We have seen some explanations, including in Forbes Asia, about why Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was justified in dissolving the lower house of the Japanese Diet and calling for a general election, which will take place on December 14. None of the explanations wash.
This is an unnecessary and practically meaningless election, bogus in expressed intent and objective. It is purely and simply political opportunism on the part of Abe, a cheap ticket to another four years of strong arming his broadly unpopular agenda through a fractionated, hardly relevant opposition in parliament.
What are the issues? As propounded by Abe, it is first and foremost it is “Abenomics.” Then, it is Abe’s decision to delay for 18 months (to April 2017) implementation of a two percentage point increase, to 10%, in the consumption tax.
As for Abenomics, a Nihon Keizai Shimbun poll published on November 24 found 33% of respondents expressing approval or support, while 51% expressed disapproval. Still, for the majority who disapprove, what is the alternative? Opposition parties, divided and with apparently scant intellectual or financial resources, caught completely by surprise by Abe’s election decision, have put up no coherent alternative economic policy program.
The Nikkei poll foretells voters’ likely decision in its follow up question to the 51% dissatisfied with Abenomics. The respondents included, out of the polled total, 19% who said they will still vote for Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), ahead of the 14% whom said they would vote for the Japan Democratic Party (JDP) opposition.
As for the consumption tax increase—a decidedly less important and less controversial issue than is being ballyhooed by both domestic and, especially, foreign media, toward the inevitability of which a substantial majority of voters have expressed either approval or resigned acceptance—Abe made a point of saying that his extension of implementation was a “one time” decision; that implementation would irrevocably follow in April 2017. This being the case, what would a vote for or against Abe accomplish?
Of course there are major, critical political issues in Japan. Abe’s strategy in calling the election now is to avoid allowing the opposition to effectively exploit and challenge his government on them. They are in almost equal measure: policy toward nuclear energy (re-starting some 30 nuclear power plants shut down since the March 11, 2011, Fukushima nuclear plant disaster); Abe’s aggressively expansive “Proactive Contributor to Peace” foreign policy, and its constitutionally questionable if not patently impermissible new “collective self-defense” military doctrine; the massive new U.S. military base on Okinawa (ostensibly replacement of Futenma U.S. Marine Corps air station), seemingly proof that the American military presence will never end; and interest-threatening regulatory reform measures being touted at required to restart economic growth—including, controversially, the agricultural, auto, insurance, and pharmaceutical/medical market opening demands being pressed by United States in the TPP trade talks.
Generally speaking, these are not issues that Abe and his LDP, New Komeito (NK) party coalition partners are talking about, or want to talk about. They are, however, the themes of the opposition, because—according to polls—they are issues on which the majority of Japanese oppose the LDP/NK government. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), in particular, is harping on Abe’s defense policies and initiatives as “turning Japan into a country that will make war.”
Not that the outcome of a LDP/NK retaining a comfortable majority of Diet seats is in doubt. The sad reality is that, in terms of Diet votes or coherent policy programs, the opposition parties hardly exist now, and will find themselves deeper in oblivion on December 15
The outcome is foretold in a Nihon Keizai Shimbun/Tokyo TV poll conducted November 21-23. Asked for which party they would be voting, 35% answered the LDP, 9% said the DJP, with the Japan Restoration Party, NK, and the Communist Party getting 3% each. Some 30% of respondents answered “undecided,” while 15% replied “can’t say” or “don’t know.” Perhaps most bemusing, the other opposition parties, whose representatives are invariably invited to sit around a table and offer their views on weekend political talks shows, polled either 1% or 0% of likely support.
As several newspapers have noted, we see now that after the failed 2009-2012 experiment of “two party government,” Japan has settled back into its accustomed essentially one party rule. (There is a story, which I believe, that China’s Communist Party, when researching how other countries have managed to maintain one party systems, profited greatly from a study of Japan and the LDP.)
Of course, this situation nicely suits Prime Minister Abe whose agenda remains in process of implementation. Not, or not mainly, the agenda of Abenomics. Rather, the agenda of implementing a new, robust, and regional, if not global “pro-active contributor to peace” military/defense posture.
The highest priority during the rest of Abe’s four year tenure will surely be to remove long-standing (constitutionally) self-imposed restrictions on Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF) by amending and rewriting the Japan Self Defense Forces Law to implement “collective self-defense” and other new postures and doctrines, as outlined in the latest Defense White Paper.
As weak as the opposition parties are, they will surely challenge and seek to block these revisions. While doing so they will be supported, morally, and at times vocally and through demonstrations, by a majority of Japanese citizens.
