The last days of Abe Shinzo

For a look at how illusory the LDP's purported post-Fukuda unity is, Bungei Shunju has an article called "Shinzo Abe: The truth of the last three days." (It's published in four parts at Yahoo's Minna no seiji site: one, two, three, and four.)

There aren't too many surprises in the article: Aso Taro laughed in Fukuda Yasuo's face when the latter insisted that he join the cabinet; the Aso camp is larger than officially recognized, and will continue to scheme to position Mr. Aso for the post-Fukuda era; Mr. Fukuda doesn't particularly like Mr. Abe, in part due to the latter's efforts to undermine Mr. Fukuda's ideas on North Korea policy under Mr. Koizumi; Mr. Koizumi's surprise "endorsement" of Mr. Fukuda is apparently behind the resignation of Iijima Isamu, Mr. Koizumi's private secretary, who is antagonistic with Mr. Fukuda and only learned of his boss's decision from the press; and Mr. Abe became progressively more decrepit in mind and body as August passed.

Who, the article asks, is the real winner?

I would say Mr. Fukuda, simply by virtue of having emerged as the prime minister, but no one comes out of this article looking particularly good. Mr. Fukuda looks like a scheming, treacherous snake full of grudges; Mr. Abe by the end is a pale shadow of himself subsisting on gruel at Keio Hospital; and the LDP looks more like the court of a Renaissance Italian city-state than a modern political party. Of course, no political party is free from vicious internal disputes and jockeying for power; take the US Democratic Party, for example. But thanks to decades of nearly uninterrupted power and grudges going back generations, LDP struggles strike me as particularly vicious and all too often hidden from the light of public scrutiny. Policy has next to nothing to do with the feuds documented by Bungei Shunju. The only policy dispute mentioned at length is over North Korea policy, and it seems to me that Mr. Fukuda was more outraged at being beaten by the young deputy chief cabinet secretary than at seeing his preferred course of action rejected.

In other words, the LDP was, is, and will always be, at heart, concerned solely with power. No leader can change that, and as long as the LDP has no principles save the pursuit of power, and as long as its leaders are those who can scheme and backstab their way to the top, the LDP will force its rivals to play by the same rules. Under Mr. Ozawa, the DPJ may be able to do that — but is it possible to surpass the LDP's desire for power?

Of course, this means that it is a bit contrived to speak of an old and a new LDP: there is one LDP, with an unchanging purpose. Mr. Koizumi, rather than fundamentally transforming the party, may have simply given contenders for the throne some new tools, including popular support outside the party, which in the right hands can both make up for a lack of support within the party and be used as a weapon against one's enemies, and the intensification of the "reform" theme, which makes it plausible for LDP politicians to run against their own party. And so the dynamics of intra-party competition have changed: the factions are weaker and more strapped for cash; the zoku giin don't have the same influence over policymaking they once had; the Kantei has grown in power. But I wonder whether this transformation has had a perverse effect on intra-LDP politics, making competition for the party leadership that much more intense, because now the premiership is that much more valuable a prize.

I am also uncertain about the contemporary LDP's crosscurrents. In the past, the party was divided along multiple fault lines: factions, policy tribes, bureaucrats versus party men, hawks versus doves. And now? The camps seem less clear cut to me, and are perhaps even more rooted in personality than ever before.

Therefore, in light of all this, I do not expect the Fukuda truce, if it even exists, to last long. The LDP's history is one of chaos and brutal power struggles more akin to those seen in Beijing and Moscow than in Washington. As long as Japan's voters continue to return the LDP to power, the country's leaders will continue to be those who can survive, one way or another, the party's internecine wars. Even after Mr. Koizumi, it is no closer to becoming a top-down, coherent political party.

The man to beat

From Kishi scion to Yoshida scion: with less than a week until the LDP presidential election, it seems hard to conceive at this point how anyone will be able to stop Aso Taro, professed manga lover and friend of otaku (oh, and longtime foreign minister and current LDP secretary-general).

With Mr. Koizumi declaring that he will not cave to the "Draft Koizumi" movement that his "children" (including Koike Yuriko) have formed, Mr. Aso is the only henjin in sight, and after the bland pleasantries of Abe "beautiful country" Shinzo, a henjin just might be what the party is looking for. Sure, he has a history of inappropriate remarks — documented here — but it's all part of his henjin charm.

With less than a week, he seems well placed to rally factions to his side and stifle a dark-horse candidacy before it emerges. He probably has nothing to worry about from prospective challengers at this point, including Tanigaki Sadakazu, who has been campaigning since day he lost the last LDP president election, and Fukuda Yasuo, the longest-serving chief cabinet secretary ever. It is still unclear whether Mr. Fukuda actually wants to run, and Mr. Tanigaki, now described as being in the LDP's "anti-mainstream," has little or no chance of garnering the kind of support needed to overcome Mr. Aso, who is likely to receive the support of the Machimura faction (the LDP's largest, and Mr. Abe's own).

In the midst of all the maneuvering in Tokyo, it might be the LDP's beleaguered prefectural chapters that call the shots, seeing as how they absorbed July's blow as much as the national party. According to Asahi, they have reacted to Mr. Abe's resignation with "surprise and anger," and in the aftermath of the resignation, fifteen prefectural chapters from across the country have apparently begun considering throwing their support to Mr. Aso, just shy of a third of the total forty-seven.

With one day before campaigning officially begins, it may be Mr. Aso's race to lose. Not that he'll be winning a desirable prize. While stepping into the shoes of a prime minister who will leave office with a 74% unfavorable rating means that there is more or less nowhere to go but up, Mr. Aso will have to rebuild the LDP from the regions up, while fending off the DPJ in Tokyo.

(Wall Street Journal subscribers can read me arguing about the Abe succession here.)

The LDP presidential election

NHK has just announced that the LDP will be holding a presidential election next Wednesday, September 19, with the campaign period opening this Friday, September 14.

Expect the contenders to begin positioning themselves over the next few hours.

The LDP is certainly wise to waste no time in preparing to select a new leader. Mr. Abe's resignation may have already ruined whatever chances the governing coalition had in moving an agenda this Diet session, but the sooner he moves out of the Kantei the better.

Meanwhile, in the chaos of what's being called a "Nagatacho earthquake," the opposition will no doubt push hard for a snap election, arguing that a new government will enjoy no more mandate to rule than the outgoing Abe cabinet.

A fitting end?

In the midst of Mr. Abe's resignation, Mainichi reports that Shukan Gendai has been investigating reports of tax evasion by Mr. Abe, who allegedly transferred his 2.5 billion yen inheritance from his father to his political organization without paying taxes.

While there are plenty of reasons for Mr. Abe's departure, it would be fitting if the timing of his resignation was the result of fears that he too would be implicated in a political funds scandal, joining, well, most of the members of his cabinets.

Abe's resignation — first thoughts

It's official. After less than a year in office, Mr. Abe has announced his resignation.

Evidently his decision came as a surprise to the LDP leadership.

In his statement, available here from Asahi, Mr. Abe emphasized that his resignation is a way to break the deadlocked situation in Japanese politics, especially concerning the anti-terror law. He hopes that his successor will have a mandate with which to carry on the fight to renew the law and advance reform.

LDP rules stipulate that a party presidential election must be held within thirty days, and it looks like the party will not delay in choosing a new leader to lead the party in the autumn special session of the Diet. Aso Taro, former foreign minister and current LDP secretary-general, is probably the favorite going into the campaign, but I wonder if the chaos in the party might present an opportunity for a populist dark horse to emerge and seize the presidency in a manner reminiscent of Koizumi's surprise election in 2001.

The LDP is in trouble, but Mr. Abe's unexpectedly hasty exit gives the party a chance to select someone who can communicate with the public, earn the trust of the Japanese people, and move an agenda forward in cooperation with the DPJ. Indeed, the DPJ might be the biggest loser from Mr. Abe's early departure, provided that the LDP's next president is an improvement on the hapless Mr. Abe. As long as Mr. Abe was in the Kantei, the DPJ faced a government in disarray, with an increasingly powerless prime minister beholden to his senior advisers.