sounds like an Obama “hope and change” redux to me. Japan mving left.
Japan Stocks, Bond Yields May Rise After DPJ Election Victory
SEE HERE :
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aa7Sf52dOAg4
But what will be the significance for the USA?
I dare say that’s THE big question for 99.99% of the folks here on FR, and the article doesn’t even touch the matter.
Not really. Anybody with the slightest knowledge of Japanese politics will tell you that the LDP is in fact the conservative party of Japan.
I don’t think so. Don’t forget that in other countries, especially eastern pacific rim countries, they are still being fed by the media that Obama is some sort of Messiah. This may influence the popularity of their own left wing parties who all seemed to have jumped on the “hopey changeo” platform in hopes of duplicating Obama’s election win.
I do believe this paragraph of the article sums it up sufficiently:
“Flush with victory, DPJ executives started full-fledged preparations for launching a new administration in the evening, party sources said, adding that talks were also planned with its two allies — the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party) — on forming a coalition government.”
Well, it’s very confusing! But,,, if the more conservative party lost, and the more left-wing party won, obama won’t have any reason to insult them! I’d been thinkin’ that Japan would be the next ally of ours that Lil Beri Beri would insult!
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