Aso's big weekend

The LDP's parliamentarians are gathering to vote for the next party president at this very moment, but the outcome is all but assured.

Thirty of forty-seven LDP prefectural chapters voted over the weekend, and those thirty gave all but six of their ninety votes to Mr. Aso.

Koike Yuriko received zero votes. Ishiba Shigeru received all three of his home prefecture's (Tottori) votes, plus one from neighboring Shimane prefecture. Yosano Kaoru and Ishihara Nobuteru received one apiece, from Tokushima and Nara respectively.

There is little doubting Mr. Aso's popularity among the LDP's rank-and-file members. There is no question that the parliamentary party will confirm the choice of party's chapters in this afternoon's voting, awarding Mr. Aso the presidency after the first round of voting.

Of course, Mr. Aso's landslide victory serves only to heighten the tension between the parliamentary party and the party's grassroots. Will the party's rival schools of thought — represented by Mr. Aso's rival candidates — be cowed by Mr. Aso's lopsided victory? Koizumism appears to have little place in the party's grassroots, even in Tokyo, in which Mr. Koizumi won an overwhelming victory in 2005.

Mr. Aso is moving quickly to consolidate his grip on the party. He has already indicated that he will ask Hosoda Hiroyuki, a six-term lower house member from the Machimura faction, to serve as LDP secretary-general. Mr. Hosoda served as Mr. Koizumi's chief cabinet secretary from 2004-2005 (he succeeded Fukuda Yasuo and preceded Abe Shinzo in that post) and had previously served in the Koizumi cabinet as minister without portfolio for technology policy and Okinawa and the Northern Territories policy. He shares Mr. Aso's interest in promoting high technology. His Wikipedia entry also notes that US policymakers are in awe of him: Former US Ambassador Howard Baker, meeting with him to discuss North Korea's nuclear program, thought he was a nuclear engineer; Condoleeza Rice, having negotiated with Mr. Hosoda while he was CCS, said "He's so smart."

One factor in Mr. Hosoda's appointment is undoubtedly his membership in the Machimura faction; Mr. Aso is obviously repaying his debt to Mori Yoshiro for his support of his candidacy. But will Mr. Hosoda be an asset on the campaign trail? One factor in his favor is that he represents the first district of sparsely populated, poor Shimane prefecture. Mr. Hosoda has had considerable electoral success, winning with nearly twice as many votes as his nearest rival in the four elections under the new electoral system. Whether he would be able to use that personal popularity in support of LDP candidates in similar districts remains to be seen.

Mr. Aso's cabinet has yet to take form, although it appears that Mr. Yosano and Mr. Ishiba will both accept Mr. Aso's offer to serve. I imagine that Mr. Aso will do as best as he can to form a unity cabinet. The question is whether his ideological rivals are prepared to commit to an Aso-led "populist" government.

UPDATE: The final vote total from the prefectural chapters is available here.

No honeymoon for Aso

Voting will begin today in the LDP's presidential election, which looks to be little more than a coronation for Aso Taro.

Ishikawa prefecture had its vote on Saturday, and it appears that Ishikawa will give all three of its votes to Mr. Aso. I expect Ishikawa will be only the first of many sweeps to come.

But will it matter at all? In the early days of the LDP race, it seemed possible that Mr. Aso might be able to heal the LDP's wounds as if by magic, as if simply by having the five candidates stand side by side in apparent agreement on the problems facing Japan (and their solutions), the public would forget the years of incompetent governance and re-embrace the LDP and its "charismatic" new leader.

Alas, the fairy tale is not to be.

Mr. Aso had apparently hoped that he could do like Fukuda Yasuo, but better, using his popularity to unite the whole party in his government, heal the rift with Komeito, and then wheel about to face down Ozawa Ichiro and the DPJ, first in the Diet, then in a general election campaign to come shortly after Mr. Aso bested the DPJ in Diet deliberations on a supplement budget containing an economic stimulus package. Key to his plan was ensuring that all voices were represented in his cabinet, to which end he stated that he would be happy to include his four competitors in his cabinet and party leadership.

Koike Yuriko, however, has thrown water on his scheme, declaring that the "policy differences are too great" to be included in one cabinet. The others might be more willing than Ms. Koike to join with Mr. Aso, but I doubt it. With that statement Ms. Koike has made clear that for all the cordiality in the LDP's campaign events, the party is no less divided than it was on Sept. 1, when Mr. Fukuda resigned. Mr. Aso's embrace of populism may make some LDP members happy — unlike Mr. Abe, Mr. Aso will come bearing gifts, not words — but there are plenty of LDP members unhappy about his new approach, not least the Koizumi children now on the chopping block when an election comes. Incidentally, if Mr. Aso is unable to form a cabinet that unites the LDP's disparate schools of thought, will he fall back on his conservative allies to form a cabinet?

An election that Mr. Aso doesn't prefer to discuss, perhaps because he's realizing that the much-discussed October 26 election may not leave him enough time to bolster his and the LDP's standing. He singled out Asahi for criticism on this score at a campaign event Friday at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, reminding listeners that Asahi doesn't hold the right of dissolving the Diet and calling an election. He insisted that people "should not speak carelessly" about the timing of an election, and made clear that a response to the worsening economy will take priority of holding an election.

As MTC makes clear (welcome back!), all of the talk about economic stimulus may ultimately be irrelevant when the general election comes. There is an unmistakable logic to Mr. Ozawa's recent maneuvers; his coalition, argues MTC, is "an angry, broad-based, below-the-Nagatachō-radar movement," stitching together any and all who have reason to be angry at how the LDP has governed. This coalition provides very little clue to how a DPJ-led coalition government will govern, but that's besides the point. Whether the government calls an election next month or at year's end, there is little Mr. Aso can do to undermine the coalition of the angry, whose grievances are the result of years of neglect or worse on the part of LDP-led governments.

Mr. Aso may be able to blunt the impact of Mr. Ozawa's strategy — certainly better than the alternatives — but ultimately he has little control over his own fate. He will have no more control over his party and his coalition than his predecessor, and he will face potentially unbearable pressure to call an election. There will be no honeymoon for Mr. Aso.

The DPJ and PNP draw closer

Pushing the DPJ to the headlines again for the first time since Prime Minister Fukuda resigned at the start of September, the Democratic Party of Japan and the People's New Party are reportedly close to an agreement to merge. Ozawa Ichiro met with his counterpart Watanuki Tamisuke Tuesday to discuss a merger, and indicated to Mr. Watanuki that he is willing to include a plank in the DPJ manifesto calling for a freeze in the planned sale of government-held shares of the composite companies of the Japan Post group.

The PNP, you may recall, is a product of the 2005 postal reform battle, created when Koizumi Junichiro ousted the postal rebels and dispatched his "assassins" to deprive them of their seats in the 2005 general election, with only some success.

The party has been considerably less visible in the years following its creation, although as a partner of the DPJ its four upper house members are critical to maintaining the opposition's control of the upper house.

Sankei reports that the DPJ executives have conferred and have officially proposed a union to the microparty, which is favorably disposed to the idea. It is less clear what DPJ backbenchers and the party rank-and-file think, but it looks like the DPJ's latest merger is a done deal. (One merger closer to a two-party system?) (This is also yet another blow to Hiranuma Takeo's plans for a new conservative party, the chimera that had everyone talks just under a year ago. The impending election of Aso Taro will be another.)

I can think of a number of theories for why Mr. Ozawa opted to do this, and opted to do this now.

One, this has proved a good way to put the DPJ back in the headlines, although the financial crisis has effectively taken pushed the LDP and the DPJ aside for the time being.

Two, it enables Mr. Ozawa to cement his populist credentials among elderly, rural voters. A glance at the PNP's policy statements shows a party very much in tune with Mr. Ozawa's approach of the past several years: criticism of "market fundamentalism" and an economy in which the strong devour the weak, criticism of the Koizumi theatrical politics that led to the party's creation in the first place, and support for all manner of traditional LDP supporters (farmers, small- and mid-sized businesses, etc.). With Aso Taro's copying Ozawa Ichiro's approach, Mr. Ozawa may be upping his commitment to a populist pitch to voters in stagnant rural districts to head off Mr. Aso before he takes over officially (as seems certain).

A third, related theory is that Mr. Ozawa did this because he could. I can imagine that the DPJ's young turks are dreading having to defend this alliance to their urban constituents, seeing as how this is literally a merger with the newly former LDP. But after having effectively stared down all potential rivals, Mr. Ozawa may have calculated — correctly in my view — that he can get away with quite a lot; the young turks will not defect.

Fourth, and again related to DPJ internal dynamics, Mr. Ozawa may perceive this as a way to bolster his position in the party. The PNP may not be numerous, but they bring Mr. Ozawa some reinforcements in his battle to make the case that his approach to the next general election is correct, that the election will be won or lost in constituencies that have long supported the LDP.

Lastly, Mr. Ozawa may actually share the PNP's beliefs.

These theories are not mutually exclusive, and not one explanation may be correct. And the merger may ultimately not make a difference in the general election, seeing as how it merely reinforces Mr. Ozawa's approach. It does make clear, however, that Japan has come a long way from September 2005. Structural reform is dead. If Mr. Aso is elected, the LDP and the DPJ will be battling over who can promise the more convincing plan to revitalize rural areas, presumably through infusions of public funds.

Koizumi speaks

Just one day after telling an audience of young reformers that he would not say who he was supporting, it appears that Koizumi Junichiro has come out in support of Koike Yuriko, the woman who he elevated to his cabinet shortly after her arrival in the LDP.

Sankei reports that Mr. Koizumi met Friday with Koike lieutenants Eto Seishiro, Tanabe Tsutomu, and Ono Jiro — all solders in the Koizumi revolution — and told them that Ms. Koike has his vote, and that he thinks she can beat Ozawa Ichiro.

He may even believe the latter.

I do not think that Mr. Koizumi's endorsement will be enough to swing the election.

First, I think that Mr. Aso's band of eighty is more disciplined than Mr. Koizumi's club of 83. I think the bulk of the LDP is embittered towards Mr. Koizumi and his legacy — for good reason, seeing as how Mr. Koizumi promised to destroy the LDP, which had worked so well at enriching many of its members, their constituents, and their supporters for so long — and has made no secret of a desire to stamp out the remnants of Mr. Koizumi's legacy. Hence the decision to readmit the postal rebels. And the decision to withhold support for the reelection campaigns of the Koizumi children.

It is Mr. Aso who now best embodies the LDP desire for — in Mr. Ozawa's favorite phrase — change so that things remain the same.

Of course Mr. Koizumi may yet have the last laugh.

Aso seals the deal, and the LDP pats itself on the back

The campaign to replace Fukuda Yasuo as LDP president and prime minister officially began on Wednesday, with the five candidates — Aso Taro, Koike Yuriko, Yosano Kaoru, Ishihara Nobuteru, and Ishiba Shigeru — holding a joint press conference before traveling the country to campaign.

The press conference makes clear just how farcical claims of the LDP's "open" election are. Yes, there are five candidates vying for the slot, compared with Ozawa Ichiro's uncontested reelection as DPJ president. But for all the talk of an open election, the candidates papered over points of disagreement, refused to commit to any concrete steps to fix the budget, and took turns criticizing Mr. Ozawa for his failures to consult, explain, and persuade — and his party's lack of experience at governing (because the LDP's track record suggests that experience correlates strongly with performance, right?).

In reality, the LDP couldn't have wished for a better way to see off the bad taste left by Mr. Fukuda. The LDP gets a chance to show up the DPJ — see! this is what intraparty democracy looks like — without there being little chance of genuine and open disagreement or the possibility that something unexpected might happen (see below). If I were more conspiratorially minded, I would think that the candidates were hand-picked to maximize the PR advantage to the LDP. (In the same vein, reading that Ms. Koike was forced to close her campaign office for an ambiguous problem with the real estate agent really makes me wonder whether there is something to this — did she not get the memo that she's in the race as window dressing, and therefore someone had to send the message that she shouldn't take the election too seriously?) But I'm not inclined to think that the LDP elders coordinated the campaign of five. Nakagawa Hidenao is certainly taking the race seriously enough. It appears that the LDP just got lucky: Mr. Fukuda resigned just in time for the election to coincide precisely with the DPJ's uncontested election and enough of the LDP's younger, more popular figures feel they stand a chance against Mr. Aso, helping the LDP look more dynamic and in touch than both Mr. Ozawa — that old dictator — and the hapless Mr. Fukuda.

But there really is little doubt that Mr. Aso will win the premiership.

Polls of both LDP Diet members and party rank-and-file suggest that Mr. Aso may be in a position to secure a majority in the first round, obviating the need for a second. Asahi surmises that it is probable that he will do so, looking at the support for Mr. Aso in the prefectural chapters and in the parliamentary party. Asahi projects that Mr. Aso will receive at least 63 of the 141 votes from prefectural chapters, with a final tally considerably more than 63. Suggesting the strength of Mr. Aso's grassroots support, Asahi expects that Mr. Aso will win three votes even in prefectural chapters distributing votes proportionally.

Asahi also expects him to receive a majority of LDP parliamentarians, but given that the preferences of faction leaders no longer determine how faction members vote, it is harder to predict exactly how the parliamentary vote will break down. It is clear, however, that we are witnessing the first officially post-factional LDP presidential election: the Tsushima (second largest), Koga (third largest), Yamasaki (fourth largest), and the Komura (eighth largest) factions have announced that their members will be free to vote for whichever candidate they prefer, and with the Machimura faction divided between supporters of Mr. Aso and Ms. Koike, the Machimura faction is effectively following the same rule. Yomiuri estimates that Mr. Aso has the support of forty percent of the 386 Diet members (approximately 155 members), meaning that he needs only 109 more votes to win the election in the first round. It's possible that he will receive those 109 votes from the prefectural chapters alone, which will in turn bolster his parliamentary votes (undoubtedly some Diet members will be swayed by the results from their home prefectures).

Public opinion polls confirm Mr. Aso's support. Yomiuri finds that Mr. Aso is the only candidate but Mr. Ishihara who beats Mr. Ozawa in face-to-face matchup, and by a large margin: 59% to 27.6%. Mr. Ishihara barely edges out Mr. Ozawa, 43.5% to 40.1%, while the other three all trail Mr. Ozawa by more than ten percentage points. Asahi's nationwide poll found Mr. Aso to be the most appropriate candidate for the premiership with 42% support, with Mr. Ishihara once again ranking second with 10%. Mr. Aso won points for his perceived "ability to get things done."

But no matter how sizeable Mr. Aso's victory, he will be under pressure to perform immediately. As already noted by Ken Worsley and elaborated further by Mary Stokes at Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor, Japan's economy shrank by 3% annualized in the second quarter, instead of the original figure of 2.4%. The outlook for the new government is bleak — get the economy growing again, only to get the economy healthy enough to take measures to fix the budget deficit (i.e., a consumption tax increase, which all the LDP candidates see as necessary at some point in time).

Even if the new government passes a stimulus package as a prelude to an election which it then proceeds to win, it will be in an unenviable position. The DPJ may prefer that it lose the next election, leaving an Aso government with the tasks of battling the recession and then the budget.

Election envy?

Ozawa Ichiro has effectively been elected to a third term as leader of the DPJ; not surprisingly, no one else filed to run in the party leadership election.

At the same time, the LDP field has widened to five candidates, each with markedly different viewpoints.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Ozawa's uncontested reelection has been unfavorably contrasted with the LDP's heavily contested election in the political press, leading me to wonder whether the LDP field expanded largely to show up the DPJ. (I don't seriously believe this, but I'm sure that LDP elders aren't complaining.) Mainichi describes the DPJ as "jealous" of the LDP's election. And a poll of LDP prefectural chapter chiefs found that they believe that the party's image will be enhanced by an "open" election.

Should the DPJ really be jealous of the LDP? If the LDP's election is fiercely contested, it is only because the party has been drifting aimlessly in the two years since Koizumi Junichiro left office, leaving the party fundamentally divided on the most important policy questions facing the government. With Mr. Abe's emphasis on Japanese "culture war" issues and Mr. Fukuda's political balancing act, the LDP has punted on pressing issues like the budget deficit, the persistent pensions problem, education reform, the road construction budget, rural stagnation and on and on. So yes, perhaps the LDP will have a spirited debate in the weeks leading up to the party presidential election. But why should the LDP be praised for this debate when for the past two years it has avoided forging a consensus and addressing the aforementioned issues?

For all the self-congratulation about the debate the LDP will have over the next two weeks, the party is still prepared to back Aso Taro and his "populist" agenda, of which rival candidate Ishihara Nobuteru has said, "If we unify under Secretary-General Aso, we will be the same as Ozawa's DPJ."

Mr. Aso has released his policy platform to allow voters to judge for themselves. Resting on the principles of (1) a society that can feel at ease, (2) an aged society with vitality, (3) robust regions, and (4) a country open to the world, Mr. Aso has promised tax cuts in the short-term, regulatory reform, and support for high technology R & D, as well as assistance to the "working poor." Mr. Aso is not so much copying Mr. Ozawa as answering the critique of the Ozawa DPJ that led to the LDP's defeat in 2007. As argued by Morita Minoru in his Jiminto no shuen (The End of the LDP), the LDP under Mr. Koizumi and Mr. Abe turned a blind eye towards stagnation in rural Japan, neglect that Mr. Ozawa has successfully exploited in his campaigning in the countryside.

I've argued before and I will keep arguing it: Mr. Aso deserves credit for his response to his defeat in last year's party election and the LDP's defeat in July 2007. He is trying to find a way to recreate the LDP as a national party, promising assistance to stagnant regions and help to the forgotten (young) men and women in urban areas. Whether that will be a successful general election coalition remains to be seen, but Mr. Aso is at least putting his popularity to work in an attempt to address the most pressing problems facing Japan (all but the budget problem, which under a Prime Minister Aso will go unaddressed for the indefinite future).

Foreign observers must not let their distaste for Mr. Aso's cultural and historical views blind them when assessing Mr. Aso's strengths and vision. He has learned from the Abe disaster — and from Mr. Ozawa's politicking. He may be the only candidate in the LDP field who combines a popular touch with an agenda that is easily explained and appeals to urban, suburban, and rural voters. If any candidate can deprive the DPJ of the votes to win a majority or a plurality large enough to support a DPJ-led coalition, Mr. Aso is it. If he wins the LDP election, he will still face an uphill battle against a DPJ that has benefited from years of LDP missteps and is led by a leader capable of exploiting them, but with Mr. Aso the election will be closer than otherwise. The national appeal of Koizumism is limited in the absence of the master prestidigitator, undermining the Koike and Ishihara candidacies; Mr. Yosano is a non-starter for his emphasis on fiscal shock therapy; and Mr. Ishiba's views on issues other than defense policy are largely unknown, making his candidacy little more than an effort to raise his profile as a future leader.

Given the strength of Mr. Aso's grassroots support, it's possible that he could clinch the presidency in the first round of voting. Will the parliamentary LDP dare to reject Mr. Aso should he ride into Tokyo with the overwhelming support of the prefectural rank-and-file? And should the election go to a runoff, Mr. Aso will likely be helped by a decision to permit prefectural chapter representatives responsible for the 141 prefectural votes to cast ballots in the second round.

And then the general election, which could be held as early as November. Looking at the map of places where Mr. Aso ran strongly in 2007 and where the DPJ won in 2007, there is not inconsiderable overlap.

The field gets crowded

On Friday I noted that the LDP was shaping up with four candidates.

Not long after I wrote that post, however, it became clear that the field would expand before long, in large part because younger LDP members like Yamauchi Koichi are unhappy with their choices.

As a result, Ishiba Shigeru (51), the former defense minister, Yamamoto Ichita (50), the rockin' upper house member from Gunma, and possibly Tanahashi Yasufumi (45), an LDP young turk, have each declared their intention to contest the Sept. 22 election.

It is unclear which among them will be able to muster the twenty endorsements necessary to run.

The bigger the field, the greater the chance of a surprise, especially since all forty-seven prefectural chapters will be holding elections to determine how to cast their three votes. At the very least, it raises the likelihood of a runoff election should no candidate receive a majority in the first round of voting. (For a look at the implications of the LDP's shift to popular, "open" voting, read this post by Jun Okumura.)

But looking at the shape of the field, the absence of another conservative from the True Conservative Policy Research Group is telling. The conservatives behind Mr. Aso are remarkably disciplined compared to their ideological rivals. Considering the incredible amount of disunity in Japanese political organizations (a trait, I should note, that is by no means unique to Japanese organizations), the lack of public disharmony among the LDP's conservatives is nothing short of remarkable. It could well make the difference in the outcome of the presidential election.

The LDP field coalesces

Despite a political situation that has already consumed the careers of two LDP prime ministers — cowards, says Newsweek's Christian Caryl, and he has a point — there are now four candidates running to serve as the next LDP president and prime minister.

I think Aso Taro remains the front runner, for reasons enunciated here and here.

Arguably his position is strengthened by the proliferation of anti-Aso candidates.

Not only will Mr. Aso be running against Koike Yuriko, the "structural reform" candidate, but Yosano Kaoru, the leading "fiscal reconstructionist," and Ishihara Nobuteru, a veteran of Koizumi's cabinets and briefly LDP policy chief under Abe Shinzo, have also announced their candidacies.

Each has significant liabilities, effectively summarized by Yamauchi Koichi, the blogging first-term LDP lower house member:

Mr. Aso supports abandoning fiscal discipline to provide economic stimulus for suffering citizens.

Mr. Yosano is of the "fiscal reconstruction school, the consumption tax increase school."

As for Mr. Ishihara, "it is reported that he is of the structural reform category," but on political reform he approved the return of postal rebels to the LDP.

And about Ms. Koike, the candidate who I would expect him to support, he writes, "Ms. Koike is of the structural reform school and is Japan's first female prime ministerial candidate — she has a newness and I have a relatively good impression of her. But regarding economic policy and administrative reform, I still don't have a good understanding of Ms. Koike's thinking."

While foreigners know Mr. Aso best for his history of outrageous statements and his nationalism, he clearly stands above his rivals in this race.

Ms. Koike is an unknown, her candidacy perhaps more a reflection of Koizumi nostalgia (speaking of which, Mr. K has been curiously absent during the past week) among the media than a durable base of support from either her fellow LDP Diet members or the party's grassroots.

Mr. Yosano is saddled with the burden of being the only LDP leader with the spine to speak of a consumption tax hike, which might be necessary down the road but is a non-starter within the LDP for the foreseeable future.

Mr. Ishihara perhaps stands the best chance of upsetting Mr. Aso. A representative from Tokyo, he might be able to pry away Mr. Aso's urban supporters. He is articulate but has a lower profile than Mr. Aso — Mr. Aso can and will claim that he stands the best chance of stopping Ozawa Ichiro and the DPJ in its tracks (by stealing a page from Mr. Ozawa's playbook), citing polls like this one from Asahi showing substantial support for Mr. Aso as the next prime minister. But who will be voting for Mr. Ishihara? Will Ms. Koike and Mr. Ishihara split the reformist vote? Will he be able to draw conservatives away from Mr. Aso?

Mr. Aso has the most clearly defined base of support, and quite possibly the supporters most eager to win (or reclaim) the premiership. He has concluded — like Mr. Ozawa — that the next general election will be won in the LDP's old rural heartland, and it will be won by promising as much as possible to rural voters and mentioning structural reform as little as possible. He will ride that strategy into the premiership, and, he hopes, into a general election mandate.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Aso Taro has learned from Mr. Abe's disastrous government. Whether he is genuinely concerned about the hardships experienced by the Japanese people or not, Mr. Aso knows that addressing them is the only way for a government to last. It is also the only way for a prime minister to indulge his interest in foreign policy. Accordingly, Mr. Aso has been silent on foreign policy and may even be willing to sacrifice the refueling mission to shore up the LDP's ties with Komeito to bolster the coalition government.

Do not underestimate Aso Taro.

Fault lines

Does anyone think that the Machimura faction, that 89-member monster of a faction that sits at the intersection of the LDP's divisions between "neo-liberal" reformers, party leaders, and ideological conservatives, will survive this party election?

Following up on both his previous dismissal of Koike Yuriko's prospects and his endorsement of Aso Taro, Mori Yoshiro said of Nakagawa Hidenao's promotion — he being one of the faction's three titular leaders — of Ms. Koike, "The position of the daihyo sewanin [Mr. Nakagawa's difficult-to-translate title] of pushing (Ms. Koike) to the fore is a bit of a problem."

"He says 'a candidate must stand on behalf of the reformists,' but is not Secretary-General Aso a reformist?"

Whatever you want to call Mr. Aso — I agree with Jun Okumura that it is far too simplistic to dismiss Mr. Aso with the word "conservative," not because he isn't, but because the label conceals more than it reveals — the LDP's reform school clearly does not view him as one of their own and is desperate for an alternative. Indeed, their desperation can be seen in the fears of the Koizumi kids, as they sense that Fukuda Yasuo's resignation and the chaos it has engendered can only hurt them in the eyes of the public. For the Koizumi kids, this party leadership election may represent one last chance to pick a leader who will enable them to go before their constituents and declare that reform lives.

But the reform school is not the only LDP group desperately seeking an anyone-but-Aso candidate.

Yamasaki Taku, Kato Koichi, and Koga Makoto, three doyens of the LDP's once-dominant mainstream conservatism (which in the contemporary context makes them the LDP's liberals, in Mr. Kato's own reckoning), met Wednesday to discuss an anti-Aso candidate. It is worth noting that despite Messrs. Yamasaki and Koga being faction heads, the article notes that they spoke as individuals, implying that they were not speaking on behalf of their factions.

It seems that we are witnessing a post-faction LDP presidential election, less than a year after the Fukuda election in which conventional wisdom proclaimed that the factions were back in control. This campaign is already breaking down along ideological lines, not factional lines. As I've argued previously, the relevant groupings are not the factions but the ideological study groups and associations that cross factional lines. Mr. Aso's campaign rests not on his twenty-member faction — which conveniently has enough members to nominate him as a candidate — but on the party-wide network of conservatives that backed his candidacy last year in defiance of their faction heads and who subsequently organized (in part) under the aegis of Nakagawa Shoichi's "True Conservative Policy Research Group." Similarly, Mr. Nakagawa's Koizumians, while clustered within the Machimura faction, can also be found in other factions and among the party's independent members. The liberals, such as they exist, are also found in more than one faction.

Seeing how this LDP presidential election campaign is unfolding, I think it is safe to assume that the recommendations of faction heads will have little or no role in determining how the LDP's parliamentarians vote on Sept. 22. Ideology, not faction will determine who the LDP chooses.

I still think Mr. Aso will emerge at the top based both on his support at the grassroots and the strength of the conservatives in the contemporary LDP — who are hungry to reclaim what they lost when Abe Shinzo resigned, but the LDP that emerges on Sept. 22 will not be the same LDP that existed at the moment of Mr. Fukuda's resignation.

UPDATE: I should add that in addition to the three major ideological groupings there is the cautious bulk of the LDP parliamentary party, which will give its allegiance to no camp but the one that appears to be the most beneficial for their electoral prospects. I think Mr. Mori, with his mission of preserving LDP dominance, best speaks for this segment, which is why I think Mr. Aso will prevail. Mr. Aso may be the less risky choice — at least for the average LDP member — come the next general election.

Gauging Aso's chances

For the second year in a row, Aso Taro is the early frontrunner to seize the LDP leadership.

As noted yesterday, whether he wins this year will depend on his gaining an additional 68 votes over his 2007 total. One way to do that will be to build significantly on the 65 of 141 prefectural chapter votes that he received in September 2007.

Both Sankei and Asahi have published snap surveys of the prefectural chapter executives, providing a glimpse of how the LDP grassroots are looking at the chaos in Tokyo.

Sankei's survey found that twenty-two of forty-seven chapters indicated their support for Mr. Aso; the remaining twenty-five are waiting to see how the race unfolds. As far as the reasons for supporting Mr. Aso, Ibaraki's executives pointed to what could make the difference: his desire "to continue to discuss economic problems thoroughly." Presumably this is an oblique reference to his populism, to his claim to want to address the hardships of Japan's rural regions, an argument that would undercut Koike Yuriko, who would run as the candidate of Koizumi-Nakagawa (Hidenao) reformism.

Asahi recorded slightly more support, with twenty-five chapters — a majority — indicating their support for Mr. Aso. Asahi does not offer a complete list, but of the supporting prefectures listed, most of them gave either all three or two of three votes to Mr. Aso last year. Asahi also found that there is only slight support (eight chapters) for calling a general election soon after the party election.

Given that as of last year only four prefectural chapters chose a candidate without a vote, whether among registered party members or local leaders, these surveys tell us little about how the vote will break down. They might even understate the support for Mr. Aso among the LDP rank-and-file.

In fact, looking at the distribution of Mr. Aso's support last year it is difficult to see where Ms. Koike or another LDP reformist would succeed. In the four prefectures of Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama, Mr. Aso defeated Mr. Fukuda by a margin of 61,766 votes to 48,491 votes. Mr. Fukuda barely won in Saitama (444 votes out of 20,553 cast), while Mr. Aso won with sizeable to impressive margins of victory in the other three. (His most impressive victory nationwide was in Ehime, however, where he received 12,598 votes to Mr. Fukuda's 1,160.) In short not only is Mr. Aso popular, but he's popular in places where a reformist candidate would expect to run strong.

A year later, with the LDP in shambles and Mr. Aso riding high, he will likely build upon the bedrock of support that came out for him last year despite the overwhelming support within the LDP establishment for Mr. Fukuda.

At this point there is no sure thing — there's still a week until candidates have to declare — but Mr. Aso's position is strong, and with the party's turning away from Koizumian "neo-liberalism" it will probably take another populist to defeat Mr. Aso.

Koike prepares

The LDP is finalizing the schedule for its election: September 22, the day following the DPJ's reelection of Ozawa Ichiro.

While it still looks as if Aso Taro will claim the prize, it appears that his election will not go nearly as smoothly as Mr. Ozawa's.

Mainichi reports that Koike Yuriko has expressed her desire to run, and has begun making preparations for a campaign, running as the candidate of Koizumi and Nakagawa (Hidenao).

Given the latter's increasing isolation within the LDP, I wonder whether Ms. Koike's prospects are realistic.

Mr. Aso simply has to build upon his strong showing last September to win; Ms. Koike has to build a national organization to compete with Mr. Aso from scratch. Recall that Mr. Aso managed to win 197 votes of a total 529 votes in last year's election, putting him 68 short of victory. He won 65 of 141 prefectural chapter votes, a number he will likely increase as a result of his travels around the country. He surprisingly received 132 Diet member votes last year — surprising because it showed the extent to which faction members bucked their leaders. A similar trend could redound to Ms. Koike's favor this year, but it is unlikely that there are enough Koizumians to push Ms. Koike over the top. Ms. Koike also lacks the support of the Mori Yoshiro, the punative head of her own faction, the Machimura faction. Mr. Mori will undoubtedly lean heavily on faction members to support Mr. Aso, if they aren't already doing so.

But if Mr. Nakagawa backs Ms. Koike anyway, this election campaign will likely mean the end of the Machimura faction.

Surely Mr. Nakagawa is aware of the aforementioned figures about Mr. Aso's performance. Surely he knows how difficult it will be to upset Mr. Aso, who has used the past year to prepare systematically for this coming election.

Perhaps Ms. Koike's campaign is intended as a pretext for the departure of Mr. Nakagawa and his followers from the LDP entirely, a last stand before bolting. Mr. Aso will win, only to find his party shrinking beneath his feet.

Far-fetched perhaps, but less and less far-fetched every day.

Aso's the one for Mori

After months of appearing immune to Aso Taro's relentless courting of his support, Mori Yoshiro said on a TV Asahi program Sunday that he supports Mr. Aso as Prime Minister Fukuda's successor: "Aso's popularity must be used greatly for our party. Many within the party have the 'Aso is next' mood. I too think that."

He does not, however, appear to support replacing Mr. Fukuda with Mr. Aso before the next election.

Rather, it seems that Mr. Mori believes that the best use of Mr. Aso is to have him serve as the face of the party in his capacity as LDP secretary-general during a general election campaign and then ride in to save the party in the aftermath of what could be a disaster for the LDP.

The timing of the leadership election will make all the difference in whether we see an LDP president (and Prime Minister) Aso.

Naturally if LDP malcontents manage to maneuver Mr. Fukuda into resigning before a general election, Mr. Aso will likely have no problem winning the prize. Mr. Mori's endorsement may settle the question of who the Machimura faction will back. The faction, which has been home to the past four prime ministers, has been unable to decide who from its ranks should receive the party's backing. Former LDP secretary-general Nakagawa Hidenao backs faction member Koike Yuriko; former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo backs Mr. Aso; Machimura Nobutaka, the chief cabinet secretary, has been able to garner little enthusiasm for a bid for the leadership. With Mr. Mori's backing, however, Mr. Aso could be the faction's choice, giving him the votes of the LDP's largest faction. The Machimura faction may yet break, particularly if someone like Ms. Koike were to run an insurgent campaign for the leadership, but other things being equal, the support of Mr. Mori is a major coup for Mr. Aso.

But after a general election, especially one in which the LDP suffers a catastrophic loss? Will the LDP — or what's left of it — be eager to hand over the reins to one who led the party into the campaign? In short, it's difficult to predict what an LDP leadership race following the next general election because it's difficult to predict what the LDP will look like following the next general election.

So Mr. Aso, don't break out the champagne yet.

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.

Fukuda (not surprisingly) purges Aso

Not surprisingly, Mr. Fukuda has acted quickly in replacing the LDP leadership. Mr. Aso is out as LDP secretary-general, Ishihara Nobuteru, his supporter, is out as PARC chairman, and Suga Yoshihide is out as election strategy chairman. Messrs. Nikai and Oshima will retain their positions as chairman of general affairs and Diet strategy respectively.

Stepping in are Ibuki Bunmei as secretary-general (vacating the education portfolio) and, coming in from the cold, Tanigaki Sadakazu as PARC chairman.

I can't say that the new party leadership is surprising, and I'm not altogether sure it's an improvement. Competent, maybe, and sure to do the bidding of Mr. Fukuda — but I guess that's what counts.

UPDATE — I mistakenly omitted the appointment of Koga Makoto as the election strategy chairman, meaning that, as MTC points out, the Fukuda cabinet has become a "faction head employment agency." All but three faction heads (including Aso) are now in either the cabinet or the LDP leadership. I'm not sure what difference it will make, if any. It certainly makes it harder for Mr. Fukuda to present himself as standing for a new LDP, as the DPJ has hastened to note. But will it mean that Mr. Fukuda is excessively deferential to factional interests?

Will Fukuda have a honeymoon?

In his initial remarks yesterday, Mr. Fukuda indicated that he recognizes what Mr. Koizumi recognized, namely that the LDP is responsible for the state of the economy and politics.

Describing the election results, he insisted, "This is not old-style solidarity among factions." His task: "Regaining the people's trust." He spoke at length on the problem of trust in politics, sounding like the most forthright of "outsider" American presidential candidates.

"In particular, concerning the pension problem, the truly big problem is that the people have been given the impression that they cannot trust politics and government," he said. "I think this is an exceedingly big problem. Regarding this problem, each ministry is responsible, but I think that it is also the major responsibility of politicians, who have the position of directing this. In particular, I think the responsibility of the LDP, which has sustained governments for a long time, is great. I fully realize this responsibility, and it is essential to be committed to the idea that the LDP must be reborn."

I have to imagine that we would not be hearing the word "caretaker" if these words came from a new prime minister twenty years younger and considerably more telegenic than Mr. Fukuda. As it is, it's an open question whether Mr. Fukuda will be able to repeat Mr. Koizumi's feat of leading the LDP to victory by campaigning against the LDP. [Ed. — Fool me once...] But I think he means it when he dismisses the idea of his being a cat's paw of the factions. He has his own ideas about the LDP and its future — and they might be disappointing to his backers, Mr. Mori included. The question is whether he will be able to implement them.

Meanwhile, the tone he took on the looming problem of the anti-terror special measures law was distinctly different than that of his predecessors. Namely, he conceived the law in largely negative terms, as a way to avoid the opprobrium of other countries (which have been so kind as to thank Japan for its contribution). Not surprisingly, for this way of thinking Mr. Fukuda has earned the appellation of "realist" from Michael Green. The Fukuda cabinet will likely mean a turn away from the exuberant embrace of the US that characterized Japanese foreign policy under Messrs. Koizumi and Abe. As Mainichi suggests, a flexible, prudent approach will undoubtedly characterize Mr. Fukuda's foreign policy in all areas. The perfervid ideological thinking that resulted in the Abe cabinet's scheme for an "arc of freedom and prosperity" is set to retreat to the back benches and study groups of the LDP, for the time being anyway.

It's actually an amazing trick Mr. Fukuda has pulled: he has managed to convince everyone (or the media, which has subsequently convinced everyone) that he is a mellow conciliator, when in fact his positions will make plenty of people unhappy. For all the talk of LDP unity, how long before young firebrands and old faction bosses get fed up with his way of governance and make their gripes known, loudly and persistently?

One thing is certain. Mr. Fukuda will not enjoy a honeymoon in his relations with the DPJ, no matter how eagerly he tries to reach out and cooperate. The DPJ has signaled that it will not relent in its confrontational stance and will continue to push for an early general election. Whether this strategy will succeed is entirely different question.

Kono looks on the bright side of life

Kono Taro, wunderkind Lower House member from Kanagawa, and Aso supporter, looks at the bright side of Mr. Aso's defeat in a post at his blog:

In Saitama prefecture, with 10,055 and 10,498 votes, we lost by only a difference of 400 votes [Ed. — fuzzy math?]. If we had one won this, we would have taken three votes, giving us a total of 200, and influencing Saitama's Nakano, Imai, and Yamaguchi.

Our predictions were exceeded considerably, and we were in good spirits. Aizawa Hideyuki-sensei [Ed. — 89, LH, Tottori 2] made a toast and joked about not saying congratulations. Someone said it was like the wake of someone who died at 100 years of age, disappointing but sufficient. Someone else said, yes, ninety-seven years of age. The Saitama three laughed bitterly.

The received votes were Aso 197, Fukuda 330.

The party member votes were Aso 65, Fukuda 76.

But the actual numbers of party members' votes cast around the country were Aso 252,809, Fukuda 250,186. Aso won by more than 2,000 votes.

In Tokyo, Osaka, Kagawa, and Miyagi, where he made campaign stops, it was all Aso.

In Kagawa, Ehime, and Kochi, where there were no Diet members publicly supporting Aso, it was all Aso.

There were seventeen prefectures in which Aso won the vote among party members, eighteen where Fukuda won, and twelve prefectures in which party officials decided without regarding member votes.

The population of prefectures Aso won totaled 64,700,000, the population of prefectures Fukuda won totaled 37,890,000. (The remainder was 25,180,000.)

Among the ten most heavily populated prefectures, Fukuda won only fifth-ranked Saitama and seventh-ranked Hokkaido. Excluding the three votes Aso automatically won in ninth-ranked Fukuoka, seven were Aso's (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Osaka, Aichi, Chiba, Hyogo, Shizuoka).

I'm not sure how much significance one should attach to these numbers, but they do suggest that while an Aso insurgency didn't materialize, he did find not inconsiderable support among broad swathes of the country. His support in urban areas, however, may not matter much, because the challenge in a general election is appealing to nonaligned voters — not the party rank-and-file. For the immediate task at hand, healing the party's wounds in advance of a general election, means appealing to the rural rank-and-file, who have recently shown their willingness to desert the party.

Mr. Kono's remarks suggest relatively little ill will, meaning that the risks of an Aso irritant within the party are pretty much nil. He will return to the fold, chastened.

But as Asahi finds in its analysis of the vote, the result among Diet members was beyond the Aso camp's wildest dreams: "It's a protest vote against the contemporary LDP."

It's official

Fukuda Yasuo is the new president of the Liberal Democratic Party and will be (presumably) be elected prime minister on Tuesday.

For coverage of the oh-so-predictable voting, check out Shisaku and TPR.

There's not much I can add to Jun Okumura's assessment of what this means. Mr. Fukuda ended up winning comfortably enough so as not to further exacerbate intraparty tension. While not winning by a landslide in the prefectural votes, Mr. Fukuda had a strong enough showing so as to deny Mr. Aso the opportunity to continue to contest the presidency as a pretender to throne with legitimacy derived from support in the grassroots.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Fukuda will be able to salvage the current Diet session, and whether he will even last long enough to finish Mr. Abe's presidential term, which lasts until September 2009. To hasten the return to normalcy, he is expected to retain most of Mr. Abe's second cabinet. (Yomiuri speculated today that even while removing Mr. Aso as LDP secretary-general, he'll retain Hatoyama Kunio, Mr. Aso's ally, as justice minister.) But he will face a DPJ that is aiming to make the Fukuda cabinet but a short interlude between the Abe train wreck and a DPJ triumph in a general election.

The DPJ has used the unexpected break caused by Mr. Abe's resignation to "go to the people" and continue to sell its agriculture policies to restive rural Japan, reassuring farmers that the money exists to provide the promised subsidies. The party has, in fact, announced that it will submit its income compensation bill to the Diet in mid-October. The debate over that bill, if and when it happens, may be more consequential for the balance between the parties and their prospects leading to a general election than the ongoing battle over the anti-terror special measures law.

A new era dawns?

On the brink of today's LDP election, the government dissolved the "Building a beautiful country" planning group that was to be the vanguard of Mr. Abe's campaign to leave the "postwar regime" behind. The Abe revolution is over.

But what will replace it?

As LDP members vote today, I think that my assessment is correct: an Aso insurgency has not materialized. While Mr. Aso may get a few more defections from among Diet members than initially expected after the factions threw their weight behind Mr. Fukuda, it seems that Mr. Fukuda still enjoys the support of more than two-thirds of Diet members, and the early returns are strongly in Mr. Fukuda's favor — Asahi reports that he has already secured 61 votes to Mr. Aso's 44. Even if Mr. Aso were to sweep up the remaining prefectural chapters (and receive all three votes from each), his victory would be relatively small, winning fewer than two-thirds of the prefectural vote, not nearly high enough to embarrass the faction heads and Mr. Fukuda.

Now to governing. It is unclear what the rise of Mr. Fukuda, the awkward, impolitic reluctant politician — he has actually said that he doesn't really want the job — who apparently resembles Homer Simpson and wears glasses that haven't been style since the 1970s, if ever, presages. To take up Devin Stewart's post asking whether "it's 1975," the emergence of Mr. Fukuda might suggest to some that Japan is going back to the future politically (given the role of the factions in Mr. Fukuda's candidacy).

But for Japan, the US (the subject of Stewart's post), and for Europe, there is no going back to 1975. I view this question from a "Tofflerian" perspective (Future Shock and The Third Wave in particular). The crisis faced by the industrial democracies in the 1970s was effectively the end of industrial society — the end of plans, the end of confidence in the ability of technocratic elites to control reality. Whatever the superficial resemblance of current events to the 1970s, it is only that. The challenge of the present in Japan, the US, and throughout Europe is to build a new order for the post-industrial age. The problem is probably most acute for Japan, which has been slow to de-centralize, is more hierarchical than the other post-industrial democracies, and has had a relatively higher share of its population engaged in agriculture. Of course, in cultural terms, Japan is probably leading the way into the future as its cities grow and urban culture evolves (and influences the rest of the world).

The challenge for Mr. Fukuda, and for his successors for years to come, is to build political and economic institutions for an urban, post-industrial Japan: an education system that prepares children for work other than that in large, hierarchical organizations; trade policy, especially in agriculture, that acknowledges that Japan will not be self-sufficient and thus puts consumer interests ahead of producer interests; a pension system in which the burden for supporting retirees shifts from the private sector to the government. The list goes on and on. Japan is in dire need of institutions befitting an urban society.

Mr. Koizumi understood that without change the LDP would be unfit to lead Japan into a new era. Does Mr. Fukuda recognize this, and is he prepared to do something about it?

Observing Japan in audio, part two

The second part of my conversation with Trans-Pacific Radio's Garrett DeOrio is now online. It focuses mostly on foreign policy questions surrounding today's LDP presidential election.

You can listen to the first part here.

Fukuda follows his father

The LDP presidential election is now just two days away, set to be held on Sunday. All signs point to Fukuda Yasuo being elected as party president and thus prime minister.

Mr. Fukuda evidently has the support of seventy percent of the 387 Diet members and leads in at least twenty-three prefectures.

Mr. Aso simply overplayed his hand, as the controversial article in this week's Shukan Gendai — which discusses Aso's "coup" and his overweening ambition to be prime minister — makes clear, and whatever concerns the prefectural chapters have about Mr. Fukuda's ascending to the premiership on the back of factional support, those concerns do not seem to be significant enough to lead them to buck the parliamentary LDP.

And so Mr. Fukuda will step into the leadership of a broken party, facing circumstances not unlike his father's ascendancy in 1976. Fukuda Takeo took over the LDP following the Lockheed scandal that consumed Tanaka Kakuei and in the wake of the LDP's worst House of Representatives election since the LDP formed, in which official LDP candidates failed to take a majority (the LDP was only able to hold a majority by virtue of conservative independents who ran without the LDP's endorsement and joined the party after being elected). One of the elder Fukuda's first acts as prime minister was to create a headquarters for executing party reform of which he was the head. The headquarters ultimately introduced a primary system for the election of party leaders open to all party members.

Fukuda the younger will not have it as easy as his father: there is no magic bullet to solve the LDP's problems, because there seems to be no easy way to reconcile the party's rural past with an urban present and future, all while holding together a coalition with Komeito and locking horns with an invigorated DPJ.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he's giving few hints as to how he plans to deal with these problems. But I suspect that once in place he could surprise everyone, being a tough, crafty competitor who makes life difficult for rivals and enemies within and without the LDP.