Leaving The Hotel California

Okumura Jun has put up a series of seminal posts over the last few days at GlobalTalk 21. I suggest you check them out.

On the subject of checking out, Okumura-san is correct in stating that Section 4.2 of the By-Laws of the Democratic Party of Japan (Link-J) imprisoning Diet members inside the party until such time as their resignations have been ratified by the Executive Council (jonnin kanjikai) is in abeyance, as the dissolution of the Diet -- which the Emperor, despite the legal and constitutional issues, solemly decreed* -- strips all the House's members of their badges.

So you do not have to die to get out of the DPJ (Link). All you have to do is wait for the Prime Minister (through a dissolution) or the Constitution (through the four-year term limit) to set you free.

So why did eight members of the Diet submit their resignations to DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma this week, when the Diet dissolution was going to free them to hook up with any party they pleased? For the publicity, of course, but also to humiliate the Prime Minister. It is only fair, for they feel humiliated by him.

The big news was the last minute resignation of Fukuda Eriko (Nagasaki District #1, 1 election to the Diet) the former leader of the Kyushu Plaintiffs in the Tainted Blood Products lawsuit (Link - J). Though incredibly young (32) and a first-termer, she nevertheless commands respect (Link). Her departure represents a huge, though not unexpected, loss for the DPJ and a huge shot of adrenaline for Tanioka Kuniko's Green Breeze Party (Link). As the embodiment of resistance to government intransigence and shirking of responsibility, Fukuda helped make credible the DPJ's pledge to put policy making in the hands of politicians rather than leaving everything to the bureaucrats.

The DPJ, which suffers from the image of being the guy's party (just look at the Cabinet) has lost one of its iconic woman members.

Speaking of prominent women members of the DPJ, Minister of Education, Sports, Science, and Technology Tanaka Makiko is hopping mad at the Prime Minister's decision to call an election (Link - J). She did, as Cabinet member, join in the issuance of a Cabinet Decision (kakugi kettei) ratifying the dissolution of the Diet. From her disparagement of the timing of the dissolution, however, it is hard to imagine her and her husband sticking around.

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* It was jarring to hear the Speaker read out the Emperor's Diet dissolution letter. His Highness speaks and writes in curlicues of grammar and euphemism most of the time. The message to the Diet, however, was in the plain form (e.g. - "kaisan suru").

Betrayal By The Smart Puppies?

Today will be a very interesting day.

Today the first termers, the old lefties and the rural representatives in the Democratic Party of Japan will be asking Prime Minister if the news reports of this morning, with their claims that the PM has decided to dissolve the Diet this month and lead the DPJ into a campaign waving the banners of participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership and a cut in the number of proportional seats in the House of Representatives -- are just something the media dreamed up, led astray by anonymous sources, or an accurate description of reality. (Link - J)

They are likely as not to be listening to his response with their heads tilted to one side, trying to see if the picture looks any better when seen askew.

As a rule of thumb, leaders of political parties care about the parties that selected them as leader. Koizumi Jun'ichiro, in his campaign for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party and his snap election call in 2005 did declare an intent to destroy his party from within. However, Koizumi's intra-party warfare was more on the LDP's decayed traditions than on the party per se. His intent was not to kill the LDP but drag it, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.

The fate of the LDP after Koizumi's retirement, with Abe Shinzo signaling a return to business as usual through his welcoming back into the party the Koizumi postal reform rebels, presaged an era of rapid decline in the party's popularity, culminating in its ouster from power in August 2009.

If this morning's news reports are correct, then Prime Minister and Democratic Party of Japan leader Noda Yoshihiko has seized upon Koizumi fetishism (Link) of the highest order. If the prime minister intends to drive the non-reformist elements out of the DPJ in order to save the DPJ, he is as nuts as his Minister of National Strategy and fellow Matsushita Institute of Management and Government alumnus Maehara Seiji. Maehara has a book coming out on Friday entitled "I Want To Bring To Realization A Conservative Realignment" (Hoshu no saihen o jitsugen shitai - Link - J). He has also been making statements deviating from the policies of the DPJ mainline leadership, including a call for an early election. (Link)

It has been easy to dismiss Maehara as a deviant. Despite or perhaps because of his conservative bona fides, he has again and again shown a remarkable lack of common sense (Clicking on the tag below or putting "Maehara" in the search window directs one to some of Maehara's most embarrassing moments). However, if today's headlines hold up, Maehara may be less the village idiot and more the town crier.

If the conservatives in the party are calling an election to force realignment -- i.e., the destruction of both the DPJ and the LDP -- they better have their ducks lined up. Maehara has been a fixture in non-partisan study groups bringing together free market liberals and defense wonks, so he at least has strong ties to like-minded legislators inside the LDP and elsewhere (primarily in the Your Party and People's Life First). If they blow up the DPJ in order to run in the next election as a rump centrist party ready to join a conservative coalition, the rump may be just the part of the body where they will find themselves post-election.

Everything I have written about the DPJ, including the crazy stuff (Link) has been based upon the premise that the party leadership is unified in wishing the party to survive -- which, I hope the reader agrees, is not an unreasonable assumption. However, if the DPJ conservatives dream, as Maehara is dreaming, of a realignment along ideological lines, then the DPJ is already gone.

Noda, Maehara, Diet Affairs Chairman Yamanoi Kazunori, Minister of Foreign Affairs Gemba Koichiro and Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Tarutoko Shinji are all Matsushita grads (click here for the full J-list of all 37 members of Diet who are alumni of the Institute). If they have talked themselves into rebelling against themselves, then I hope the Matsushita Institute had a little Hogwarts in it -- for it will take magic to survive the aftermath. The voters of Chiba District #4, the House of Representatives district with the highest population and thus the least enfranchised electorate, may not take kindly to their representative, a certain Mr. Noda Yoshihiko, selling them out in order to run on a neo-liberal platform and a prayer that his neo-liberal counterparts in the LDP jump ship to join him in a new conservative alliance.

One can be too smart by half.

DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma is likely in a state of shock. If all that is purported to be true is true, then he fought for Noda's reelection as party leader only to be rewarded with a knee-capping.

These Stars Collide

A Manic Monday for the Noda Cabinet and the Democratic Party of Japan

- The "Let's Demoralize The Embassy Staffs By Sending A Handful Of Old White Boys To Talk Turkey (shichimencho) With Those Quarelling Asiatics" roadshow (Link) rolls into the Prime Minister's Residence for a meeting with the Anaconda himself. I shudder to think who else the Washington Quartet will be meeting today -- though shadowing them the whole day would provide a resourceful journalist with a list of the influence peddlers and weak points inside the Japanese establishment. Knowing the group leader, the quartet are starting out their morning with a sushi breakfast in Tsukiji.

- The ripples of Maehara Seiji's tossing his expectation of a Diet dissolution by the year's end into the pond of Diet politics will spread out everywhere. Already, Democratic Party of Japan's Acting Secretary Azumi Jun has had to, on a Sunday when the Diet is not in session, tell reporters that Maehara's private views are not those of the party (Link - J). Liberal Democratic President Abe Shinzo, probably thinking his visit to Yasukuni (Link) is being rewarded earlier than even he could have imagined, pounded away last night on the theme that when a minister of Maehara's standing says that the prime minister has no choice but dissolve the Diet by year's end, it places a huge burden of expectations on the PM. (Link - J)

Does it ever.

- The heat from the staggering drops in the Cabinet popularity and party popularity figures recorded in the weekend's public opinion poll results could evaporate the DPJ-People New Party's slim majority in the House of Representatives.

The Asahi Shimbun

Cabinet support

Support 18% (-5%)
Do Not Support 59% (+3%)

Which party will you vote for in the party list section of the next House of Representatives election?

DPJ 13% (-4%)
LDP 36% (+6%)

(Link -J)

Fuji News Network

Which party will you vote for in the party list section of the next House of Representatives election?

DPJ 11.6% (-5.2%)
LDP 32.4% (+0.3%)

(Latest figures -J and previous figures - J)

- The pusillanimous and scandal-tarred Minister of Law Tanaka Keishu (Link), still hiding out in his hospital, refuses to resign. (Link - J)

What a way to start a week, eh, Prime Minister Noda?

Can Anyone In The Opposition Play This Game?

On Friday I speculated that the Democratic Party of Japan, faced with a determined and suddenly invigorated Liberal Democratic Party, had out of desperation moved to the Four Corners Offense, where the point is to dribble the ball interminably and pass the ball back-and forth pointlessly so as to keep the other side from ever getting control. (Link)

I was therefore surprised when LDP Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru was able to twist enough arms as to secure a Monday meeting of secretaries-general of the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito, the only three parties that matter.

[An aside - Japan does have other parties, a stunning plethora of them. The DPJ's coalition partner, the People's New Party, seems content to have the DPJ speak for it. The opposition parties outside the LDP-New Komeito alliance are, by contrast, frothing at the mouth, furious that they are never invited to meetings of any consequence. Instead, their leaders gather together to issue condemnations of the "three party cabal" ruling Japan.

No combination of any of the other opposition parties adds up to any meaningful number of votes in the House of Representatives for either the LDP or the DPJ. In the House of Councillors, the other opposition parties could come together to help the government pass legislation. However, due to ideological incompatibility with the DPJ’s current political course, they have taken to side with the LDP, whose politics they dislike even more, to just say "No" to every important government bill landing in the House of Councillors.]

Ishiba's success in gaining meeting on what the next working day seemed a harbinger for a more aggressive LDP and compliant DPJ. True, it was only a meeting to set up another meeting, the next step being a meeting of the leaders of the three parties to talk about and perhaps agree on a date for the opening of the extraordinary Diet session and the sequencing of the government's presentation of its bills. Ishiba and his New Komeito counterpart Inoue Yoshihisa went into their meeting with DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'shi Azuma determined to draw out of the DPJ's man an acquiescence to the the LDP’s and New Komeito’s demands that Prime Minister Noda honor the promise he made to former LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu to dissolve of the Diet "soon" (chikai uchi ni).

What Ishiba and Inoue came out of their meeting with Koshi'ishi was...a promise to meet again on Thursday.

Koshi'ishi opened with the gambit that he would want the heads of the three parties to meet later this week and for the extraordinary session to begin by the end of the month. In both cases, he was lying. However, having placed these ideas on the table put the onus on his counterparts to characterize him later as being close-minded and merely trying to delay the opening of the extraordinary Diet Session.

Koshi'ishi continued with the standard DPJ trio of suggestions -- not demands. First, that the bond issuance bill be passed soon so as to prevent a disruption of the lives of the citizens. Second, that an electoral reform bill be passed 1) eliminating any question as to the constitutionality of the boundaries of House of Representatives electoral districts, and 2) reducing the number of House of Representatives seats, this in order to demonstrate to the citizens, who have been asked to accept a doubling of the consumption tax, that the government is making a best effort at cutting back on its size and spending. Finally, the DPJ would want the convocation of the the National Council on Reform of the Social Welfare System (Shakai hosho seido kaikaku kokumin kaigi) in order to begin discussions of the implementation of the reforms passed along with the consumption tax bill.

Ishiba countered with a concession that he would not want his party to be seen as holding the bond issuance bill, an electoral reform bill and a convocation of the National Council hostage to his and the New Komeito's demands. However, he continued, two months has passed since the prime minister made his promise to dissolve the Diet "soon" (Link - J). Inoue piped in, saying that given the deadlines for the compilation of the national budget, the time limit for the holding of an election is early December. (Link - J)

Let us take a moment to consider Inoue's demand. Article 54 of the Constitution mandates that an election take place within 40 days of a dissolution. However, the Constitution is silent as to the minimum number of days that can pass between a dissolution and an election. Article 31 of the Public Elections Act, however, requires that a final determination of the candidates up for election must be made at least 12 days prior to election day. (Link)

Given that an election is almost invariably held on a Sunday, and the process of the Diet's electing a new prime minister, the new PM’s selection of a Cabinet and his/her delivering a Diet policy address eats up a week, and compiling of a rushed budget will take at least three weeks, the realistic December date for an election is December 1. Working backward 12 days from there brings us to Monday, November 19.

So whatever happens, the extraordinary Diet session will have to finish up all its business in a little less than a month. That is the relevant House of Representatives committees discussing the bills, then voting on the bills, sending them to the plenary session for an up/down vote, then presenting the bills to the House of Councillors, with their committee discussions, votes and final plenary session up/down vote.

Of course, the two Houses could look at identical texts of bills at the same time, pass them at the same time, come together and decide that the bills are the same and thus law.

Except, of course, all of this speculation may be moot. Bringing the House of Representatives district boundaries into conformance with requirements set down Article 13 of the Public Elections Act requires months of research, analysis and compromise, not just a few days of politicians bargaining over legislative band-aids.

So what the LDP and the New Komeito are demanding as regards an election "soon" may be possible but will be illegal.

Koshi'ishi knows this. However, he did not have to pull this card out of his sleeve on Monday when Ishiba and Inoue pressed on the dissolution. Already on the 15th he had made clear that he was not going to say diddly about a date for a dissolution on the grounds that a dissolution of the Diet is a solemn duty and privilege of the prime minister and not something he can just lightly say whatever he may think on the subject. (Link)

After 20 minutes of back and forth, the trio broke up, agreeing to meet again on the 18th.

A clearly frustrated Ishiba then went and put his foot in his mouth. Angry that he came out of the meeting having neither learned nor won anything, he told reporters that unless the atmosphere becomes less duplicitous, having a meeting between the heads of the parties will lead nowhere. (Link -J)

Rule #1 of adult behavior: never shut down avenues. Never say that you will not meet to talk.

How long can the DPJ's torture of the LDP and the New Komeito continue? The first and foremost hurdle that must be vaulted is the passage of the bond issuance bill. That has to happen sometime soon, though just when is rather murky, The Prime Minister Noda and the DPJ, weakened as they are, can call an extraordinary session of the Diet and then dare the opposition to allow the government to run out of money. It is a risk the PM and DPJ seem increasingly confident in taking.

As for how long the public will put up with the DPJ's dodging and weaving whenever the LDP and the New Komeito start talking about holding elections, there may be a limit there. Editorialists will start to castigate the DPJ secretariat for stalling just to avoid the certain electoral defeat awaiting them. Guests on this morning's Asa Zuba! news program complained that, "If they are members of the Diet, and they don’t want to go into session, then they should just quit."

However, as regards the delays in convening of an extraordinary session, Koshi'ishi, who has no limits to his ability to state the chapter and verse on any subject, can tell the press, "Look, an extraordinary session is just that, extraordinary. The National Diet Act requires us to be in session for 150 days. We went way past that mark in the regular Diet Session. We have earned our salaries for the year. If the opposition cleans up its act and stops trying to extort Diet dissolutions from our prime ministers in return for votes on normal government bills, then we can go back to work in extraordinary session."

So on my score sheet, after the first round, it is Dead Pharaoh 1, Python 0. (Link)

The Secretaries-General Meeting Preview: The Pharoah Versus The Python

Today is a no newspaper day. If one wishes to know what the heck happened over the weekend one has to turn to the Internet or television.

The latter of which is really not a great thing for Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru.

On Sunday, Ishiba appeared on the NHK's flagship Sunday talk show Nichiyo Toron. The program was not produced in its usual manner, with all the guests together in the studio, government and opposition, facing off across a table -- a format which has, given proliferation of opposition parties over the last three years, become increasingly ridiculous-looking.

Instead, the guests, the secretaries-general of the three parties that matter – the LDP, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the LDP's ally the New Komeito -- appeared sequentially, making the title of the program, "Sunday Debate," something of a misnomer.

First up was Koshi'ishi Azuma, the secretary-general of the DPJ. He spoke on the three main issues of the day – the fate of the bond issuance bill, the outlook for the electoral district reform bill and the timing of the House of Representatives election. All three issues are tied together, as an election cannot be held until the unconstitutionality of the electoral districts is rectified, and the DPJ will not budge on an electoral district reform bill unless it has a deal with the LDP and the New Komeito on the passage of a bond issuance bill immediately after the opening of a fall extraordinary session of the Diet.

Koshi'ishi put a brave face on what would seem an impossible task. First, bully the opposition into passing exactly the same bond issuance bill as was allowed to die at the end of the regular Diet Session. Then the government would submit an electoral reform bill anathema either to the LDP or the New Komeito or both. The subsequent enraged reaction of the LDP and the New Komeito would lead to a freeze in Diet business. Amidst the raging political storm, the government would compile the budget for 2013 and then hang on until extraordinary session ends. Following the New Years' holidays, the DPJ, whose governing coalition still holds a slim majority in the House of Representatives, would then ram the next fiscal year's budget through that House -- with the LDP and the New Komeito powerless to stop the budget passing into law.

The problems with this scenario are:

1) the LDP is so hostile toward the DPJ it will go to any length, even allowing a government shutdown, to force the DPJ into submitting an electoral reform bill to both the LDP's and the New Komeito's liking. Only then would the LDP and the New Komeito agree to allow the passage of the bond issuance bill, after which they will do everything in their power to force a no confidence motion against the Noda Cabinet.

2) Public opinion poll results, which have the LDP outpolling the DPJ two-to-one since the election of Abe Shinzo as LDP party president (Table 2) while support for the Cabinet languishes (Link-J) sap the government's ability to resist the LDP's demands. With the DPJ such a damaged brand, engineering a breakout of scared Diet members from the DPJ should be easy enough -- or so the LDP and New Komeito seem to be reasoning. This would transform the current DPJ-led coalition into a minority government, vulnerable to a no confidence motion and incapable of passing a budget by itself.

When Koshi'ishi finished his alternate parrying of the interviewer's pertinent and probing questions and his resolute presentation of the DPJ party line, Ishiba took over, on a live feed from somewhere.

To a collective shriek from the nation.

Now Koshi'ishi Azuma is no great shakes in the appearance department. Indeed, he bears a striking resemblance to Ramses the Great, post-mummification.

Left: Koshi'ishi Azuma, alive since 1936.
Right: Ramses II, not alive since 1213 B.C.E.

However, it was clear within micro-seconds of Ishiba's face's coming up on the screen that, after losing the LDP presidential election to Abe, he had fired his image consultant.

During the presidential campaign Ishiba was a changed man: grinning often, talking at a normal volume and speed and clearly focusing on a commandment to "open your eyes, man, for Amaterasu's sake, OPEN YOUR EYES!"

However, on Sunday, the old Ishiba -- Kaa from Disney's The Jungle Book -- was back -- hissing hypnotically and ooh sooo sloowwly so that all you morons out there in TV Land can understand the LDP's positions.

Top: Ishiba Shigeru, LDP Secretary-General
Bottom: Kaa, from Disney's The Jungle Book (1967)

A campaign manager's nightmare* …and a challenge to the assertion that the LDP's election of The Smirking One (Link) rather than Ishiba as its leader was a mitigated disaster.

In an attempt to fulfill the commitment made last week (Link) to have the heads of the DPJ, the LDP and the New Komeito meet to discuss the extraordinary Diet session, the secretaries-general of the three parties are meeting today, i.e., holding a meeting to arrange an agenda and a schedule for a meeting.

In having the respective secretariats of the DPJ and the LDP meeting en masse last week, and making arrangements for a three-way party head meeting "soon," LDP has at least learned one lesson from its previous deal-cutting session with the DPJ: under no circumstances let the LDP president be in a room alone with Prime Minister Noda. (Link)

We shall see what the Python squeezes out of the Pharaoh in terms of a date for the three-way party leader meeting.

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* Since the secretary-general is the ultimate leader of a party's campaign efforts, the person to whom Ishiba will be giving a migraine is himself.

Koshi'ishi Stays

Contrary to my assertions of Friday, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko has asked Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma to remain at his post.

The press has asserted that despite Koshi'ishi's failure to keep some 70 members of the DPJ's Diet delegation from departing during his tenure, his presence is still needed to reassure the remaining disaffected elements in the party that their voices will be heard.

Noda may have indeed been planning to replace Koshi'ishi, only to reverse himself, due to a realization of how close the ruling coalition is to losing its once massive majority in the House of Representatives. More likely, however, the multiple meetings with Azuma over the weekend, ending in a plea for Azuma to stay on, was a careful concocted bit of theater, intent on convincing the losers in Friday's leadership contest that the central core of 220 Noda loyalists will pay attention to the party's fringe elements.

Koshi'ishi's retention as the party's main elections organizer sends a strong signal that elections are not imminent. Koshi'ishi is not credible and may lack the stamina to be the point man of an election pitting the DPJ not only against a default-vote LDP but an untried and as yet unassessable Japan Restoration Party.

Furthermore, the process of rendering the electoral district map constitutional will be a process of several months, not just a pair of votes in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors.

First, the August reform bill is dead. Diet rules declare null and void bills passed by one House but not accepted in committee in the other House by the end of a Diet session. This is what happened to the bond issuance and electoral reform bills passed by the House of Representatives in an August 28 pre-emptive strike against the August 29 censure vote against the prime minister.

That the same electoral reform bill of August, a combination of the Liberal Democratic Party's so-call +0/-5 solution to the disparity in voting strengths in between the nation's largest and smallest electoral districts, a reduction of the number of proportional seat members in the House of Representatives and a mixed voting system for the remaining proportional seats, will not reappear is a virtual given. The August bill had been designed to fail, combining LDP and New Komeito ideas into a horrible chimera about which the opposition parties could never come to decision whether to accept or reject.

When the new, revised bill comes out of the DPJ's policy research council and receives Cabinet approval, however long that process will take, the draft will likely be so different from the August bill and so favorable to presumed DPJ strongholds that the LDP will gag. The resulting standoff between the two parties will extend for several more weeks, until a final reform bill can win passage from both Houses.

Only then will begin the process of resetting the boundaries of electoral districts, which have, since the last electoral reform, become scrambled by local municipality mergers and population shifts. This process, according a Tokyo Shimbun analysis, will take another two to three months (J).

So even if the ruling and major opposition parties come to a consensus on a basic electoral reform bill in the first weeks of October, an event which is extremely unlikely, the final electoral districts bill will probably not win passage before the end of the fall extraordinary session. This will leave the opposition gnashing its teeth until the 2013 regular Diet session, which means sometime in January.

The strugge over electoral districts would, of course, only become more tortured if a majority of the House of Representatives vote in favor of a motion of no confidence against the Cabinet. Noda wants to both keep his present job and chaos to a minimum. The LDP, which has demonstrated a disturbing nihilism, cannot be trusted to go along with Noda to prevent this catastrophe.

Hence the importance of retaining Koshi'ishi to keep the less-than-reliable DPJ troops in line when the crunch time comes during the extraordinary session.

It's Noda In A Landslide

Prime Minister Noda has won reelection as Democratic Party of Japan leader.

He won in every facet of the election: in terms of the votes of party supporters, in the votes of local legislators and among the members of the Diet:

In the combined party supporter and local legislator vote, the point totals were

Noda Yoshihiko 389
Akamatsu Hirotaka 42
Haraguchi Kazuhiro 92
Kano Michihide Michihiko 27

In the Diet members vote which has just been announced, the totals are:

Noda 429
Akamatsu 81
Haraguchi 62
Kano 86

The point totals are:

Noda 818
Akamatsu 123
Haraguchi 154
Kano 113

The next stage in the continuing drama is an expected reshuffle of the Cabinet and the party leadership on September 28. It is somewhat difficult to guess what changes can be made in the major ministry postings without causing undesirable disruption of various policy programs. In terms of the party secretariat, Koshi'ishi Azuma, whose major raison d'être was smoothing relations within the party, particularly with the now departed Ozawa wing, can expect to be replaced with an elections specialist.

Just who that might be is the question. It sure as heck is neither Okada Katsuya nor Maehara Seiji, the two members of the party's Second Generation most clearly in line for an increase in influence.

As for the tradition of giving special consideration to supporters of defeated presidential candidates, this in order to heal the rifts that the campaign may have opened amongst the Diet delegations, one can expect Noda to follow it. First because in his thank you speech he repeated his pledge of last year to be a "no sides" leader of the party, taking into account the feelings of the marginalized. Second, and on far more practical level, the DPJ-People's New Party coalition is only 10 defectors away from losing its majority in the House of Representatives.

While the losers today's leadership contest got taken to the cleaners, they will be a force that will have to be handled with care on September 28.

The problem child will be Haraguchi. He clearly made an impression on the local chapters and local assembly members through his insistence that the party has to return to its commitment to the policies of the 2009 Manifesto. He is, however, unpopular with his fellow Diet members, who see him as an untrustworthy opportunist. Just how he and his supporters are to be integrated into the party hierarchy, or government appointive positions, will be a major headache for Noda.

One Point Of Light To Look For In The Murk

Today is likely to be rough day in Japanese politics.

Ozawa Ichiro is going to unveil his new political party, provisionally named "The People's Livelihood Comes First" Party (Michael Penn has provided a very convenient shorthand: "The Livelihood Party"). At this writing, the Livelihood Party will burst onto the scene with 49 Diet members: 37 from the House of Representatives and 12 from the House of Councillors (J).

All in all, 51 members of the DPJ have left the fold since July 2. The most recent defector is Yonenaga Harunobu, a Hatoyama Group member, who turned in his resignation papers on July 6. As Yonenaga is a House of Councillors member, his leaving the party over the consumption tax bill prior to the vote on that bill represents an embarrassing loss of face for the Democratic Party of Japan. However, Yonenaga, a district seat holder from Yamanashi, has chosen to serve, at least for now, as an independent, lessening the impact of his departure.

It will surprise no one if Yonenaga shows up at the meeting this evening introducing the establishment of the Livelihood Party. Almost certain to be in attendance will be fellow DPJ defector turned independent, Zukeran Chobin, as he made clear on his blog yesterday he will be caucusing with the Livelihood Party. (J)

It will also surprise no one if the entire membership of the Kizuna shows up at the meeting, with Kizuna leader Uchiyama Akira announcing his party's merger with the Livelihood Party. With Ozawa now out of the DPJ, Kizuna's raison d'être has evaporated.

With Kizuna's nine members and the cooperation of Zukeran and the three former DPJ members in Shinto Daichi, Ozawa will have 50 sure votes in the House of Representatives, one short of the 51 he needs to table a no-confidence motion against the Noda Cabinet.

Which makes moves of one sure guest at the unveiling unfortunately significant.

Former DPJ party leader Hatoyama Yukio has, through his behavior in the last week, transformed himself from DPJ-co-founder-yet-Ozawa-puppet into a DINO - a Democrat In Name Only. On June 26 he voted against the consumption tax bill, for which he was smacked on July 3 with a six-month suspension of party privileges. He complained about this punishment, with some party members suggesting that slapping a 6 month penalty on Hatoyama while hitting other opponents to the bill with two months suspensions was disproportionate. In a gesture that Hatoyama should have accepted graciously, the party central secretariat reduced his suspension to only three months on July 9.

Ever able to miss seize an opportunity to miss an opportunity*, Hatoyama, already in the hottest of water for boasting that he and his followers held the casting votes should there be a move to depose the Noda Cabinet through a no confidence motion (J), piled it on yesterday, saying not that he did not see why he deserved to be disciplined but -- and I am not making this up:

"There is an extremely insulting phrase making its way around. The phrase is 'the LDP's Noda Faction'."

Typically gutless in its presentation -- "It's not what I am saying, mind you. It's what I have heard, that's all" -- Hatoyama's insult is grounds for the imposition of a full year's suspension.

Except, of course, doing anything to Hatoyama right now will provide a pretext for him and perhaps a smattering of his followers to leave the DPJ, magnifying the impact of today's unveiling of the Ozawa party.

As it is, the leadership will likely sit tight-lipped, seeing whether or not Hatoyama has the wherewithal to actually quit the DPJ. He will be a prominent guest at the unveiling today -- but unless he actually shows up at Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma's office with resignation papers in hand, he is just tossing out his usual b------t, using Harry Frankfurt's definition for the kinds of noises Hatoyama makes.

The one person whose attendance will really matter, if it happens, will be Fukuda Eriko. I have highlighted her before. However, rather than just being an Ozawa Girl, she has been the brains and conscience of the anti-consumption tax movement. She considered not voting on the bill, for she saw the fight over the consumption tax shifting from being a struggle over policy (seiji) to struggle over power (seikyoku), with the only beneficiary being the opposition Liberal Democratic Party. In a last minute change of heart she voted against the bill, thinking "I may not be reelected. But unless I commit myself now to the cause, I will regret it the rest of my life." (J)

Fukuda received the same two month suspension as the other DPJ members other than Hatoyama who voted against the consumption tax bill. She had, however, voted with the government on the establishment of a national commission to debate the minimum pension and other social welfare programs, while voting down the unneeded bill on the merger of the nation's kindergartens and day care centers - making her one of only two DPJ members to vote this conscientious way.

Though only 31 years old, an Ozawa pick and a first-termer, Fukuda is one rebel to whom the DPJ and Prime Minister Noda must pay attention and, if they are smart, total respect.

If Fukuda shows up at tonight's unveiling, the indication will be that the DPJ is in serious, serious trouble.

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* A borrowing of Abba Eban's famous exasperated characterization of his Arab counterparts.

Re The 52 Defectors: Not In The Bag

In almost a parody of the term "bagman," former Democratic Party of Japan leader Ozawa Ichiro's right-hand man Yamaoka Kenji marches into the Diet office of DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma with the envelope containing the resignation letters of 52 members of the DPJ.

Except, as it turns out, Yamaoka and his commander-in-chief Ozawa Ichiro did not have all 52 resignations from the party in the bag.

After Yamaoka's lunchtime delivery of the package, two of the members of the House of Representatives -- Shina Takeshi (Iwate District #1, two elections) and Tsuji Megumu (Osaka District #17, two elections) -- paid visits to Koshi'ishi's office asking him to please ignore their letters of resignation.

So the rebels did not even win a symbolic victory today, as 38 + 9 + 3 = 50, leaving those resigning from the DPJ today and their fellow travelers one short of the 51 members of the House of Representatives needed to submit a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet.

Quel bordel!

Ozawa Ichiro - The Final Act

In a few hours from now, Ozawa Ichiro, after a third and final meeting Koshi'ishi Azuma, his erstwhile friend in the Democratic Party of Japan leadership, will announce what he, Ozawa, will do with his party membership credentials.

Chances are he will tear them up.

Unlike in the case of his attempt to out prime minister Kan Naoto, where Ozawa watched the no-confidence vote on a television screen from his office, Ozawa turned up in person to hand the token takers the little blue-green tablet indicating that he was voting "no" agains the pending legislation.

For Ozawa, who is usually either at his home in Setagaya-ku or on the road when the Diet is in session, and who has a history of not showing up at crucial showdowns, to actually show up and vote on legislation in defiance of the party leadership is a strong indicator that he has made up his mind to go down with his ship, one way or the other.

One can imagine the frustration of Koshi'ishi, appealing to Ozawa's considerable sense of self-protection, describing to Ozawa what his future will be should he bolt from the DPJ:

"Without the party to protect you, you will be spending the rest of your living days giving testimony to Diet committees investigating everything you have done in your entire career. Are you ready to face such a future? Are your followers? Or do you actually believe that the LDP, having joined hands with you once, leading to the circumstances contributing to the death of Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo and, out of desperation, nearly joining hands with you again until you backed out after your private deal with Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo and Watanabe Tsuneo led to your DPJ allies turning on you -- that the LDP will now join hands with you to turf out Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko and form a conservative-liberal alliance of convenience with you? Do you not understand there is no there there? Does it not enter your imagination that the LDP and the New Komeito, whom you have both jilted (in the LDP's case four times) will not take this opportunity to join hands with your new enemy the DPJ and redistrict you and all who follow you out of existence? That your newest friends like Yamada Masahiko are nihilists, with nothing to lose?"

It is tempting to believe that Ozawa, having plunged so many times deep into a pool of resolution, only to climb out at the last moment, leaving his followers wet, cold and bedraggled, might be willing try this ploy one last time -- whether or not it salvages a single line of the DPJ manifesto of 2009. It is tempting to believe that his peculiar insertion of the phrase kyoko ni ("forcibly") in his criticisms of the Noda Administration's approach toward the passing the consumption tax legislation indicates he has some flexibility toward the legislation -- that if the passage were somehow accomplished without force, that he might entertain the notion of staying in the party.

However, the indicators are not in favor of this interpretation. Ozawa showed up for a vote in the Diet: that alone is "we interrupt this program to bring you a special announcement" level news. Kyoko ni is probably just rhetoric, an appeal to swing voters who are confused about whether the imposition of the rise in the consumption tax is a good thing or a bad thing, telling these voters, "Good or bad, it was the way that Noda approached the problem that was wrong."

Clouds wreath the capital. Rain has fallen and more is threatened.

The murky beginnings of what one presumes will be a long and memorable day.

And Ozawa Ichiro As Moe Greene

Former Democratic Party of Japan leader Ozawa Ichiro has met three times over the last two days with his erstwhile friend in the DPJ leadership Koshi'ishi Azuma, this over Ozawa leading his followers and allies in an open rebellion against the leadership's sponsorship of legislation raising the consumption tax from 5% to 10% by April 2015.

After the first two rounds of talks on Thursday, Ozawa said that if the talks end in failure, he will have to make a grave decision. After the third meeting on Friday afternoon, Ozawa promised he would make the decision one way or the other (presumably he was referring to leaving the DPJ or staying) on Monday.

In terms of the content of the Ozawa-Koshi'ishi discussions, one can say with some degree of confidence that it does not require three meetings and a weekend to deliver an ultimatum.

For that, one meeting would have been more than sufficient.

It does take three meetings and a weekend for a talking-things-over with one's minions for a very arrogant man who thought he was in an impregnable position to come to the realization that he has been made an offer he cannot refuse.

In all the discussions of Ozawa's magic numbers -- whether it is

- the 54 DPJ members he would have to drag along with him out of the party (lest any of his followers have second thoughts about the jump, Ozawa made sure to extort letters of resignation from his supporters, which he keeps stashed in his pocket) to reduce the DPJ to minority status in the House of Representatives

- the 43 42 he would need to lead out of the party in order to form a parliamentary caucus of 51 representatives, the minimum necessary to propose a no-confidence motion. however many billions of yen his followers would need to run credible campaigns in their districts, should elections be held

- the percentages of the public appreciate Ozawa's departing the DPJ with his followers in tow to form a new party [15%, according to The Asahi Shimbun; 16%, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun]

two little problems have been overlooked:

1) the Noda government has established a working, if not exactly cordial, relationship with the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito, and

2) whilst the LDP/New Komeito alliance wants to replace the DPJ/rump PNP as the ruling coalition, it absolutely craves the chance to crush Ozawa once and for all.

Talented amateur player of Go that he is, Ozawa may be a little taken aback to find himself in an impossible position, neither able to cut a deal nor walk away from the table undiminished.

Everything hinges now on pride, whether Ozawa overcomes his, or sends the political world reeling again based upon his confidence in the rightness of his own vision.


Later - The original text of this post contained a number of links, all of which were lost in a software crash at midnight, Tokyo time.

Even later - I confess a certain sympathy with the view expressed by Okumura Jun over in his June 26 post over at GLOBALTALK 21: that Ozawa has lost control of his followers, leading to their redefining on their own what fanatical devotion to him should be.

Of Course I Do

Of course I want to write a contrarian post about the present situation inside the Democratic Party of Japan and the Diet following the House of Representatives vote on the three bills paving the way for a raising of the consumption tax, insulting along the way a whole raft of persons, including:

- Hatoyama Yukio

- Ozawa Ichiro

- Tanigaki Sadakazu

- Yamaoka Kenji

- Watanabe Yoshimi

However, such was the jet lag from my trip that when I sat down at my computer, I could see five objects on the screen when I knew there were only three -- meaning I was in no shape to try to tackle the grand opera performance we folks in the cheap seats are not expected to even think about, much less understand.

Suffice it to say that not all the 57 members of the DPJ who voted against the bills or the 16 members who sat out the vote are necessarily ready to commit political suicide out their love for Ozawa Ichiro. A certain fraction are true believers, with enough brains to figure out what their interests are but incapable of seeing that their dear leader is only using them, alternating between bullying and flattering them, terrifying them into craving his approval. A goodly number, the most senior members of the cabal, have made the journey with Ozawa from party to party -- meaning they are just flunkeys, with scarcely a brain wave disturnbing their cerebellums. There are also idiot-savants like Hatoyama who have such a blind faith in the Doctrine of the Mean that they forget the Texas Rule of Politics: "The only things in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos."

It should also be remembered that the larger-than-expected number of nay-voters and abstainers may not represent a victory for Ozawa but indeed a failure of the imagination of the prognosticators. Think about it: you are a fence sitter in the DPJ, not tight with Ozawa but not tight with the mainstream leadership either. You have a tough election fight ahead of you. The New Komeito and the Liberal Democratic Party are all in on the vote, meaning it will pass by a huge margin. Why not be on record as an opponent of tax rises?

As for the threat to the cohesion of the DPJ, one cannot threaten that which has never existed. Every voter in 2009 had read what was on the DPJ label -- "Contents do not represent an organized political party, just an organized movement against the LDP. Westministerian-like levels of party discipline will be freakish and brief." (E)

The electorate also knew, because the newspapers, magazines and news programs went over the numbers in excrutiating detail, that the 2009 manifesto was a Potemkin Village, an improbable passel of promises to every possible constituency -- and that electorate was still was willing to grant the DPJ a huge majority in the House of Representatives.

As for Ozawa, he is on trial again. Ostensibly, he should have been stripped of his party privileges upon the refiling of charges against him. That he has not means that the party central leadership can choose to strip him of his privileges, making it impossible for him to run or even vote in the September DPJ leadership election. All those who followed his lead in voting against the legislation could suffer similar, if lesser, trimmings of their wings. If those are not punishments eliminating Ozawa's influence on party affairs, then what are? Recall that Ozawa already ordered an auto-purge of his followers from their government and party positions in April. Without party privileges, the rebels are dead to the party.

So whatever it is that Koshi'ishi Azuma and Ozawa Ichiro will be discussing this afternoon, it is likely not the end of Noda Yoshihiko's world.

Catching Up On The News - Unconstitutional Elections

Something huge happened yesterday.

In a footnote to my post of yesterday, I noted that NHK announcer Okoshi Kensuke last Thursday confronted Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko with the bald fact that the current map of the House of Representatives districts is unconstitutional, rendering an election impossible on technical grounds. While the Prime Minister had no alternative but to concede that the current map is unconstitutional, he dodged the thrust of Okoshi's question, saying that the Diet had too many important and difficult issues before it for anyone to be discussing a dissolution and an election at this time.

Noda had been, until the live NHK interview, careful to not get cornered on the question of the constitutionality of holding an election. He had left it up to Koshi'ishi Azuma, the Democratic Party of Japan's secretary-general, to tell the seemingly bone-headed members of the political press over and over again that since the issue of the disproportionality of a single vote (ippyo no kakusa) had not been resolved in accordance with the standards set down by the Supreme Court judgment of March 2011, no House of Representatives elections could take place.

While any position aside from the one Koshi'ishi has taken is ludicrous -- unconstitutional meaning “contrary to the basic law of the land, the law upon which all other laws are based” -- Noda has been careful to preserve the notion that the holding of an election is a matter of opinion -- his opinion -- rather than a matter of law.

The reason Noda has needed to maintain this fallacy is simple: his power to call an election is the whip he needs to keep the followers of former DPJ party leader Ozawa Ichiro in line. Nothing terrifies the Ozawa-vetted first termers like the possibility being plunged into an election. With the disdain the public has at present for the DPJ and perhaps permanently for Ozawa, each and every one of these Ozawa acolytes would be wiped out.

Perversely, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito have aided Noda in the maintenance of this illusion. The leaders of both the LDP and the New Komeito know just as well as anyone else that elections are impossible if the districts are unconstitutional. Nevertheless they have been calling for elections for two years straight. And why not? It is the biggest free lunch in history. The public opininon polls on the level of public support for the LDP and the New Komeito could find that both have 0% support and it would not matter: the two parties would still call for elections.

Noda, for his part, tacitly used opposition demands for elections as a means of bolstering the illusion he has wished to preserve. If the opposition is demanding elections, it stands to reason that the opposition at least believes elections can be held.

Hence the sound of breaking glass yesterday when LDP Secretary-General Ishihara Nobuteru asked Prime Minister Noda, in special Diet Committee session, whether in fact the failure to correct the disproportionality of votes in the electoral districts put a shackle on the right to dissolve the Diet. Noda replied that no, failure to act did not shackle the right and that elections would be held when they he thought they were needed. (J)

Technically, both men are correct. Following through on Ishihara's thought, a dissolution of the Diet would trigger the implementation of Article 54 of the Constitution, which states that following a dissolution of the Diet, an election must be held within 40 days. Since the current electoral districts have been ruled unconstitutional, and the Diet would no longer be in existence to fix them, the election would a priori be void.

As for Noda's insistence that the right to dissolve the Diet is not compromised, his position is true only via the most painstaking of hairsplitting. The right to dissolve the Diet, held by the Emperor but exercised upon the advice of the Prime Minister, is not compromised until the moment the right is exercised, at which point the country would be blasted out into extraconstitutional space.

While the constitutional implications of this conundrum are fascinating*, what was of immense political importance in Ishihara's question was that unless the LDP tries to pull off the same trick that the DPJ has been pulling -- i.e., having the party secretary-general insisting that holding a House of Representatives election is impossible while the party president maintains that it is not -- the delicate minuet Noda and the opposition have been dancing together has come to a sudden stop. If a gaggle of reporters corner LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu and press him on whether or not Ishihara's question means the LDP now believes holding elections is unconstitutional, chances are the not terribly swift-thinking Tanigaki will not have an intelligible response.

If and when Tanigaki flubs his moment in the spotlight, the political game board will become completely scrambled, just when Ozawa Ichiro, the master of Go (Part 1 and Part 2) is set to meet with the prime minister. (J)

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* The current emperor, being the conscientious, cautious but independent-thinking man that he is, would likely, on the most perfect of legal grounds, toss post-1945 precedent into the dustbin by refusing the prime minister's request for a dissolution.

Sky Tree Downs Averted

In a few minutes' time the Tokyo Sky Tree, the world's tallest free-standing tower, opens for business. I must confess I am royally sick of the whole circus surrounding what is, in grossest fact, just a tower from which to beam out digital broadcast signals, the 1958 vintage Tokyo Tower being too short (333 m) for the job.

I am sick of the pun on the height of the Sky Tree, 634 meters = 6 Mutsu + 3 san + 4 shi = Musashi, the name of the ancient province where much of modern Tokyo is now located (J). I am sick of the product tie-ins. I am sick of the uniforms of the information girls. I am sick of the cost to ride up to the second observation level: 3000 yen, or US$37.85 at current rates. I am sick of everyone's ignoring the reality that compared to the Burj Al-Khalifa, the Tokyo Sky Tree is a pipsqueak.

Leave it up to the cartoonist at the Tokyo Shimbun to find a new, refreshing angle to look at the opening, one that can make even a grump like me smile:

In the first panel, citizens are looking up with safety glasses at the ring eclipse that appeared in the skies above Tokyo on May 21.

In the second, the people are looking up with cameras, binoculars and the naked eye at the Sky Tree, which opens for business today, May 22.

In the third panel, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko remarks to Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma, "The citizens of Japan have come alive, haven't they?" Koshi'ishi cannot for the life of him understand what has the PM thinking this way.

The hook in this instance is in the title on the left of the panels. It reads:

「２日だけのぅつむかない日々」

Futsuka dake no utsumukanai hibi.

"Just two days when people are not looking at the ground as they normally do."

The hook is the term utsumuku,"to look down," "to keep one's eyes down." The second half of the word, muku, and the images in the first two panels, take the reader on a mental leap to what is probably the best known Japanese song in the English-speaking world, "Sukiyaki" -- the only Japanese-language tune to ever make it into the Top Ten of Billboard's music charts, this in July 1963.

The song, by composer Nakamura Hachidai and lyricist Ei Rosuke, was a huge hit for the singer Sakamoto Kyu in 1961. It begins with what is probably the third best known opening line of any Japanese song, after the national anthem and "Sakura, sakura":

上を向いて、歩こう。。。

Ue o muite, aruko...

"Let me be walking, looking up..."

The song, written after the first burst of Japanese economic growth and on the heels of the "doubling of incomes in 10 years" economic strategy announced by Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato, typifies the hopeful attitude of the times.

In the song, the young man is trying not to cry but ends up doing so because he is all alone. However, he vows to keep looking up -- just as the whole of the country was, hoping for a better tomorrow.

Here is Sakamoto singing and whistling the song in 1983 (You Tube).

Hence Prime Minister Noda's conclusion, after two straight day of people looking up: "Hey, the hope is back!"

Of course, the song has a tragic coda. Sakamoto died in the JAL 123 air disaster of August 12, 1985 -- still the worst single-plane air accident in history. The 747, crammed with passengers heading home for the Obon holidays, lost its the hydraulic steering system a few minutes after takeoff, becoming a veering, swerving uncontrolled mass of terror. After 44 minutes of out-of-control flight, the plane plowed into a mountainside in Gunma Prefecture, killing 520 passengers and crew.

Why Is This Man Still A Minister?

Do you know me?

Chances are, you don't.

I am the minister who has made an utmost effort to kneecap my own party, signing off on the dream budgets of bureaucrats under me with such craven disregard for the Democratic Party of Japan's welfare I have split the party's core leadership over my shenanigans, when it already has enough trouble dealing with the looming shadow of Ozawa Ichiro.

Now I have gone and done something so stupid, so incredibly wrong that I finally may get the ax I have so richly deserved. Imagine me, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, taking time out of my day to write a letter to construction companies of Gero, a city of 38,000 persons in Gifu Prefecture, asking for the support of these companies for a former DPJ legislator now running for mayor of that city.

I wrote the letters, signed them, then sent them to the construction companies in Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism envelopes!

My excuse for this egregious abuse of my office for political purposes? None. But believe me, I am vewy, vewy sowwy I did this.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Fujimura Osamu has said that he will investigate my actions. What is there to investigate? I did it. I have confessed to the press that I did it.

DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma says I did not break the law on public officials interfering in politics (J). If I somehow did not manage to break the law, then that law is not worth a damn.

The Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito are demanding my resignation. Considering what I have done for and to my own party, it is a miracle DPJ legislators have already not bound me up, gagged me and dumped in the trunk of a government car.

My name? Maeda Takeshi. I was a page 2 story two days ago. Thanks to the DPRK's expensive fireworks display today, I will be a page 2 story tomorrow.

Handing DPJ Strategy To The Contrarians

Yesterday, Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma announced that some of the party's most senior and experienced leaders will be charged with the mapping out of long-term party strategy. The areas which will be examined by these party advisors and senior party post holders will include foreign policy, energy policy, defense policy and reconstruction policy.

The first two appointments announced yesterday?

For Foreign Policy: Former Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio

For Energy Policy: Former Prime Minsister Naoto Kan

No, I am not making this up. (J)

The opinions of these two men differ from the prevailing status quo just about as much as one can imagine. Rather than being wary of China and close to the United States, the Hatoyama program is to position Japan in between the two giants, effectively meaning Japan's having more intimate relations with China and more distant relations with the United States.

As for Kan, his experience in trying to manage the consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster has made him an adamant foe of nuclear power and close friend of the renewable energy industry, particularly biofuels. His views run counter to the Noda government's so far very quiet push to rehabilitate nuclear power. (E)

It remains to be seen whether these appointments represent a Japanese version of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson's quip regarding J. Edgar Hoover or an honest attempt to integrate the contrarian views of these two senior politician into the pool of ideas that the party can draw upon when drafting its next electoral manifesto.

Let us say that this cynical would say it is the former, while the hopeful would pray it is the latter.

Inherit the Wind

Ozawa Ichiro's keeping quiet -- so he is following Prime Minister Kan Naoto's suggestion that he do so for the good of the nation, the party and himself.

It is seems the Old Toad has read the fine print, though. He was asked to keep quiet, not stay silent.

Whilst campaigning in Yamanashi Prefecture on Thursday for his buddy Koshi'ishi Azuma (Doesn't Koshi'ishi's website make just hop on the Chuo Line and go to Yamanashi right now?) Ozawa made a rather public visit to the grave of Kanemaru Shin, a rather interesting and embarrassing choice of local worthies to honor with a visit at election time.

After a roadside speech to about 40 local residents, Ozawa also uttered his first words of criticism of the new DPJ regime since its installation three weeks ago. They were hardly hair-raising quotes: he told reporters he thought Kan's goal of leading the party to winning "54 seat plus alpha" too weak, saying that the goal of a ruling party is to win a majority (which in the case of this upcoming election means 60 or more seats - a goal that Kan yesterday declared he would "spare no effort in achieving"). Ozawa also said that in order to improve the Japan's fiscal position, raising the consumption tax should not be done soon -- that the party's stated goal is to get rid of as much wasteful spending as possible first.

On Friday, up in Aomori, Ozawa got a little bolder, playing the concern troll regarding the decision to talk about raising the consumption tax in the run up to an election. He dangerously chose to play the city/country dichotomy card --- shining a light on the truth that cannot speak its name, that following this election the DPJ intends to terminate the countryside's dependency on largess and support from the center, forcing the countryside to either pull itself up by its bootstraps or fail -- saying, "The prime minister seems to talk continuously about [raising the tax to 10%] but out here in the countryside, as compared to the city, the economic situation is severe. If you talk out [in the countryside] about a 10% consumptipon tax, for myself this gives me tremendous worries."

Just to throw salt in the wound, Ozawa reminded listeners that under the Hatoyama Administration (of which he, of course, was the string puller) the DPJ had issued a public promise to not raise the consumption tax for three to four years.

Way to be a team player when your party needs you, Ozawa-san.

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For an explanation of the title, see Proverbs 11:29. For some photos of a few of Yamanashi's places to visit, check out a few selections from the Flickr site.