As expected, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost the Japanese elections and as expected very badly. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won 308 seats in a parliament's lower house of 480 seats and sent the LDP into the Opposition, ending its stranglehold on power since 1956, which they had briefly lost for eleventh months in 1993. The LDP won 119 seats against the 302 it had in the last parliament.
The figures of the DJP victory and LDP's defeats are dramatic, a “revolution” according to the DJP leader and the next Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. But analysts seeking answers to this turn of events in Japan's politics are finding it easy to explain the LDP's defeat. Since the departure of Koizumi, the way his successors led the LDP and Government created voters' disillusionment with the ruling party. The three Prime Ministers, Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso, who led Japan after Koizumi departed in 2006, failed to match Koizumi's charisma and popularity and by contrast, gave the LDP a very poor image indeed. The emergence of Taro Aso as Prime Minister and leader of the LDP was something that the party did not need with its popularity ebbing fast. Aso is well known in Japanese politics for his non-serious approach to politics and his preference for wining and dining. He made things worse for himself and his party by making frequent gaffes in public to which his colleagues also added with one senior Minister appearing at a press conference while on a foreign trip, drunk.
With the noose tightening round his neck and the party during electioneering, Aso advised poor unemployed Japanese who are the victims of Japan's worst tryst with unemployment in modern times, not to marry. Whatever his intentions were, the advice fell flat on voters and dissuaded them further to move away from the LDP. The economic crunch added to fill the quota of LDP's misfortunes because by the time election date was announced last month, Japanese voters were yearning for a change.
Indeed, the citizens of Tokyo gave both the LDP and the nation the clear indication of how serious they were for the change. They voted in the Tokyo municipal elections against the LDP that lost its majority in the Tokyo Assembly for the first time in history to the DJP. In that election, the DJP won 54 seats against LDP's 38 seats, thus setting for the nation's voters the direction for the Lower House elections. The pre-election scenario created the environment where predicting that the DJP would win handsomely easy, almost a foregone conclusion.
The seeds of this defeat were however sown much earlier, during the tenure of Junichiro Koizumi. As leader of the LDP, he led the party in his own style that was in sharp contrast to how his predecessors led the party. Koizumi broke the factions in the party that did almost everything, from management of conflicts to naming the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. During his term, he took all the major decisions. His charisma and personality allowed him to dominate not just in the party but also in the nation. Unfortunately, he did not groom his successor and he destroyed the old party structure without putting into place a new order. Although the factions that were dormant while he was in power returned with his exit, they failed to dominate and manage party politics as they did before. This was quite visible in the way LDP led the government after his departure, unsure about major policy decisions that did not fail to attract and frustrate the nation. The fact that three prime ministers came one after another since Koizumi left in 2006 in the backdrop of major policy debacles hinted early enough that LDP was on its way out.
Voters' disillusionment with the LDP was thus the major factor for the DJP's win. The winner ensured that this victory would be by a big margin by appealing to the ordinary people for votes. In a time of economic crunch, the worst for decades, the DJP promised the voters to make governance focus more on consumers instead of big businesses that the LDP favoured. Among other promises the DJP made, the one not to raise consumption tax for the next four years was most appealing. The party also promised to lower fuel tax and corporate tax for small businesses. The DJP also promised to expand on the welfare state despite rising costs in view of Japan's aging population. The DJP assured voters that it would be able to meet the costs for its promises by budgetary controls and reducing the size of the bureaucracy. In other words, the DJP promised to be a pro-people government if elected and the people of Japan believed them and that too, overwhelmingly.
In foreign affairs, the DJP promised to make Japan less dependent on USA and make extra efforts to improve relations with her Asian neighbours. The US air force base in Okinawa that the islanders want relocated could come up immediately for renegotiation. The DJP, that opposed the Iraq war, also has reservations on presence of 50,000 US troops in Japan. The White House, however, issued a statement that it hopes that the strong US-Japan alliance and the close partnership between our two countries will flourish under the leadership of the next government.
The LDP's historic defeat has introduced some positive elements in Japan's politics. Parliamentary democracy works best when there is a strong opposition, something that was lacking in Japan. Henceforth Japan will be a two party democracy where the LDP will bring into the opposition their 54 years experience in governance. The new parliament will also see 158 newcomers, the largest new faces ever elected in any of Japan's previous elections. Of these, 54 are women, mostly from the DPJ, which is also a new record. Best of all, Japan will have a new Prime Minister riding the wave of a massive victory that should give him the confidence that was lacking in the last three LDP Ministers. Yukio Hatoyama, grandson of former Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama, and coming from a family called “Japan's Kennedy family” may not have experience in governance but has enough in politics to lead Japan at this critical juncture when its economy is in the most serious crunch for many decades.
The excellent Bangladesh-Japan relation where Japan is our most important development partner has been nurtured by LDP leadership led by Prime Minister Kakeui Tanaka that was deeply touched by our sacrifices and success in the war of liberation. Over the years, legendary LDP leaders like Kayakawa, helped build a relationship where we owe to Japan a great deal for the development of our economic and human resources infrastructure. The DJP's views on Bangladesh or countries such as ours are yet unknown but there is no reason why the new government would not follow and build upon what it has inherited from the LDP Government. On our part, we would need to make our best efforts to establish early contacts with the new political leadership. Our Foreign Ministry and Mission in Tokyo will now have to carry the extra burden where arrangement of high level visits from our side at the level of the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister should be pursued in all earnestness.
We have benefited tremendously from Japan's economic assistance. We have, however, failed in an area where Japan could be even more useful to us. We have badly failed in targeting and getting Japanese investment. We have all it takes to attract Japanese investment; excellent location as the bridge between South and Southeast Asia; a very large population for supply of both labour and market incentives, etc. Our failure has been in our investment regime that we have boasted as most attractive but one that has fallen far short of Japanese expectations. Let a new era of Bangladesh-Japan begin with the DJP in power where our main focus would be to make Japanese investment a prime focus of our relations.
Published in The Daily Star, September 5, 2009
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