RESULTS OF THE LOWER HOUSE ELECTION

The Lower House has 500 members and is the more powerful of the two chambers of the Diet. Elections are usually held every three years, and every seat is contested each time. After the recent electoral reforms, 300 seats are now single-seat constituencies, and 200 seats are doled out by regional party lists; that is, proportional representation. Here are the parties and how they fared:

LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY (LDP): This is the traditional party of power since 1955 led by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. In the old days, the orientation of this party was Center-Right, with some Liberals as well. In recent years, the Liberal and Centrist factions have weakened, and the LDP has drifted more and more to the Right. Before the election they held 212 seats.

In this election Prime Minister Koizumi engineered one of the most remarkable election campaigns to ever be seen in Japan or elsewhere. Love him or hate him, Koizumi pulled off a master performance in this election. When he called the snap election about three weeks ago, his party was divided against itself, and LDP leaders grimly talked about an “uphill battle” even to retain their current strength. Many observers, including myself, thought that the LDP was doomed to lose power in this election.

Koizumi, however, responded by effectively framing the issue of this election entirely around his postal privatization plan. Imaginatively, he recruited young attractive women to be his “assassins” to knock off reform foes. Strangely, he suggested that only by re-electing the LDP to power could real change be affected. He thus ran as both incumbent and opposition. The Japanese public responded enthusiastically to Koizumi’s boldness, and rewarded him, as he admitted, with a bigger election victory than even he dared to hope for.

Bottom line, the LDP gained no less than 84 seats for a commanding Lower House majority of 296.

NEW KOMEITO: This is a religious party affiliated with the Buddhist cult Soka Gakkai. Led by Takenori Kanzaki, for several years they have been the LDP’s coalition partner. Theoretically a pacifist party, in practice they have dropped their principles in order to stay in power. However, their base religious supporters operate as a political machine that guarantees them a certain number of seats in every election. Before the election, they had 34 seats.

New Komeito needs time to fire up their base supporters and prepare for each election well in advance. In this election, they didn’t have much time. Their cooperation with the LDP was stronger than ever before, but, in spite of the LDP landslide, New Komeito actually lost 3 seats.

Prime Minister Koizumi and Takenori Kanzaki have been working well together, and they have pledged to keep their alliance. As a practical matter, however, the LDP can survive with or without New Komeito for the next three years. In the Upper House, Komeito is still quite useful, but undoubtedly their political clout has lowered a notch or two.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF JAPAN (DPJ): This is the main opposition party that was formed in the late 1990s. It is an unlikely coalition of former socialists and hard rightists. The main body of the DPJ, however, has been Center-Left. Especially when led by Naoto Kan or Katsuya Okada, it has functioned as the leading Liberal party. Other leaders, like Yukio Hatoyama, and especially Ichiro Ozawa, are further to the Right. Before the election they held 177 seats.

One cannot help but feel sorry for the poor Democrats. Three weeks ago, when Koizumi called the snap election, they were ecstatic. It seemed almost inevitable that they would sweep into power this time and form their first ruling cabinet. They had outperformed the LDP in the last elections and, with the LDP now divided against itself, there seemed to be nothing to stop them from making major gains.

Ahh! But for the genius of Prime Minister Koizumi!

The drama of Koizumi’s bold move, and the brilliance of his campaign strategies, simply overwhelmed the hapless DPJ. Party leader Katsuya Okada is widely acknowledged as a man of integrity and earnestness, but he lacks that special quality of charisma necessarily to lead a major political party. Next to the dynamic Koizumi, Okada seemed dull, stale, and humorless.

Also, the DPJ simply tried to run the same campaign they did last time. They made no serious attempt to respond to Koizumi’s unorthodox tactics. For example, while Koizumi surrounded himself with the “lipstick ninjas,” the DPJ looked like the old boys’ club in comparison. Although its membership is young, I cannot think of a single female face among the DPJ leadership. Remarkably, Koizumi managed to make himself seem fresher and more dynamic than the main opposition party!

The DPJ was outmaneuvered and utterly routed. They went from imminent victory to crushing defeat in the space of a few weeks. They lost no less than 64 seats to fall to only 113. Katsuya Okada has resigned and a new DPJ leader will be chosen on Saturday.

JAPAN COMMUNIST PARTY (JCP): Yes, Japan’s Leftists still haven’t discovered that the Cold War is over and that Communism has lost! The second largest opposition party, led by Kazuo Shii, held 9 seats before the election.

What can be said about the JCP? They are, of course, Leftists, but of a remarkably stale and backward-looking sort. The world has long passed them by, and they are the only ones who don’t know it yet. In every election they field candidates in almost every district, the vast majority of which are decisively defeated.

According to JCP Chairman Kazuo Shii, the LDP and the DPJ are “the same.” The practical result of the JCP running so many candidates is to divide the anti-LDP opposition, and thus to allow the LDP to maintain its grip on power. In many ways, the JCP is the ruling LDP’s best friend, because they draw Liberal-Left votes away from the more viable DPJ, and their ideological rigidity helps to discredit the Japanese Left in general.

In the current elections, the JCP neither lost nor gained seats, though they did help the DPJ to lose many close battles.

SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY (SDP): This party is the remnants of the once-formidable Socialist Party. In the early 1990s, Socialist leader Tomiichi Murayama became Prime Minister of Japan for the mere price of selling out decades of party principles. This led to a collapse of the Liberal-Left in the mid-1990s from which there has been no recovery. In some respects, the DPJ is the heir of the Socialist Party, since many of them have defected to that banner. However, the ideological orientation of the DPJ remains ambiguous in comparison with the old Socialists. In the past few years, under the leadership of Takako Doi, and then Mizuho Fukushima, the tiny SDP has become Japan’s first female-dominated political party. It now tends to attract smart, Liberal Japanese women. The SDP is warm-hearted, but not particularly shrewd. Before the current election they held only 5 seats.

As always, the SDP emphasized its loyalty to the pacifist Article Nine of the Constitution as their main theme. SDP leader Fukushima, an attractive human rights lawyer, wanted to double their seats in this election to 10. However, their main “new” face was Kiyomi Tsujimoto, another brilliant young woman, but tainted by a scandal. Tsujimoto is tough and interesting, but she will never have the same political potential as she did before the scandal. Also, the SDP lost Katsuhiko Yokomitsu—the party’s Diet Affairs leader—when he defected to the DPJ.

The SDP managed to gain 2 seats to reach a total of 7, but it is highly unlikely that they will ever re-emerge as a serious contender to the LDP or the DPJ.

PEOPLE’S NEW PARTY (PNP): A three-week old party led by LDP dinosaurs Tamisuke Watanuki and Shizuka Kamei. These were the hardcore of opposition to Koizumi’s reform plans. They are old-style pork barrel politicians heading for extinction. They had 4 seats at stake and kept all 4 due to their local political machines, but they are going nowhere. They have not even acknowledged that Koizumi’s massive victory was a defeat for their anti-reform cause.

NEW PARTY NIPPON (NPN): A “brother” party to the PNP, but strangely led by the reformist Governor Yasuo Tanaka of Nagano. The party is a contradiction to begin with, and has proved to be an abortion. Their 3 seats have been reduced to only 1.

NEW PARTY DAICHI (NPD): A regional party of Hokkaido led by convicted-bribetaker Muneo Suzuki. Suzuki landed his own seat in this election, but that’s it.

INDEPENDENTS: Many of Koizumi’s postal privatization foes ran as independents in this election. About half of them were knocked off by Koizumi’s “assassins.” Key survivors included Takeo Hiranuma, Mitsuo Horiuchi, and Seiko Noda. It is to be expected that some of these rebels will humbly ask permission to rejoin the LDP on condition of supporting Koizumi’s reforms, and so the LDP may in fact swell to over 300 seats soon.

WHAT DOES THE ELECTION MEAN FOR JAPANESE-ISLAMIC RELATIONS?

On the positive side, Koizumi’s victory will probably help the Japanese economy. He now has a renewed mandate to push key reforms like the post office privatization plan. These reforms are much needed to help Japan progress beyond pork barrel politics and into a more economically competitive mode. Countries like Indonesia that have substantial trade with Japan will welcome Koizumi’s victory in this respect.

However, once we move beyond the economic sphere, the political and diplomatic implications are largely negative. The political Right in Japan will be able to run the table for the next three years. Koizumi says he will step down in one year, and his most likely successor is probably the Rightist Shinzo Abe (although there are a few other possibilities).

For the duration of Koizumi’s administration, the excessive deference to the globally irresponsible Bush administration will almost certainly continue in its present form. This will mean the extension of the GSDF mission in Samawa until next summer, and perhaps a deterioration in Japan-Iran relations. If Abe comes to power, Tokyo may become more stubborn with the US, but in a rightwing direction—more xenophobic and more anti-Chinese. Also, the movement to rewrite the pacifist Japanese constitution and legitimize Japan’s military services may very well make a breakthrough in the next couple years. Tensions in East Asia will probably remain high, and may even escalate substantially.

For foreigners who live in Japan, including Muslims, the resounding LDP victory is bad news. The LDP had written into their campaign promises that they regarded foreigners as a major source of crime in Japan and have vowed to get tougher. The LDP has shown no interest even in legally guaranteeing the human rights of foreigners in Japan. In contrast, the DPJ was promising to lower barriers, insure human rights, and build a more inclusive society. The DPJ massacre is thus a setback for all foreigners who live in Japan.

Overall, there is not much good news to report. The Japanese economy will probably benefit, but in most other respects the negative trends in Japanese diplomacy toward the Islamic world are likely to deepen now that the LDP is fully in the saddle. Look for more alignment with the Bush administration, and a more aggressive and rightwing approach to Asian diplomacy.