Sunday 30 August 2009

A brief comment after the dust has settled...

Sunday was a clear landslide, and a true 'earthquake' in terms of Japanese politics.

The new parliament is almost a mirror image of the old one with:
LDP/New Komeito holding 140 seats
to the DPJ/SDP/PNP bloc's 318 seats.

For full results: Kyodo News - Results Breakdown

Technically the DPJ, with 308 out of 480 seats, could easily form a government in the House of Representatives on its own, but I doubt they will do that, partly to reassure people through the image of cooperative politics, and partly because they need their allies to hold an absolute majority in the upper House of Councillors.

If they do form such a coalition, it will also mean that they would hold more than 2/3 of the seats in the House of Representatives. In such a situation, it is difficult to see what the LDP could do in the parliament itself. Any recovery would have to be built on either from sub-national government, or by regaining control of the upper house when half of its seats come up for election next year (one of the significant factors undermining the LDP for the last 2 years has been opposition control of the upper house).

In spite of their remaining strengths, it seems unlikely that the LDP will be able to shake off the effects of Sunday's defeat and rebuild public trust that quickly on their own. Their recovery will more likely depend on how successful the DPJ government is over the next year in delivering on its manifesto, and whether what has up until now been a broad coalition defined by their opposition to the LDP can keep working together for the next four years without quarrelling.

Already there are indications of such future difficulties, with the SDP's resolute stance against deployment of the Japanese Self Defence Forces, even in their current missions of refuelling in the Indian Ocean, or patrolling against piracy off the coast of Somalia, while the People's New Party wants a stop to, and possibly even reversal of, the privatisation of the postal service. How the DPJ handles these difficult issues and integrates its allies into any coalition will be a crucial test of their ability to govern.

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