Posted on 04/01/2002 5:17:11 AM PST by AmericanInTokyo
Upset Win in Japan Mayoral Vote
37-year-old Hiroshi Nakada Did Not Expect To Win
By Sharon Mofhavi in Tokyo
An independent candidate has been elected mayor of Japan's second-largest city, Yokohama, in what appears to be a sign of growing dissatisfaction with the nation's scandal-hit political parties.
Koizumi's popularity rating is plummeting
Hiroshi Nakada, 37, beat Hidenobu Takahide, 72, a veteran incumbent backed by the ruling coalition parties.
Mr Nakada's surprise win came as a newspaper opinion poll suggested that support for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government has fallen to its lowest level since he took office last year.
In recent months, members of Mr Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Social Democrats have been implicated in a series of financial scandals.
Political analysts say declining political support could undermine the Japanese Government's ability to implement tough economic reforms.
Surprise result
Hiroshi Nakada was not expected to beat a three-term incumbent to become mayor of Yokohama.
In doing so, the independent candidate has delivered a defeat, not just to his opponent, but to Mr Koizumi as well.
The election result is being viewed as a blow to the prime minister, who had backed the incumbent.
Analysts say the vote demonstrates that the Japanese people want change and that they do not think they are getting it from the prime minister, or from any of Japan's political leaders.
Declining support
They have become increasingly disaffected in recent weeks, as corruption scandals have tainted a range of politicians, both from the ruling party and the opposition.
The scandals have further weakened Mr Koizumi's standing, which has already suffered from his decision earlier this year, to fire his popular Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka.
Polls taken over the weekend show that Mr Koizumi's ratings continue to decline.
His approval figure stands at 45%, a decline of 10% in March alone, according to one survey.
Declining support is likely to make it difficult for Mr Koizumi to implement tough measures to restart Japan's economy, which, after a decade of malaise, still shows little sign of improving.
When Kiichi Miyazawa became Prime Minister long time ago (early 90's ?), American establishments including New York Times were ecstatic about him. The charm was that he speaks English(!), he know the West better than any LDP big wigs, and his son-in-law was an American. What they did not mention or care was that Miyazawa had almost no clout inside LDP inner circles. He could not make any tough important decisions because of that. On the other hand, Noburo Takeshita had a lot of clout. He was corrupt, though. It is amazing how a few superficial feature can affect your scorecard when your culture is too different from America (or any country).
The Western (New York/East Coast charlatan and arrogant, US culture-centered news media have few who know Japan, read/write speak it or have deep contacts; so they are mislead such as with the Socialist party sweep of the upper house in 1993 and Doi Takako ('Japan had a revolution!'), and then the Hosokawa administration ('Japan had a revolution!'), and then Koizumi ('Japan had a revolution!'). All of these ended in the same morass of Japanese corruption and no advances for good government and the people in Japan; yet the foreign press hailed them, (as encouraged by Japanese PR agencies and embassies around the world) just as they hailed a Princess from Harvard who would 'shake up the Imperial Family' by marrying the crown prince, all these as major tectonic shifts in Japan, which they were NOT!
Then the Ivy-League, arrogant State Department chimes in and says, 'we agree. What great change!' And then Bush, Clinton, Bush, Carter whomever in the White House, has literally 8 minutes to read a briefing book note on Japan to form an opinion. Is it any wonder Bush puts his arms around Koizumi and his corrupt predecessors and says "this man is for reform. I believe in him and he is going to change Japan."
Ludicrous. Sick. Disgusting. Unacceptable level of journalism and analysis, IMHO. Shallow. This is not what the Japanese press says nor their internal analysts write. We haven't a clue.
LDP has factions with varying strengths. Some faction is really powerful. Others are not. The problem is that the faction leader is not necessarily the politician who holds high positions such as prime minister. A politician just carries out what faction wants. Typical strong faction leaders are Tanaka Kakuei (dead), Kanemaru Shin (ousted), and Takeshita (?). They can continue to rule even if prime ministers are changed several times.
Those prime ministers, who were popular with American press, tend to be without much power. Such as Nakasone Yasuhiro, and Kiichi Miyazawa. Nakasone looked good in front of TV camera, giving forceful speeches. But he was at the mercy of his faction big wigs.
Once in a while, the faction leaders themselves became prime ministers. Tanaka and Takeshita did so. Kanemaru never held any high visible positions. At one time, his business card says that he is a head of LDP friendship society. But he was the most powerful man in the country. Until the corruption caught on him
Good luck in Japan. Advice: Don't believe everything (a) the Japanese Foreign Ministry Press center tells you; (b) most US news outlets here w/ some exceptions; and (c) fluent English speaking types who often buffer their Japanese organizations or Japan from the outside world and present to foreigners a view of the domestic scene that they want them to hear that is largely sanitized and may outright contradict what the Japanese amongst themselves say and feel and accept as true.
i.e. explore many sources on one issue; and primarily domestic language domestic content sources are the best (as it is filtered less). I read MONTHS ago that Koizumi was a shill, a Trojan Horse for the larger power that be, the LDP. It's no suprise to me and others here that he has farted out on all that he promised; it is news to CBS, CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal Harvard boys with horn-rimmed glasses who don't know their a.. from a hole in the wall re: Japan.
Speaking of shallow journalim, I have to mention that guy, Nicholas Kristoff. I do not know what is your impression about him. But to me, he has all those features you mentioned as shallow East coaster type. I remember that he once wrote an article about rising status of Japanese women. The example was that a middle aged women locked her husdand out because he drank all night and came home really late. A few days later, the husband retaliated by locking her out when she came too late, not drunk but due to other problems. She eventually got in by smashing a window with a large rock. He hailed this episode as an evidence that Japanese women were asserting herself. The truth is that such women existed even 20-30 years ago. Once in private sphere, the power gap between men and women frequently disappears. Manytimes women had upper hand. This is by no means a new phenomenon.
What I do not understand is that this guy is frequently invited by Asian groups to talk about Asia as if he had any deep insight. Maybe it is a name-value thing. His mission was to promote PC agenda in Asia.
Well, except for the dead ones. :)
I really get the sense that there would never be much change in Japanese politics because of the incredible inertia and the general Japanese cultural desire for consensus.
The real substantive change will be drastic. Since their system's tendency to hold on to status quo is too strong, the pressure will build up for a long time. Once it finds the outlet, it will turn everything upside down. What needs to be done is to dismantle well connected business-politics alliance. Nobody is up to it yet. The true change in Japan in last 150 years happened only in a few times. That appears to be Japanese way so far.
That is interesting. Did you meet Nakasone too ?
Of course, I could be wrong, this is all old information which has been addled by my poor memory.
I hear that they were dragging their feet on new census which will give a lot more legislature seats to urban areas which are not keen on LDP's. But I do not know if they did it or they rigged it. So ariculture lobby had been strong.
People fail to notice that Japanese society still has many feudal elements. The concept of corporation is one example. In the west, you can take or leave your job as needs arise. But in Japan, it used to be a life-time employment. That is because the corporation is viewed as modern-day fiefdom of medieval age. The owner or CEO is a lord of corporation and employees are subjects. The lord takes care of subjects and their family. In return, subjects serve their lord (to their death). Since there is no labor mobility, both have to work together. Their boss cannot fire them and they cannot leave and go someplace else to have a better life. They could not have a better life elsewhere. Your experience in a first company does not mean a thing in the new one in terms of perks and power. You have to start from scratch. Maybe things may have changed. AIT can surely fill in on this.
We see this with hopeless Japanese corruption with the political system and hopeless filth in the Japanese banking system (letting bad debt pile up to incredible levels). So that suddenly something happens in dramatic reverse and everyone is so shocked and surprised.
I myself see parallels with Japan putting off the day of economic and political reckoning, to the Japanese general military staff faced with surrender but still pushing the envelope until they had received not one, but two atomic weapons on their citizenry. Only THEN did they have the dramatic surrender and then a complete 180 degree shift into opening their arms wide to embrace General MacArthur like he was a God, King and National Savior.
It's my guess that current banking and political stubborness will not move Japan until, sad to say, something external shocks the system and great damage is done. Probably a national bankruptcy and slipping into an Argentina-like funk and political violence will be the only thing to precipitate the system to reverse course. Strong parallels to 1945 IMHO.
The former has incredible power in the rural areas, and because of the Japanese weighting of regional areas for Diet representation, they maintain a stranglehold and it is hard to oppose them. With the later, they have an elaborate bid rigging system ('dango'), and a kickback system ('wairo', 'kikkubakku', 'o-rei', or 'san pa rebeyto') that is intertwined throughout all levels of government in Japan. Nearly 90% of Japanese public works projects are bid illegally and fixed; and astronomical amounts are shaved off the projects to go into the coffers of the Party on the local level and to the support organizations of most if not all LDP party members. Structural corruption in it's finest form. These chaps have it down to a science. (Unfortunately, they are destroying their wonderful nation in the process.)
Can someone 'splain to me what the difference is between these two parties?
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