Hello, my friends. Here is my most recent story published by Asia Times last night. I criticized the Ministry of Finance, which is taking advantage of political confusion. If you get time, please go over this. Have a nice weekend. Thanks and regards, Kosuke
A deja vu moment in Japan
Considered a preview of imminent general elections, Sunday's Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly poll is expected to fast-track a major power shift from Japan's de facto one-party rule - bringing to mind the Liberal Democratic Party's crushing defeat in August 1993. Meanwhile, bureaucrats in the Finance Ministry are taking advantage of political confusion. - Kosuke Takahashi (Jul 10,'09)
A deja vu moment in Japan
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Japan's main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), is already a clear front-runner in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election scheduled for Sunday. This local election, right in the heart of the national capital, is perceived as a prelude battle to a crucial general election, likely to be held in August, accelerating a major power shift from Japan's de facto one-party rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for more than half a century.
Prime Minister Taro Aso, president of the LDP, will face pressure to step down immediately - both from inside and outside the party - if the LDP were to heavily lose the Tokyo election. This political climate is increasingly becoming a repeat of August 1993, when the LDP was toppled from nearly four decades of power by the Morihiro Hosokawa administration led by the now-defunct Japan New Party. This followed a crushing defeat in the election for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly in 1993, amid the collapse of the so-called bubble economy in the early 1990s.
Japanese bureaucrats, meanwhile, are taking advantage of the political confusion. Especially the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the strongest ministry that controls the nation's purse; it recently lofted a once trouble-causing and beleaguered official back onto center stage of the ponderous bureaucracy. The ministry is also regaining its political and economic power by adopting once-forbidden personnel exchanges between the ministry and the Financial Services Agency (FSA), the government's independent organization responsible for overseeing banking, securities and exchange.
The Tokyo election
The LDP may be losing ground to its main opposition rival. In the final stage of the campaign, all the major Japanese media have suggested that the LDP is likely to fall behind the largest opposition, the DPJ, in Sunday's elections in Tokyo.
The DPJ is likely to become the biggest party in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, ahead of the ruling LDP, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Thursday. Out of the 127-seat chamber, the DPJ is expected to add to the 34 seats it holds now, already endorsing a record 58 candidates and riding on the back of key victories against LDP-backed candidates in recent major local elections, such as the Shizuoka Prefecture gubernatorial race.
The LDP, on the other hand, faces a major challenge in holding onto its current 48 seats, Japan's largest business newspaper said. The focus is on whether the LDP and junior coalition partner New Komeito will be able to hold onto a majority, or 64 seats, in the Tokyo Assembly, the paper added.
More than 30% said they would vote for the DPJ-backed candidates in the metropolitan election, up 13.2 percentage points from a survey before the previous election in 2005 and far more than the 18.2% who said they would vote for the LDP, a Kyodo News opinion poll also showed on Monday.
The approval rating for Aso's cabinet among the poll respondents in Tokyo stood at 19.3%, while 75.1% disapproved. The Aso administration's failure to take effective and speedy actions in coping with the ailing and sluggish economy amid its worst post-war economic slump, the worst performing in the developed world during this recession, could bring about an unexpected higher voter turnout, possibly handing down a clear no-confidence vote to Aso.
"The DPJ will become the dominant party in the Tokyo assembly for sure," Minoru Morita, a noted political analyst in Tokyo, told Asia Times Online. "The alliance with the Liberals and the New Komeito is also likely to fail to reach a majority. Pressure for Aso to step down will be mounting after the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, and the LDP may hold a leadership election ahead of the key lower house election. I see a 60% chance of the LDP's presidential election soon."
Memories of 1993
In August 9, 1993, the Hosokawa administration was born after the LDP suffered an ignominious defeat in the Lower House election on July 18 that year because of the bribery and corruption of the regime ruled by the LDP mono-party.
Earlier, on June 27, the then newly born Japan New Party led by Hosokawa secured 20 seats in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, heavily damaging the then-Kiichi Miyazawa administration and then bringing about the non-LDP coalition government under Hosokawa.
Yukio Hatoyama, the current head of the DPJ, served as vice chief cabinet secretary in the cabinet of Hosokawa from 1993 to 1994. The first non-LDP cabinets in more than 30 years, led by primers Hosokawa and Tsutomu Hata, lasted only a combined total of 10 months, as the then-Japan Socialist Party left the coalition, destroying its majority in the Diet (parliament) and forcing it out of power.
Finance flexes its muscles
Many political analysts see the Ministry of Finance as taking advantage of the political confusion. The ministry announced on July 3 it would appoint Rintaro Tamaki, 55, to replace Naoyuki Shinohara as vice finance minister for international affairs, the official responsible for currency policy, effective on July 14.
Tamaki was a high school classmate of Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan's former tipsy finance minister and head of the FSA, who resigned in February following his slurring and yawning news conference at a Group of Seven meeting in Rome. Tamaki, director general of the Finance Ministry's International Bureau who accompanied Nakagawa to Rome, defended Nakagawa by saying the then-finance chief didn't drink a lot of the wine and only "tasted it with his lips".
In a July 3 announcement, the ministry for the first time allowed high-ranking FSA officials to transfer with Finance Ministry officials since the complete separation of the FSA from the ministry in 1998, which aimed to divide planning and supervision functions. For example Toshiyuki Ohtou, 54, deputy commissioner for policy coordination at the FSA, was named as the new director-general of the Customs and Tariff Bureau at the MOF.
"With the upcoming advent of a new administration led by the main opposition, bureaucrats such as those in the Ministry of Finance are now desperate to defend their ministries," Morita said. "They are strongly uniting in their common interest against the DPJ."
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based journalist.
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