Doing the Abe shuffle

Prime Minister Abe has reportedly committed to executing a cabinet and party leadership reshuffle by the end of August, following his summer travels to India, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

This despite pressure from within the party to act quickly, with former Prime Minister Mori suggesting that waiting too long for a reshuffle would be a "body blow" to the Abe cabinet. (If waiting too long to reshuffle would be a body blow, what exactly does one call the impact of completely ignoring the results of a historic election defeat?)

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abe has insisted that he intends to once again reject cabinet personnel decisions based on factional recommendations, despite having been told by party elders that his next cabinet ought to be more representative, including members of all factions. Instead it seems he continue to rely on those he feels he can trust, like Mr. Aso for example. The decline of the LDP's factions and the emergence of Kantei-centered policy making, while having been exaggerated somewhat, has been hailed as a largely beneficial shift in Japanese governance, supposedly signaling the rise of government according to national rather than sectional interests. There is much to be said for this argument. But, at the same time, the Abe Cabinet has been instructive in the vices of Kantei government and the neglected virtues of Habatsu government.

While not accountable to the people in any sort of liberal-democratic sense, the power of the factions within the LDP ensured that the prime minister was responsible to somebody, that even if the prime minister was incapable of seeing the errors of his ways there were plenty of people within the party waiting to interject, criticizing the premier (constructively or otherwise) in the hope of changing the government's course of action. There was feedback, in other words. In the week since the election, however, we have learned the extent to which not only is Mr. Abe not accountable to anybody, he's also not getting serious feedback from anyone either. Like his buddy George, Mr. Abe seems to be in an echo chamber of his own making.

I'm certainly not hankering for the golden age of the factions, but at the same time, in the short term a greater role for the factions would minimize the destructiveness of Abe's obliviousness, ensuring that the government pays some attention to the needs of the Japanese people, and easing the transition to the post-Abe era. Because the post-Abe era is coming, sooner or later. The signs continue to mount. In this week's Shukan Bunshun Matsuzoe Yoichi, the top vote-getter on the LDP's PR list last week, criticizes Abe for his response to the election. He writes: "Mr. Abe, it must be remembered, was selected as president by LDP party members, but that does not necessarily mean he was selected by the people. The two-thirds majority of seats in the House of Representatives were taken by former Prime Minister Koizumi, not Mr. Abe. Therefore, it is essential that he takes the people's judgment humbly and listens carefully." He then suggests that he thinks that the responsibility is Mr. Abe's, and that he should resign. (Mr. Matsuzoe's article follows an article by Mr. Ishiba in which he reiterates his thinking on why the prime minister should go.)

Of course, even if Mr. Abe goes, and soon, the LDP is in trouble, due to the legacy of decades of corrupt practices and unresponsive government that have been brought to the forefront of public attention by the resignation and suicide of four members of Mr. Abe's cabinet. Is there anyone among the older generation of LDP leaders who has clean hands? As Tahara Soichiro, a journalist, notes in an article in Liberal Time:

Office expenses are a convenient wallet that can only be used by politicians. It is only office expenses because it is not necessary to attach receipts. Therefore, for not a few LDP politicians, a very convenient way of using bad money is designating it under the pretense of office expenses. The four ministers, while facing the doubts and anger of the people, were resolute in rejecting the airing of their receipts, for the reason that if their receipts for office expenses were made public, it would cause a troublesome situation for the whole LDP...

When supporters and voters come from the home district, the member must treat them to a meal. However, if we look beneath the surface, this amounts to a violation of the Public Office Election Law. It is for this reason that office expenses are appropriated. It is an exceedingly simple structure...

For voters, once, 'roads are built, bridges are built, community centers are built' — large projects were undertaken. However, now, under policies advocating fiscal reform, large public works could not be undertaken. The remnant of such politics is meal expenses."

So the question I asked regarding Mr. Akagi's appointment is relevant for every cabinet position. Is there a cabinet-capable LDP politician without inappropriate conduct buried in his closet?

Even with a new cabinet, therefore, Abe will not escape from harm's way. He will still find himself dogged by scandals, forced to explain and apologize for his ministers' activities, and unable to earn the confidence of the people.

No surprises here

Akagi Norihiko, the late Matsuoka Toshikatsu's successor as minister of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, has resigned after two scandal-tainted months in the cabinet.

His resignation in and of itself is not newsworthy. It is inconceivable that he would remain in the cabinet given that he has spent his entire tenure fending off corruption charges and in general not answering questions, whether about financial improprieties or the bandages on his face.

What is interesting, however, is the response within the LDP to his departure. An article in Asahi on Akagi's resignation suggests that more than half the party's members think it "natural" that he resign. Apparently they think his scandals are a major reason explaining why the LDP lost big in the Upper House elections.

Now, there is no question that Akagi's follies were part of the story of the election, but would the LDP have somehow done better had he resigned earlier? I strongly doubt it. His improprieties were symptoms of widespread malfeasance in the LDP, but one need not look far for other, more egregious examples (this was my initial reaction to Akagi's appointment, in fact). Moreover, I suspect that as far as corruption is concerned, public distrust of politicians and bureaucrats is deep and goes back years, even decades; more recent examples serve merely to keep the fire of public disgust burning strongly.

I suspect that whoever the government finds to replace Akagi, he will likely have the same fiscal improprieties tucked away in his closet, especially if he is an "agricultural expert."

Is the government trying to lose the election?

Facing criticism about his government's decision to postpone discussion about the consumption tax to the autumn, Prime Minister Abe has decided that instead of doing his best George H.W. Bush impersonation — "read my lips" — he has decided to be ambivalent: "I will not say that we will not raise the consumption tax rate."

Meanwhile, Akagi Norihiko, the late Mr. Matsuoka's successor as MAFF minister, is running into his own political funds problem. Mr. Akagi claimed rent expenses for a campaign office in his father's home that his father said was never used, raising the obvious question as to what happened to the money claimed as office expenses. (Anyone wonder what he did to anger his father?) I, for one, am not surprised by this report. As I wrote when Akagi was appointed, when there were already indications of inappropriate ties with supporters, "No cabinet-eligible LDP politician has clean hands." The opposition is already demanding his resignation. And Mr. Abe is already making excuses for him.

This is the government that is going into the elections: a government that learns of lost pensions and then covers it up, is full of corrupt ministers protected by the prime minister until he begins to feel the pain politically, makes excuses for the US atomic bombings (mind you, this is less a problem for me than it is for the Japanese people), has backed away from further structural reform, and has dishonestly put off discussing sensitive policy matters until after the election.

If the opposition cannot secure a large majority in the Upper House facing a government with this record, we might as well resign ourselves to another fifty years of uninterrupted LDP governments.

Meet the new daijin, same as the old daijin

On Friday morning, Prime Minister Abe summoned forty-eight-year-old Akagi Norihiko to Kantei and requested that Akagi serve as Matsuoka Toshikatsu's successor at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF). Akagi, a Tokyo University graduate, MAFF old boy (OB), and grandson of an agriculture minister in the cabinet of Abe's grandfather Kishi, was first elected the same year as Matsuoka (1990) and served in a similar succession of posts in LDP policy organs as Matsuoka.

In other words, he's a younger, more elite version of the late Mr. Matsuoka. (I say more elite because, as I wrote in this post, Matsuoka was not a Todai grad, not a ministry generalist OB, and not a hereditary politician.)

There are no indications that the policies Akagi will pursue will be any different from Matsuoka, and there are already signs of inappropriate monetary dealings between Akagi's koenkai and groups seeking contracts from MAFF. As Abe made clear when appointing him, Akagi will, like Matsuoka, seek to promote further reform of Japanese agriculture, work to the target of one trillion yen in agricultural exports, and act as a tough negotiator in WTO negotiations. In other words, agricultural mercantilism and favoritism on behalf of companies and farmers supporting the LDP.

Akagi's accession to the cabinet is a clear illustration that the problem is much bigger than Matsuoka: the problem is systemic. No cabinet-eligible LDP politician has clean hands.