A Happy New Year to you all. Let us hope, and we are entitled to hope, that the world will be more peaceful, with less socio-economic inequality, at the end of the year.
Japan's Prime Minister Abe dissolved the Lower House of the Parliament much ahead of the end of its term, and the elections were held on 14 December. We will take up three prominent features out of the results. But why did he decide to go to the electorate to begin with?
In short, in this writer's view, he lost confidence in his ability to manage economy. It had been taken for granted that the economic performance would prove to be poor in the April-June quarter because of the hike in the consumption tax from 5 to 8 % on 1 April. But contrary to the forecast, the downward trend continued in the July-September quarter, inviting sharper criticism of the "Abenomics". The share prices continued to go up, but that was the only positive-if we may say so-upward trend in the economy, and its benefit was apparently limited to a very small stratum which includes lots of foreign buyers. Almost every opinion poll would indicate that the great majority felt that the benefit of Abe's policies had not reached them. He had been compelled to postpone the next stage of the hike to 10 % scheduled for 1 October 2015.
The first prominent feature of the election results was that, in spite of all the above, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), together with its coalition partner, Komei Party, got a little more than two-thirds majority of the 475 seats in the House. The voting rate was the lowest ever, 53 %. A poll conducted soon afterwards says that only 11 % replied that it was because Abe's policies were highly valued by the electorate, but an astounding 72 % was of the view that it was because the opposition parties could not present viable counter measures. The disaffection with the Abenomics was more clearly shown in the near wiping out of some of the opposition parties positioned more to the right of the LDP. The foreign media called it the winning by default, and they were right.
Another aspect of this was that, while the LDP got 75 % of the seats in the single-member constituencies, accounting for the majority of the seats, with only 48 % of the votes, they could get only 33 % of the party-wise proportional representation.
The second feature was that the Communist Party of Japan nearly doubled their votes in the proportional representation to 11 %, and thereby increased its seats dramatically from the mere 8 to 21.
The third was the fact that in Okinawa Prefecture, where the main issue was whether to construct a new air base for the US forces stationed in Japan by the US-Japan Security Treaty, the candidates of the opposition alliance defeated the LDP candidates in all the four single-member constituencies. This was also an epoch-making event, which took place on the heels of the anti-Abe, anti-LDP victory of the opposition alliance in the elections both for the Governor of Okinawa and the Mayor of Naha, its major administrative city, on 16 November, just four weeks previously.
How will the Japanese politics move on from these points this year 2015? Has the pattern in Okinawa shown the shape of things to come? And will Abe and his LDP try to go ahead with their two-thirds majority in the Lower House in the direction of the Constitutional Amendment?
Japan's Prime Minister Abe dissolved the Lower House of the Parliament much ahead of the end of its term, and the elections were held on 14 December. We will take up three prominent features out of the results. But why did he decide to go to the electorate to begin with?
In short, in this writer's view, he lost confidence in his ability to manage economy. It had been taken for granted that the economic performance would prove to be poor in the April-June quarter because of the hike in the consumption tax from 5 to 8 % on 1 April. But contrary to the forecast, the downward trend continued in the July-September quarter, inviting sharper criticism of the "Abenomics". The share prices continued to go up, but that was the only positive-if we may say so-upward trend in the economy, and its benefit was apparently limited to a very small stratum which includes lots of foreign buyers. Almost every opinion poll would indicate that the great majority felt that the benefit of Abe's policies had not reached them. He had been compelled to postpone the next stage of the hike to 10 % scheduled for 1 October 2015.
The first prominent feature of the election results was that, in spite of all the above, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), together with its coalition partner, Komei Party, got a little more than two-thirds majority of the 475 seats in the House. The voting rate was the lowest ever, 53 %. A poll conducted soon afterwards says that only 11 % replied that it was because Abe's policies were highly valued by the electorate, but an astounding 72 % was of the view that it was because the opposition parties could not present viable counter measures. The disaffection with the Abenomics was more clearly shown in the near wiping out of some of the opposition parties positioned more to the right of the LDP. The foreign media called it the winning by default, and they were right.
Another aspect of this was that, while the LDP got 75 % of the seats in the single-member constituencies, accounting for the majority of the seats, with only 48 % of the votes, they could get only 33 % of the party-wise proportional representation.
The second feature was that the Communist Party of Japan nearly doubled their votes in the proportional representation to 11 %, and thereby increased its seats dramatically from the mere 8 to 21.
The third was the fact that in Okinawa Prefecture, where the main issue was whether to construct a new air base for the US forces stationed in Japan by the US-Japan Security Treaty, the candidates of the opposition alliance defeated the LDP candidates in all the four single-member constituencies. This was also an epoch-making event, which took place on the heels of the anti-Abe, anti-LDP victory of the opposition alliance in the elections both for the Governor of Okinawa and the Mayor of Naha, its major administrative city, on 16 November, just four weeks previously.
How will the Japanese politics move on from these points this year 2015? Has the pattern in Okinawa shown the shape of things to come? And will Abe and his LDP try to go ahead with their two-thirds majority in the Lower House in the direction of the Constitutional Amendment?
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