Meet the new Fukuda cabinet

I am in Los Angeles on a brief layover before heading to Chicago, so I don't have time to offer a more thorough discussion of the Fukuda reshuffle.

For something more than my cursory remarks, I strongly recommend Jun Okumura's take and MTC's two posts.

Readers will not be surprised to learn that I am underwhelmed by the Fukuda reshuffle. Aside from the deft moves of co-opting Aso Taro and Yosano Kaoru — hard to freelance and challenge the prime minister when having responsibilities to party and government — remarkably little will change as a result of this cabinet.

It is not a particularly flashy or telegenic bunch, at least no more than the previous cabinet. While Mr. Fukuda emphasized that this new cabinet will work on behalf of the people (I thought the previous cabinet was supposed to do that?), no major policy or even stylistic shifts will result from this cabinet. Mr. Machimura remains its spokesman, and Masuzoe Yoichi remains in place as the minister handling the most pressing issues facing the government. If Mr. Fukuda were prepared to have the tax debate that he previously said he wanted to have, Mr. Yosano's presence would be significant for policy reasons, but with livelihood and consumer issues at the top of the agenda, it is unlikely that Mr.Yosano will make much ground in his campaign for a consumption tax increase.

One difference might be in the conduct of foreign policy, if this government gets enough time to address foreign policy. Mainichi notes that in China policy, this cabinet might actually be Fukuda-colored, with China-friendly Nikai Toshihiro and Hayashi Yoshimasa taking over at METI and MOD respectively. Mr. Fukuda needs all the help he can get in making the case for a constructive relationship with China, but in practical terms their presence may be negligible.

Perhaps the biggest loser from the reshuffle is Nakagawa Hidenao, whose "rising tide" group was locked out; then again, as MTC suggests, Mr. Nakagawa and the Koizumians may well be the biggest winners of the night, considering that this cabinet may well end up presiding over a catastrophic general election defeat that will wreck the careers of all involved.

I will write more later, once I've digested this lineup and read some more commentary.

Reshuffle questions

It appears that the new cabinet won't be announced until Friday evening, after my departure from Narita, so it looks like readers will have to wait until tomorrow for my thoughts on the prime minister's choices.

But my thinking on the fundamental unsoundness of Fukuda Yasuo's decision to reshuffle remains unchanged. (Readers can find my thread on the reshuffle here.)

As for the morning press coverage, the big dailies appear to be in consensus about two posts: the LDP secretary-general and the chief cabinet secretary. According to Asahi, Sankei, Mainichi, and Yomiuri, Machimura Nobutaka will likely stay in place as chief cabinet secretary for the sake of continuity, meaning that yesterday's rumors about Koike Yuriko's becoming the chief cabinet secretary were fanciful. As for the LDP secretary-general, the papers seem to agree that Mr. Fukuda will ask Aso Taro to serve once again as secretary-general, just as he did in the short-lived second Abe cabinet. The reasoning, according to Asahi, is that Mr. Aso, being the man of the people that he is, is more fit to lead the LDP into a general election than Ibuki Bunmei. Even if Mr. Aso rejects the offer, Mr. Ibuki will be gone: Asahi suggests that current Finance Minister Nukaga Fukushiro will be offered the post if Mr. Aso turns it down.

But if Mr. Aso becomes Mr. Fukuda's deputy at the helm of the LDP, how would the second Fukuda cabinet/LDP leadership being any more Fukuda-colored than the first Fukuda cabinet? How does bringing in Mr. Aso — even to a political role like secretary-general — and retaining Mr. Machimura clarify the prime minister's policy approach?

That meaningless phrase "Fukuda color" will be repeated ad nauseaum in the coming days, but readers would do well to ignore it. This new cabinet will be no less uniform than the current Fukuda cabinet; the Fukuda color is compromise and political expediency.

The question is what Mr. Fukuda and his confidantes will find political expedient at this juncture. There is speculation about giving Komeito more prominence to ease its concerns. As noted yesterday, even if Ms. Koike will not be tapped as chief cabinet secretary, the prime minister may still opt to bring some glamor to his cabinet in the form of one or more of the LDP's prominent female politicians. Will he opt for youth more generally, making for a more telegenic cabinet? Or will he merely shuffle party elders?

But whatever he chooses, Mr. Fukuda still has a mountain to climb. The reshuffle may improve his chances of staying at the helm of the LDP long enough to lead it into the next general election, as Jun Okumura argues, but it will do little to improve his and his party's electoral prospects.

So let the meaningless reshuffle begin!

The reshuffle is tomorrow

The prime minister has announced that he will be reshuffling his cabinet and the LDP leadership on Friday afternoon, 1 Aug, after meeting with Komeito's Ota Akihiro in the morning.

Of course Mr. Fukuda had to pick the afternoon of my departure from Japan to reshuffle his cabinet.

If the reshuffle is done expeditiously, I will try to give my thoughts from Narita before departure; otherwise you'll have to wait until I'm on the ground in the US.

Here comes Koike and friends

With Fukuda Yasuo set to finalize a schedule for a cabinet reshuffle after consultations with Komeito — according to Machimura Nobutaka, the prime minister is waiting for reports on the latest failed Doha Round negotiations before proceeding — the cabinet reshuffle is a go, possibly as early as 4 Aug (Monday).

The media has immediately shifted from hounding the prime minister to reshuffle to speculating about who will be included in the new cabinet.

This is the sort of thing at which the Japanese political press excels. In the coming days, readers and viewers will be treated to an endless parade of bios of possible ministers, figures showing the impact of past cabinet reshuffles on public approval ratings, speculation about the post-Fukuda horse race, and other facts, figures, and hypotheses about the political game. Much if not most of it will be rubbish; it will be difficult to find anyone asking the obvious questions about the reshuffle.

Will it make any difference whatsoever?

Will the new ministers serve for long enough to impact their ministries?

What exactly is the Fukuda iro (color)?

Is the prime minister actually in control of his government and the LDP?

The early speculation about the reshuffle suggests that Mr. Fukuda will do like Mr. Abe and attempt to harness the glamour of the LDP's leading ladies to boost his popularity. Recall how Koike Yuriko was ushered into the defense ministry last July to replace the hapless (and it turns out, horribly corrupt) Kyuma Fumio just in time for the official campaign for the upper house election.

Mr. Fukuda may repeat the trick, if Yukan Fuji is to be believed. The cover of the Friday edition shows Ms. Koike and Nakagawa Hidenao, her leading backer, watching boxing together, and proclaims, "Koike as Chief Cabinet Secretary rises to the surface — figuring in the post-Fukuda outlook." The hope, according to an unnamed LDP member, is that having Ms. Koike as the government's spokeswoman will make the difference in the government's public support.

"Prime Minister Fukuda does not like her performance. But if she can use her competitive instinct and her ability to steal the limelight — as when she published her tell-all book after her resignation — as cabinet spokesman, then the approval rating will likely increase. It will also satisfy former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro's hope of wanting someone from his Machimura faction taking either LDP secretary-general or chief cabinet secretary."

Presumably Mr. Mori would prefer someone other than the woman whose prospects he has derided as his faction's representative in these senior positions, but the sentiment remains relevant. If the sentiments expressed in this article and on the morning talk shows today are accurate, the prime minister and/or his advisers think that adding a glamorous sheen in the form of Ms. Koike as well as some combination of Noda Seiko, Obuchi Yuko, and one or two other female LDP politicians will distract the public from the Fukuda government's inability to govern and raise the chances that Mr. Fukuda will last long enough to lead the LDP into the next general election.

Judging from her time in Ichigaya, it is probably inappropriate for Mr. Fukuda to expect too much help from Ms. Koike, not necessarily through any deficiency of her own — although the Yukan Fuji article suggests that like Mr. Machimura, the incumbent chief cabinet secretary, her nemawashi skills are in question — but because she has too many enemies with the LDP, whether because of her sex or because of her reputation as a "wandering bird" (previously discussed here).

The immediate surfacing of a women-heavy cabinet suggests how transparently bogus one of the major reasons for the reshuffle — the need to define a Fukuda color that is distinct from Mr. Abe's — is. How would appointing Ms. Koike, who was first Abe Shinzo's national security adviser and then his minister of defense, distance Mr. Fukuda from Mr. Abe? How does that clarify the Fukuda color, unless by Fukuda color people mean the literal color of the cabinet, in which case Ms. Koike and the other women under consideration might add some much needed brightness to the sea of dark suits?

Not surprisingly, this reshuffle will be nothing more than an exercise in image management. Any talk of the policy implications of the reshuffle is mostly hot air, considering that it seems that Masuzoe Yoichi — who holds the most critical portfolio in light of the health and welfare-heavy agenda — will stay put as minister for health, labor, and welfare.

Will the Japanese people fall for it?

I doubt it. I don't think the public will fall for the media hype that would surround a cabinet with Ms. Koike as chief cabinet secretary. I think the Japanese people are waiting for results, and barring results, will hold the LDP accountable at election time, reshuffle or no reshuffle.

Fukuda will take the plunge

I apparently overestimated Fukuda Yasuo's strength and independence in the face of pressure from within the LDP.

Yomiuri is reporting — corroborated by Asahi and NHK — that the prime minister has settled on a cabinet reshuffle in early August. Interestingly, Yomiuri's source is Komeito chief Ota Akihiro, whose party is pushing hard for an election at the start of next year (and is more generally flexing its muscles).

I am no more convinced of the rightness of this decision than before. Much will depend on who stays, who goes, and who joins the ranks. Suffice to say, if this man stays, the exercise will have been futile.

But it is difficult to see what Mr. Fukuda will gain from this move. He has shown that if hounded enough by the media, he will cave. Like Abe Shinzo before him, he has shown that the prime minister's supposed power to control personnel is illusory in the face of concerted pressure from within the LDP. This will do nothing to stem the rising tide of speculation about Mr. Fukuda's departure and the campaign to replace him.

A reshuffle will not make the government any more popular (over anything longer than the short term), any less paralyzed or any more capable of tackling the daunting agenda facing Mr. Fukuda. It will, however, reinforce the impression of Japan's being poorly managed and beset by political chaos.

Fukuda passes, for now

It appears increasingly unlikely that Fukuda Yasuo will decide to reshuffle his cabinet before the autumn Diet session.

NHK is reporting that at the very least there will be no decision on a reshuffle before the end of the month, as two members of the cabinet are delayed in returning from WTO talks abroad.

Mr. Fukuda told reporters — rather sternly — that "not once have I said something about [a cabinet reshuffle]."

This gets to the heart of the matter. The persistence of the cabinet reshuffle story on the basis of complete silence from the prime minister shows both how the media can be the cat's paw of certain ruling party politicians and how a herd mentality among the major media organizations can transform the political discussion. For weeks political discussion has focused on the prospects of a reshuffle, thanks to persistent leaks "from within the ruling party" on the likelihood and timing of a reshuffle.

It was about time that the prime minister stood up to the media's groundless speculation. Unfortunately there may be little Mr. Fukuda can do about the manipulators of the media within his own party, who may now use the media to fuel speculation about the need to replace Mr. Fukuda with someone else quickly. As Nikkei reports today, "there is a possiblity that the 'post-Fukuda era' will appear rapidly."

Fukuda the pressured

Watching the news this morning, I saw Fukuda Yasuo's remarks yesterday on whether he intends to reshuffle his cabinet in advance of the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet.

As before, he stated that he has not made his decision yet, that he is considering the "whole situation" in regard to conditions within the LDP and the policy agenda for the forthcoming session. He repeated that he will make his decision on a reshuffle by 29 July, incidentally the first anniversary of the LDP's historic defeat in the 2007 upper house election.

Ibuki Bunmei, speaking in Osaka, confirmed that the prime minister has yet to decide on a course of action.

The look on Mr. Fukuda's face was grim, almost pained, and his speech was strained.

In short, it looked and sounded to me like he had made up his mind on a reshuffle: he doesn't want to do it.

However, it seems that he is being forced to make a show of considering it and may even be pressured into going through with a reshuffle, thanks to pressure from within the LDP (channeled through a pliant political press). That seems to be all there is to the idea of a reshuffle: leaks to the media from certain members of the party and government who desire a reshuffle in the hope of hounding the prime minister into deciding in their favor.

As noted previously, it's not even clear what a Fukuda-colored cabinet will look like. Yamamoto Ichita provided one answer to this question: "Blue."

Asked to explain what the Fukuda "color" following a luncheon meeting of the Machimura faction by a reporter, Mr. Yamamoto answered that it is difficult to say just what Mr. Fukuda stands for, what qualities a Fukuda-colored cabinet would possess.

Masuzoe Yoichi, minister for health, labor, and welfare, made the case on TV Thursday for his staying in his post (i.e., that he is appropriately Fukuda-colored), describing his leaving the ministry after less than a year as "idiotic."

Mr. Masuzoe's comment gets to the heart of the matter. If Mr. Fukuda is forced to reshuffle his cabinet, the third cabinet within the past year, it will be yet another sign of the LDP's reverting into the hands of its risk-averse elders — and yet another sign of the LDP's unsuitability as the vehicle for fixing the mess that it has created.

It's time that Mr. Fukuda followed Koizumi Junichiro's advice and made a decision, preferably a decision not to reshuffle, thereby reasserting his authority (for the time being anyway).

Fukuda, the LDP, and Japan: all hamstrung

Fukuda Yasuo has returned from his vacation at the Prince Park Tower hotel near Shiba Park in Tokyo.

His agenda is no less crowded than it was last week.

In the final week of the month, Mr. Fukuda, his government, and his party will be considering the new budgetary guidelines, deliberating on when to start the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet, and considering whether to reshuffle his cabinet before the autumn session.

Mr. Fukuda has provided few hints as to his thinking on the latter, and day by day the pressure from his party — using the media to pour on the pressure — grows for the prime minister to decide on a reshuffle.

On the question of timing, there is no hint as to when the Diet will convene again, but obviously if the government waits too long, the extraordinary session could turn into another marathon session stretching into next year as the government is forced to use Article 59 to pass priority legislation (like another enabling law for the MSDF's refuelling mission). Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, said as much at a press conference Tuesday, and expressed his desire for the new session to begin by the end of August. Asked about it at his press conference later Tuesday, Machimura Nobutaka, chief cabinet secretary, said no agreement had been reached and provided no insight to the government's thinking.

The timing of the new session is intertwined with the question of a reshuffle. The argument — at least as made by Asahi — is that a reshuffle now will strengthen the prime minister's efforts to pass legislation on health care, social security, and eldercare, and countermeasures to address high energy costs. By giving the cabinet a "Fukuda color," the government will apparently have an easier time moving its agenda.

I'm unimpressed by this logic. I don't know what a Fukuda-colored cabinet would look like, but I'm not certain that it would be an improvement. And I don't see how it would strengthen the government's ability to move legislation. Instead I see it as freeing people who disagree with the prime minister to intensify their activities to undermine the prime minister. Meanwhile, is Masuzoe Yoichi, the minister for health, labor, and welfare (HLW) and the point man on the aforementioned issues (and a major critic of Abe Shinzo's despite being a holdover from the second Abe cabinet, thereby exposing the folly in the logic that the second Abe cabinet inherited by Mr. Fukuda is out of place today) somehow an obstacle to the government's plans?

The arguments being made on behalf of a reshuffle are flimsy, and yet the media is repeating them unquestioningly.

In the end, talk of a reshuffle is a distraction from the realities of policy: the Fukuda government and the LDP are unable to rescue Japan from its ongoing crisis. As Ken Worsley noted, the Cabinet Office admitted that the budget won't be balanced by 2011 as desired by Koizumi Junichiro. The economic outlook is worsening. The latest HLW white paper on the Japanese labor market recorded the inexorable growth in the use of un-regular staff, indicating the crumbling of Japanese labor system.

In the midst of this, government and ruling party are dithering over whether a new cabinet will improve the prime minister's public approval ratings.

The LDP's empire is crumbling.

It is not yet known what will rise in its place — and if it's a new DPJ regime, whether it will be more of the same — but we are without question witnessing the death throes of the ancien regime. Problems are mounting faster than the hamstrung government can tackle them. The LDP has, according to Yamasaki Taku, abandoned Koizumism, but it has adopted nothing in its place, not even the old way of conducting politics. It is merely treading water, and poorly.

How will a prime minister who can't decide whether to change his cabinet push through sweeping changes to how Japan cares for its sick and aged, provides opportunities for young workers, and enables firms to innovate and grow?

The DPJ may find itself similarly hamstrung, but the DPJ's qualities should not (and are not, I would argue) the most important matter facing the Japanese people. The question is whether the party that failed to anticipate and act responsibly in the face of a gathering crisis should be trusted with the power to attempt to fix the mess it created.

Mr. Fukuda on holiday

Fukuda Yasuo, his (un)popularity barely affected by his hosting of the G8 summit last week, celebrated his seventy-second birthday Wednesday by starting a six-day vacation.

Asahi notes that this is early for a prime minister to take his summer holiday, and speculates that since the prime minister does not have plans to travel far, there might be some truth to speculation within the LDP that Mr. Fukuda is getting ready to reshuffle his cabinet.

Maybe so, but there is little information in the body of the article to merit inclusion of the phrase "Preparation for a cabinet reshuffle?" in the headline.

Mainichi includes a similar phrase in its headline — "mixed with speculation about a cabinet reshuffle" — but at least provides some reason for why the prime minister would be taking his vacation now as opposed to later in the summer. At the end of July and beginning of August, Mr. Fukuda will be working on budgetary requests, after which he will be in Hiroshima for the anniversary of the atomic bombing and then Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Instead of being a scheme to plan a reshuffle, Mr. Fukuda, no spring chicken at seventy-two, could simply need a few days rest at home with family.

The point is that while it's possible that the prime minister could be planning a reshuffle, neither Asahi nor Mainichi provides any evidence of this apparently headline-worthy claim. This is unfortunately typical for Japanese political journalism.

If they have information suggesting that there's truth to this, they should report it. If they have no evidence, they should write a short article about the prime minister's vacation and leave it at that. No speculation, no wishful thinking, just the facts.

As for a reshuffle, I remain convinced that it won't happen, that the prime minister doesn't want to break in a new cabinet before the next Diet session. He will return from his holiday next week and plunge back into the work of preparing for the autumn session.

UPDATE: Sankei outdoes everyone in its coverage of Mr. Fukuda's vacation and the prospect of a reshuffle. Sankei — Sankei and no other media outlet — claims that on Tuesday, Mr. Fukuda decided (their word) to reshuffle his cabinet on July 28. There is no source for this report. I may be wrong: it may be true that a reshuffle is coming. But this article reinforces my argument about the poor quality of Japanese political reporting. If they know this to be a fact, Sankei should do us the favor of stating just how it came by this knowledge. All they tell us are "government sources," government sources who leaked only to Sankei.

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SPEAKING of holidays, I will be taking one myself from Thursday evening. This will be my first non-blogging (and non-email) holiday since I started writing this blog. I may or may not write a post Thursday, so this may be my last post until next week.

Don't expect Japanese troops in Afghanistan

With five or six weeks until the start of the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet, one of Fukuda Yasuo's responsibilities during the recess is determining his government's approach to the Japanese contributions to operations in and around Afghanistan. The enabling law for the current Maritime Self-Defense Forces refueling mission will expire in January, meaning that if the government wants to extend the mission it will have to do it during the upcoming session.

As noted last month, the government was investigating whether to ramp up Japan's commitment to Afghanistan to include the deployment of Ground Self-Defense Forces personnel to Afghanistan.

Komeito, the LDP's partner in government, may have killed the idea of a ground component. Ota Akihiro, Komeito secretary-general, said Saturday that there are few within the government and the LDP — and, by implication, the bulk of his party — who are enthusiastic about sending ground troops to Afghanistan. Komeito's opposition is probably enough to ensure that the government will do nothing more than push for an extension of the refueling mission, which the DPJ will oppose, prompting the government to use Article 59 to pass the bill for the second straight year. Recall that the LDP has previously conceded to Komeito on this issue: the very fact that the government has to renew the mission again this year is the result of a concession to Komeito last year, shortly after Mr. Fukuda took the reins.

Given that Komeito's thirty-one lower house members give the government its two-thirds majority, it's safe to assume that the lowest common denominator will win the day on this issue, meaning a repeat of last year's spectacle.

Fukuda the prevaricator

Fukuda Yasuo, done playing the (overly) generous host in Toyako, is back in Tokyo to face his ever growing pile of problems.

First on the agenda is, of course, the question of whether he should reshuffle his cabinet before going into the autumn extraordinary session.

After meeting with Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, at the Kantei on Thursday, Mr. Fukuda's perspective on a cabinet shuffle was unchanged from before the G8 summit: "a completely blank paper." He is giving no sign that he is leaning one way or another, although the very act of delaying and remaining noncommital could be a sign of his intention to keep his cabinet unchanged. Given the intra-LDP wrangling that will necessarily accompany a reshuffle, he will have to make a decision to proceed soon if he is going to have a new lineup ready by early August.

A possible sign that there will be no reshuffle can be found in an interview Mori Yoshiro gave to Mainichi. Asked about the reshuffle, Mr. Mori said that his previous argument was a "general argument." He was making no hints about Mr. Fukuda's intentions. He explained that his thinking on a reshuffle rests largely in concerns that the cabinet is Mr. Abe's, not Mr. Fukuda's, a situation that should be corrected. And he acknowledged that there is a "linkage problem" between a reshuffle and a possible lower house dissolution.

That, ladies and gentlemen, may be the sound of the bursting of the reshuffle bubble.

The prime minister is better off spending his time figuring out how to outmaneuver or neutralize LDP opponents to his initiatives and craft an agenda for the autumn session that will put the DPJ on the defensive. He should put an end to reshuffle speculation now and stop speaking about his "blank paper."

Fixing Fukuda's "good enough" cabinet

After Koizumi Junichiro called upon Prime Minister Fukuda to decide whether to shuffle his cabinet in the coming months, Mori Yoshiro — Mr. Fukuda's so-called "guardian" and an advocate of a reshuffle — and Kato Koichi suggested that the prime minister should form a new cabinet before the start of the extraordinary Diet session in the autumn.

In a speech Friday, Mr. Mori suggested that the prime minister should announce the new cabinet in the second half of July or the first half of August, before the O-bon festival.

Mr. Kato, meanwhile, said that a reshuffle would enable the prime minister to promulgate a Fukuda agenda that would serve to distance the LDP from the Koizumi agenda. He suggested that new cabinet should exclude members of the CEFP under Prime Ministers Koizumi and Abe. [I would dispute the idea that Mr. Abe didn't mark a break from the Koizumi line; it appeared to me that Mr. Abe was keen to distance himself from his predecessor.]

For his part, Mr. Fukuda remains noncommital, insisting that he remains a "blank sheet" on the question of a cabinet shuffle.

Yamamoto Ichita, LDP upper house member from Gunma prefecture and supporter of a shuffle, argues that if Mr. Fukuda taps powerful, popular officials and times the new cabinet's appearance just right, Mr. Fukuda might reverse his decline and undercut the DPJ. He offers three reasons.

First, a new cabinet would distance Mr. Fukuda from the taint of the Abe cabinet. Mr. Yamamoto argues that Mr. Fukuda's cabinet is still the second Abe cabinet (with a few changes). A change, he suggests, would enable the prime minister to wield more control over the government and make some progress in tackling policy problems.

Second, Mr. Yamamoto cites Mr. Koizumi to argue that a shuffle is one of two tools (the other being the power to dissolve the Diet and call an election) that the prime minister has to impose his will on party and parliament.

Third, Mr. Yamamoto suggests that if Mr. Fukuda lets the new Diet session begin without forming a new cabinet (after which a shuffle is unlikely), it will signal to the LDP that Mr. Fukuda is doomed and presumably trigger more intense campaigning to succeed him.

(He also argues, in an unnumbered point, that a shuffle will enable the prime minister to bring young LDP leaders to the fore and boost the party's appeal.)

The aforementioned arguments sound logical enough, but they rest on the unfounded assumption that the Japanese public will be satisfied with a statement of good intentions, as opposed to concrete, resolute action to address their insecurities. Will a new cabinet be any more effective or dynamic than the current cabinet? Does Mr. Fukuda actually want to form a "Fukuda-colored" cabinet that will take a definitive policy position (pro-reform or anti-reform / pro-consumption tax hike or pro-growth / pro-Koizumi or anti-Koizumi, etc.), an approach that risks making enemies of the LDP members on the short end of a cabinet shuffle? Do the Japanese people actually see the current cabinet as a "Koizumi-Abe line" cabinet and reject it as a result? Or do they reject it because it has failed to deliver significant results?

A new cabinet may enjoy a small bump, but any bump is guaranteed to be short lived. The new cabinet will face the same obstacles faced by the current cabinet (hostile public, recalcitrant DPJ, divided LDP), with the possibility that opting for a policy-oriented cabinet over a "unity" cabinet will actually exacerbate the LDP's divisions. Ironically, a more ideologically cohesive cabinet could be less effective than a heterogenous cabinet that is more capable of exploiting opportunities and co-opting potential rivals. Advocates of a reshuffled cabinet must at least consider the possibility that the new cabinet could be worse than the current, adequately mediocre Fukuda cabinet.

Does Mr. Fukuda actually think that the source of his troubles are his cabinet? Why fix something that isn't broken?

Koizumi tells Fukuda to lead

Fukuda Yasuo, faced with growing complaints about his deficiencies as a leader, now has a new critic: Koizumi Junichiro.

In a speech in Tokyo Thursday, the former prime minister asked the prime minister to make a decision about a cabinet reshuffle, saying that he will support the prime minister once he makes a decision – even if it is contrary to his opinions.

In the process, Mr. Koizumi has probably destroyed the idea of a cabinet reshuffle, by suggesting that if Mr. Fukuda botches the reshuffle, he will have no choice but to resign. He sowed further seeds of doubt by praising the current lineup and wonder whether a new lineup would receive more support from the public.

Whatever the doubts about the former prime minister's intentions, one thing is clear: his words have the power to shape expectations. Any discussion of a reshuffle from henceforth will recall Mr. Koizumi's analysis of the consequences of a reshuffle. Mr. Fukuda will have a hard time ignoring Mr. Koizumi's unsolicited advice, given the extent of the latter's exposure and lingering public support.

But Mr. Fukuda will not be saved by the advice of Mr. Koizumi, nor anyone else. He will not be saved by a reshuffle, which would in all likelihood by not much of an improvement over the current, reasonably competent cabinet. The prime minister is at the mercy of circumstance; his fate rests in the hands of opponents within the LDP and in the DPJ, who will decide whether he is able to make progress on the daunting wish list facing the government.

The LDP is shocked — shocked! — to find waste in the budget

I previously wrote that the LDP, in the midst of a debate over whether and when to raise the consumption tax to cover growing pensions liabilities, also organized a project team — headed by Sonoda Hiroyuki and staffed with fervent young reformists like Kono Taro and Yamamoto Ichita — with the purpose of identifying "waste" to remove from the budget.

The LDP hopes that "exterminating" waste will provide 200bn yen for the budget. To that end, the project team submitted a proposal to the prime minister on Tuesday. The proposal is something of a wish list, the items that the project team would most like to eliminate from the budget. There are the typical items one would find on such a list: "recreation," late-night taxi rides for bureaucrats (the latest outrage), PR documents, no-bid contracts for public corporations (note how they slip that in among more trivial items), and subsidies to public corporations (ditto). The proposal also calls for reducing duplicated work and more oversight by auditors.

All of this sounds fine. These measures would undoubtedly help Japan tackle its budget difficulties and free up money to finance growing liabilities.

But then remember that the LDP has been in power for more than fifty years. It presided over the ballooning of Japan's national debt, it dithered as Japan's population aged, and it failed to refit Japan's welfare institutions for the age of globalization. And now it wants to eliminate government waste to deal with these problems?

If the DPJ is smart, this should be a losing issue for the LDP, reminding voters how now, after years of mismanaging Japan's finances and coddling the bureaucracy, the LDP is ready to crack down on wasteful spending. The LDP would prefer that the public didn't think too much about wasteful spending in the first place, how it got there, how long it's been there. It didn't appear magically, and it didn't appear overnight. It's not a disease or a natural disaster. It is the product of decisions made by the Japanese government — by the LDP — over the course of decades. The DPJ would be wise to remind the Japanese people of this at every opportunity.

And people wonder whether the DPJ can be trusted with power. The DPJ will undoubtedly make mistakes of its own if and when it forms a government, but for now it is the LDP that should be judged in an election, not the DPJ.

Seems simple enough, right? And yet both the Japanese and the foreign press are obsessed with the idea that the DPJ might somehow be worse than the LDP at governing Japan.

Meanwhile, the DPJ might get an assist from the LDP's zoku giin, who will undoubtedly fight tooth-and-nail to ensure that their pet projects aren't classified as waste and eliminated, thereby exposing the LDP's sordid underbelly to the public yet again.

Censured!

As planned, the House of Councillors passed a non-binding censure motion against the Fukuda government this evening.

It should be noted that the upper house passed twelve bills — including four government bills — on Tuesday, bypassing normal deliberation to clear the agenda for the censure motion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the DPJ complained about the government's "ramming" legislation through the lower house with insufficient deliberation?

The government will not surprisingly ignore the motion and carry on; the lower house will pass a confidence motion in the prime minister on Thursday.

For once I agree with Machimura Nobutaka, who said that he understood the motion's "political appeal" but saw no legal meaning in it. Breathless foreign coverage of the motion notwithstanding, all the DPJ has done is said, by way of a non-binding resolution, what it's been saying all along: we object to how the LDP-led coalition is governing Japan. Yes, now it's the upper house that's saying it — officially — and not the DPJ, but that's a trifling distinction.

On the plus side, at least the DPJ finally followed through on its threat, demonstrating just how feeble a threat it was. Did the DPJ really think that the government would crumple in the face of its censure motion, that forcing a dissolution of the lower house and a general election would be as easy as passing a non-binding resolution in the chamber they control?

Bait and switch

The HR passed the road construction bill a second time on Tuesday afternoon, as scheduled. Despite rumors to the contrary, there was no rebellion. Kono Taro and his comrades voted with the government, in the process illustrating why the much-anticipated political realignment has yet to occur: for all the discontent voiced by backbenchers about the leadership of both the LDP and the DPJ, they remain reluctant to bear the risks associated with bucking the party leadership and possibly leaving the party.

Mr. Kono and other reformists are still threatening to fight for the party to adopt the prime minister's plan to phase out the road construction fund from 2009, but after caving on the road construction plan Tuesday, will their concerns be taken seriously in the coming months? As Mainichi reports, despite remaining silent in the face of the cabinet decision supporting Mr. Fukuda's plan, the road tribe remains ready to fight to preserve its privileges. The road tribesmen will instead focus their efforts on the year-end budget proposal, a sound strategy considering that Mr. Fukuda will likely be gone by then, leaving the reformists to fight on alone.

Even with Mr. Fukuda as premier the tribesmen have important allies within the party for their campaign to derail the reform: local and prefectural politicians, who will undoubtedly remind their patrons in Tokyo that their communities need the road fund and suggest that if Mr. Fukuda's plan goes forward, they cannot guarantee that the LDP will get favorable returns in the next general election. Whether such a threat is credible is not the issue — if the LDP leadership becomes convinced that ending the special fund truly alienates the party from its supposed base, that will be enough to ensure that the reform plan gets watered down to the point of irrelevance. The head of the national mayors association has already criticized the plan, no doubt the first of many such comments to come from local politicians.

In short, the LDP, already concerned that its rural base could desert the party in a general election, will not follow through on Mr. Fukuda's proposal, a classic bait and switch.

And so the LDP's death throes will continue, as the LDP can no longer rely on the two methods that had extended its life in the past: opportunistic policy shifts (like this, for example) and "divide-and-rule." (These arguments are made by Ito Atsuo in a Chuo Koron article to which I linked above.) Regarding the former, not only has the LDP calcified ideologically, but its reformist members, who want to change the party's policies, find it nearly impossible to overcome the opposition of older members who desperately cling to their remaining privileges. What do the latter have to lose in resisting reform tooth-and-nail? The party is in no position to punish them, Mr. Koizumi's 2005 purge notwithstanding. Mr. Koizumi's purge of postal rebels — so objectionable to many LDP members, judging by the return of most of the rebels to the LDP — was clearly an aberration.

As for the latter, the LDP's bid to divide and co-opt the opposition by offering a grand coalition to the DPJ clearly failed and if anything united the DPJ in its opposition to the government. This scheme may have temporarily created turmoil within the DPJ by intensifying dissatisfaction with Ozawa Ichiro's leadership, but Mr. Ozawa appears to have quelled most of the resistance to his leadership. The LDP continues to hope that Mr. Ozawa will face a serious challenge in the September party leadership election but the threat to Mr. Ozawa may be overstated. A reformist like Maehara Seiji or Okada Katsuya, both former party leaders, may ultimately stand against Mr. Ozawa, but it is unlikely that the bulk of the party will abandon Mr. Ozawa for either man.

Meanwhile, the depth of the LDP's desperation is revealed in its hope for an incapacitated DPJ.

Fukuda loses another crutch

Following polls that showed the DPJ edging ahead of the LDP in party approval ratings and Mr. Fukuda's approval ratings falling to record lows — the lowest being Mainichi's 18% — Mr. Fukuda has suffered another blow in the latest Mainichi poll.

If the claim that the "LDP is still more popular than the DPJ" was one line regularly trotted out by LDP officials discussing the party's electoral prospects, another was that "no matter how unpopular Mr. Fukuda gets, he's still more popular than Ozawa Ichiro." Even DPJ members have bought into this, as they fear that Mr. Ozawa will be a major electoral liability in urban and suburban districts. The LDP has assumed that as long as Mr. Ozawa is the head of the DPJ, it enjoys some cushion.

But no longer. Mainichi found that in a poll taken May 1 and 2, 18% of respondents said Mr. Ozawa would make a suitable prime minister, compared with 14% for Mr. Fukuda. That said, 63% replied that they find neither suitable. More strikingly, the same poll confirmed the previous Mainichi poll's finding that the DPJ's support is now greater than the LDP's: the DPJ's support rose eleven points to 51%, the LDP's dropped twelve points to 24%.

As with previous polls showing a shift away from the LDP, this poll is significant because it deprives the prime minister of yet another argument justifying his continuing in office. It provides Mr. Fukuda's would-be successors with more evidence demonstrating why his premiership should end sooner rather than later.

In the midst of these latest blows, Yamasaki Taku, head of his eponymous faction, is arguing that the prime minister should reshuffle his cabinet following the G8 summit. Do Mr. Yamasaki and Mr. Fukuda really believe that the prime minister's problems lie in the members of his cabinet, as opposed to his broken party, a recalcitrant bureaucracy, and the prime minister's leadership deficiencies, which prevent him from surmounting these obstacles? I wonder whether the LDP would go along with a cabinet reshuffle, or whether LDP members — and not just Aso Taro and other leadership candidates — would call for a reshuffle that starts at the very top.

So much for the LDP's popularity

In recent weeks, some LDP leaders, hinting that the party might be willing to consider calling a general election sometime before September 2009, pointed to the party's ratings in public opinion polls. Polls have consistently shown the LDP polling higher than the DPJ, even as Prime Minister Fukuda's popularity has tanked. On this point, I asked last month, "Are the LDP and Komeito really willing to bet their two-thirds majority — which Mr. Ibuki admitted will likely not be retained — on the basis of there being some significance to the polls? I have a hunch that the polls fail to capture the extent of the public's discontent. I'm not convinced that the public is any less discontent than it was last summer when the LDP was trounced in the HC election. Will the public really be inclined to punish the DPJ more than the LDP?"

After Sunday's DPJ victory in Yamaguchi, I am more convinced that polls have failed to capture the widespread and growing malaise among Japanese voters — and their willingness to hold the LDP responsible for policy failures that have made their lives more insecure.

Now Asahi has produced a poll showing that the DPJ has topped the LDP in popularity, at the same time that it found that Mr. Fukuda's favorable rating has fallen to 20%. The DPJ's support rose six points to 28%, the LDP's fell two points to 24%. A slim margin, yes, but a margin that deprives the LDP of its claim to be more popular than DPJ. The shift is undoubtedly influenced by the gasoline tax fight, but even so, it is hard for the LDP to argue that it is has the public solidly behind it. In short, it's hard to tell what exactly the party support figure represents. Does it actually measure the level of public support for the parties?

Regardless of the accuracy of these figures, both make it less likely that the LDP will accept an early election — and less likely that it will be Mr. Fukuda who leads the LDP into the next election.

Speaking of democracy

Addressing the DPJ's rejection of the nomination of Watanabe Hiroshi to be deputy governor of the Bank of Japan at a press conference Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura Nobutaka commented upon the internal dynamics of the DPJ. He said, "Although a majority of the DPJ's investigatory subcommittee on joint personnel decisions approved the nomination, I want to say that there is no democracy within the party. This is truly a complicated and mysterious party."

Yes, Mr. Machimura, chief cabinet secretary of the LDP-led coalition government and titular head of the LDP's largest faction, is questioning the democratic bona fides of the DPJ.

How does one even begin describing how inappropriate it is for Mr. Machimura to comment upon the lack of democracy in the DPJ? One could start with last September's LDP presidential election and go from there, but I'm not going to do that, because since when did political parties have to make internal decisions democratically?

No, Mr. Machimura's comments are particularly galling because of the current government's attitudes about democracy in the political system at large. In the same press conference, Mr. Machimura noted that the LDP and Komeito are considering revising the law governing the Bank of Japan, enabling HR decisions on the Bank's leaders take precedence.

On Wednesday, the LDP-Komeito "investigatory committee concerning the way joint personnel decisions ought to be" held its first meeting to look into changing the BOJ law so that the bank's succession is never again challenged by the HC.

This is typical of how the LDP has viewed DPJ control of the HC. If the DPJ can't be made to shut up and do what the government tells it to do, then it and the HC should be circumvented and ignored. If the DPJ uses the powers accorded to the HC, then remove those powers bit by bit, all while claiming to be acting in the name of the national interest, to be putting country before party, to be desirous of compromise.

I hope the DPJ loudly opposes this move, not because of its immediate significance but because of its symbolic importance. The DPJ's control of the HC is an important moment for Japanese democracy, certainly more important than the question of whether Mr. Shirakawa or Mr. Muto was named governor of the BOJ.

Democracy is a process by which those out of power can keep those in power honest and accountable. It may not always result in good policymaking, but when it works properly it enables the outs to challenge the sagacity, the morality, and the competence of the government over the course of making and executing policy.

With the DPJ in control of the HC, an opposition party is finally in a position to question the government and hold up policy when it feels that the government is lacking on one or all of the above-mentioned counts.

Ozawa Ichiro replied in this manner to Fukuda Yasuo, who criticized the DPJ for "misusing its power" (as if the LDP is the arbiter for the proper use of power). He said, "The government has a majority in only one of two houses. The government has not reflected sufficiently on the kind of situation that arose from last summer's election."

As Mr. Machimura's and Mr. Fukuda's comments and the governing parties' actions show, the LDP and the Komeito haven't made their peace with the conditions of Japan's evolving democracy.

The government serves up a weak adminstrative reform bill

On Thursday morning the LDP's headquarters for the promotion of administrative reform approved an administrative reform plan and passed it along to the cabinet. The cabinet approved it Friday morning and will submit it to the Diet later today.

The plan still calls for a new cabinet personnel agency and restrictions on direct contact between politicians and bureaucrats, including the creation of a new specialist class of bureaucrats to coordinate relations between ministries and legislators. As seemed apparent earlier, however, the plan has been watered down from the version outlined by a consultative group and desired by Watanabe Yoshimi, minister responsible for administrative reform. Unlike earlier drafts, ministries will propose candidates for advancement to the personnel agency, instead of the agency's selecting candidates itself. Additionally, in regard to restrictions on contacts between bureaucrats and politicians, bureaucrats can communicate freely with politicians with ministerial approval. (I can imagine that ministerial approval will be terribly difficult to secure.) In addition to the new agency, the plan also calls for changing bureaucratic rules to open paths to ministerial leadership to officials in specialist and clerical positions.

As noted in a Mainichi editorial, the LDP's plan is a victory for the bureaucracy. It does nothing to subordinate ministries and their bureaucrats to the government's wishes. It certainly doesn't satisfy the hopes for administrative reform expressed by Mr. Watanabe in an interview in Liberal Time.

The bureaucracy may never have to worry about adjusting to a new system, as the prospects for the bill in the Diet are dim. The DPJ has indicated that it opposes the watered-down bill on the grounds that it does nothing to address the fundamental problems with the bureaucracy that have led to major policy failures like the pensions fiasco — and dissatisfaction with the bill within the LDP is such that if the bill passes the HR only to have the DPJ reject it in the HC, the government may bow to pressure from zoku giin and not bother submitting to the HR a second time. After all, from the government's perspective, it must be preferable to let the DPJ kill a bad bill and take the blame than to have to confront disgruntled LDP members, which it already has to do on the road construction and gasoline tax bills. (See excellent posts by MTC and Jun Okumura on the looming reformist revolt.)