Far East Cynic

What was the number of that truck that hit us?

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For only the second time in half a century-Japan has a Prime Minister who is not from LDP:

TOKYO, Aug 30 (Reuters) – Japanese voters swept the opposition to a historic victory in an election on Sunday, ousting the long-ruling conservative party and handing the novice Democrats the job of reviving a struggling economy.

 

The win by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ends a half-century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and breaks a deadlock in parliament, ushering in a government that has promised to focus spending on consumers, cut wasteful budget outlays and reduce the power of bureaucrats.

 

But the untested party will have to move quickly to keep support among voters worried about a record jobless rate and a rapidly ageing society that is inflating social security costs.

 

"The people are angry with politics now and the ruling coalition. We felt a great sense of people wanting change for their livelihoods and we fought this election for a change in government," said Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama.

 

Media projections showed the Democrats set for a landslide win, possibly taking two-thirds of the seats in parliament’s powerful 480-member lower house. That matched earlier forecasts of a drubbing for Prime Minister Taro Aso’s LDP.

 

The ruling party loss ended a three-way partnership between the LDP, big business and bureaucrats that turned Japan into an economic juggernaut after the country’s defeat in World War Two. That strategy foundered when Japan’s "bubble" economy burst in the late 1980s and growth has stagnated since.

 

"This is about the end of the post-war political system in Japan," said Gerry Curtis, a Japanese expert at Columbia University. "It marks the end of one long era, and the beginning of another one about which there is a lot of uncertainty."

The S.O. has been following this news all month-remember a couple of years ago when she was almost giddy with excitement about the possibility of voting against LDP in the upper house elections? I think she would have been first in line to vote this time.

I asked her why she did not vote absentee this time-she said it was a lot harder than I thought it was-especially since as a US Green Card holder, she does not have a political "home" in Japan.

DIPLOMATIC SHIFT

 

The Democrats want to forge a diplomatic stance more independent of the United States, raising concerns about possible friction in the alliance.

 

"The LDP is probably going to be missed more in Washington than in Japan," said Michael Auslin at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

 

The party has vowed to build better ties with the rest of Asia, often strained by bitter wartime memories.

 

"The Democrats have a positive attitude towards relations with China," said Liu Jiangyong, a Japan expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "But there are still problems in bilateral relations, which need hard work from both sides to resolve."

 

Economic experts worry spending plans by the Democrats, a mix of former LDP members, ex-Socialists and younger conservatives founded in 1998, will inflate Japan’s massive public debt and push up government bond yields. 

The party has vowed not to raise the 5 percent sales tax for four years while it focuses on cutting wasteful spending and tackling problems such as a shrinking and greying population.

LDP went down fighting-they had some pretty interesting cartoon commercials out this week attacking DPJ. These commercials are far more sophisticated than the filth we run on TV:

 

 

The guy with the curly hair at the start of the commercial is Hatoyama-head of DPJ ( Its popular to make fun of his hair). The four incoherent individuals (bara bara) are asked about the refueling support of the US. Their answer Hantai ( opposed). A man asks him how do we do our part. The group of four says they cannot say. Next they say they are for free trade with the US. Jiyu! Jiyu! (Free Free). And the man from the left-who portrays a farmer asks, "What are you saying?" To which the group of four responds, they cannot say. The last item has to do with decentralization of government authority. Once again they cannot say how they will do it. The commercial ends with a written line to trust Japan to LDP.

I’ll bet its a fun time to watch this unfold in Japan.