By-election loss is blow for Koizumi party

Reviewed By Hitoshi URABE

Article:
"By-election loss is blow for Koizumi party"
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3G7DT6L0D&live=true&tagid=ZZZC19QUA0C&subheading=asia%20pacific
By David Ibison in Tokyo, Financial Times

Comments:
The article explains the effects of two of a number of elections held over the weekend. These two were considered to be important for two reasons. One, they were to choose the members of the diet, while others were all of local. Another was because both of them were races between the ruling parties, lead by LDP, and the opposing parties, where a candidate in each constituency was backed by the rulers and another by the opposing parties, hence the results were deemed to be good indications of support levels of the present regime.

The result turned out to be, as mentioned in the report, a candidate supported by the LDP won in Wakayama and lost in Niigata.

The article cited here, however, is very ironical, in that it exemplifies the difficulty in drawing a picture of Japan's political scene now.

While there is no doubt that the result is a blow to the LDP, whether it is also the case for Mr. Koizumi could be another story. Recently, the Government - the cabinet - submitted a bill to reform the postal services without the consent of, or even with certain resentment of many of the members of the LDP in the diet. Indeed, it has, for the past year, often been the case where Mr. Koizumi was dubbed as a reformist, while the LDP collectively was referred to as the old guard, with almost constant tension of conflict between them. Then, how was it, in the first place, for Mr. Koizumi to be chosen as the head of the LDP so as to become the Prime Minister, is a very viable question.

To this, there apparently is no simple answer, though everyone seems very willing to chip in his/her own views. There are technical reasons and others that must be left for further unbiased scrutiny, and for the meantime, it is probably more productive to recognize the situation as is. It is important to note, however, the accusation seen once in a while that the process of selecting a leader in Japan is unduly vague and complex is not really warranted, as such seems to be pretty much the norm in any civilized society, almost as if it is a part of the cost of being civilized. It is doubtful that there are many foreigners, or for that matter, even Americans, who could correctly and confidently explain the labyrinthine election process of the President of the United States. (Remember many were baffled by the hassles of 2000 election.) Or it is unrealistic to assume people living in other countries understand all the ramifications of the French presidential election now in process.

In any case, it is lucky for those who genuinely believe Japan needs a structural reform to have Mr. Koizumi in office, while conservatives with vested interest are also seemingly comfortable as they are firmly represented by the ruling LDP.