With Ozawa, there's no easy option

Ozawa Ichiro has escaped indictment by the Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office again. Once again, his former secretaries were not quite so lucky, with three, including sitting Diet member Ishikawa Tomohiro, being indicted for political funds violations.

Michael Cucek rightly points to the gross misconduct of the PPO in its Ahab-like pursuit of Ozawa — and perhaps the more egregious campaign by the media to paint Ozawa as the conniving, monstrous puppet master of the Hatoyama government.

But I cannot treat Ozawa's escape from prosecution as a victory for the prime minister and the DPJ, and cannot but wonder whether the DPJ wouldn't be better off without its secretary-general.

If anything, the indictment of three of his former aides even as Ozawa survives with a vote of confidence from the prime minister will continue to be a drag on the government. As in the days when Ozawa was in charge and Hatoyama his secretary-general, Hatoyama sounds like Ozawa's chief apologist, explaining Ozawa's behavior to a skeptical public. Except, of course, Hatoyama is now the prime minister of Japan. Ozawa's presence at the head of the DPJ would be less of a problem for the Hatoyama cabinet if it had been able to dominate the media and dictate the narrative being told about the government. But the Hatoyama government has been so ineffectual in its public relations — not entirely its fault seeing as how certain publications are serving as the LDP's partners in opposition — that everything said or done by the government in relation to Ozawa contributes to the media's narrative of a government under Ozawa's thumb. Instead of reporting on the remarkable changes the Hatoyama government has made to the policymaking process, the media has been able to fixate on the superficial resemblance between the current government and the LDP in its heyday (which Ozawa of course participated in). As I've said before, I'm not convinced that DPJ government with Ozawa wielding outsized influence is worse than LDP government in which an army of backbenchers wielded influence in combination with the bureaucracy that was able to undermine all but the most determined prime ministers — and even determined prime ministers like Koizumi Junichiro did not win every battle with the backbenchers.

What should the Hatoyama government, Ozawa, and the DPJ do going forward? As Hokkaido University's Yamaguchi Jiro — a DPJ sympathizer — notes, the fate of political change and with it the Japanese people's hope for their democracy hang in the balance. He recommends that Ozawa let the trial proceed and let the PPO's evidence (or lack thereof) speak for itself. At the same time, he suggests that Ozawa forthrightly answer every question surrounding doubts about his political funds in the court of public opinion. I wonder whether Ozawa is capable of this. I know that Hatoyama and other DPJ leaders are not capable of making Ozawa do it. At the very least, Ozawa has to restrain himself and at least appear as if he is the prime minister's subordinate, not his equal (or superior).

Meanwhile, the Hatoyama government must fundamentally reconsider how it presents itself to the public via the media. The time of letting the facts speak for themselves has passed, because the facts about the government do not speak for themselves. The government needs begin aggressively making its case. Whether that will entail a new chief cabinet secretary, a media strategy team attached to the prime minister's office, or some other scheme will depend on the government, but the current arrangement is simply not working. And the prime minister needs to start showing some ability to lead, or step down.

No matter how skilled a campaigner he is, no matter how zealous a reformer he is, Ozawa's baggage imperils the government — and more than that, it jeopardizes Japan's political future and provides further impetus to cynicism among the Japanese people. There is no easy answer to the Hatoyama government's dilemma. Fire Ozawa, and it loses a skilled campaigner trusted among party supporters in the provinces. Retain Ozawa, and the prime minister continues to look weak and the media continues to feast upon the Ozawa scandal.

Ultimately, I fear that Hatoyama is simply incapable of solving this dilemma and saving his government.

Now the Ozawa era is over

It appears that Ozawa Ichiro is finally tired of fighting for his political life.

After weeks of circling the drain, of calls from members of his own party to resign or clarify his explanation of why his aide was wrongfully accused, Ozawa has decided to call it quits. He will not be resigning from the Diet, and he has called for a DPJ party election following the debate over the supplementary budget.

Sankei reports on the damage that Ozawa has done to the DPJ by waiting until now to resign, but on the whole it is hard to see how this hurts the DPJ. In the short term it might, as the media hammers the DPJ leadership for protecting Ozawa for so long. But before long the candidates to replace Ozawa will step forward and Ozawa's grizzled visage will fade from view as the public face of the party that aspires to be the party of change in this year's election. Particularly since it looks as if a general election will not be held before July, the new DPJ leader — presumably Okada Katsuya — will have just enough time to expunge the taint of Ozawa, to promise that the DPJ will be the party of clean politics, before heading into the election campaign.

Deprived of the gift that was Ozawa's scandal, the LDP and Komeito are back to hoping that the economy somehow shows signs of life in time for the general election. Ozawa's resignation will also deprive the LDP of its argument that Ozawa would endanger Japanese security by undermining the US-Japan alliance with his "irresponsible" talk.

There is still the chance that the DPJ let Ozawa hang on for too long, but in this case, perhaps too late is better than never.

The electoral consequences of Mr. Ozawa

Chiba's gubernatorial election, held Sunday, was viewed by some DPJ members going into the election as a critical test for Ozawa Ichiro's fragile leadership of the party.

Coming within a week of the indictment of Okubo Takanori and Ozawa's decision to hold on despite the indictment, Ozawa's critics insisted that the Chiba election, in which DPJ-backed independent Yoshida Taira faced off against LDP-backed independent (and former actor) Morita Kensaku and three others, would measure the impact of the scandal on the electoral prospects of DPJ candidates. They would treat a defeat as a sign that if Ozawa leads the DPJ into the general election, he will gravely undermine his party's candidates.

Ozawa's many enemies apparently have something to celebrate: Morita defeated Yoshida by a sizeable margin, receiving 1,015,978 votes to Yoshida's 636,991, with the other three candidates (including one JCP-backed independent) receiving a total of 577,781 votes.

A Mainichi/TBS exit poll found that independents broke for Morita over Yoshida by a 45% to 24% margin — and also found that non-aligned respondents have not yet decided which party they will back in the general election, with 60% undecided compared with 24% who back the DPJ and 9% who back the LDP. At the same time, however, the poll found that independents are favorably disposed to the "opposition parties" over the "government parties" by a margin of 59% to 32%. In other words, it is unclear whether the Chiba election tells us anything about the impact of Ozawa's political troubles on his party's ability to contest elections.

After all, the votes received by the three other candidates in the election more than made up the difference between Morita and Yoshida. In a one-on-one campaign, would Morita have won by such a decisive margin, if at all? Given that many of the races in the 300 single-member districts will be solely between LDP and DPJ candidates, it is premature to declare that the DPJ's prospects in a general election are now hopeless. Facing LDP incumbents — all 303 of them — desperate to distance themselves from not just Aso Taro, but also Abe Shinzo and Fukuda Yasuo, will DPJ candidates really be so harmed by the cloud surrounding Ozawa? The independents broke one way in this election, a gubernatorial election in which the LDP-backed candidate was able to keep the party at arm's length and run on the strength of personal popularity, but will LDP lower house candidates be so lucky later this year? Even LDP secretary-general Hosoda Hiroyuki was reluctant to attribute Morita's victory to the Okubo indictment, citing instead the Morita's "high degree of name recognition." (Of course, if the LDP wants Ozawa to stay at the helm of the DPJ, Hosoda would have good reason to play down the impact of Ozawa on the election.)

Despite reasons for questioning the significance of the Chiba election, Ozawa will undoubtedly continue to face criticism and pressure to resign from the DPJ anti-mainstream. A recent Asahi snap poll will provide more ammunition for Ozawa's critics: the poll recorded a marked shift in support for Aso and the LDP, doubt about Ozawa's explanation of the scandal, and a desire to see Ozawa resign (63% in favor, 24% opposed). And yet respondents still intend to support the DPJ in PR voting in the general election — and although there was slight shift, still overwhelmingly desire a DPJ-centered government.

I am not sure what to make of the polling about Ozawa, because while various polls have found majorities in favor of Ozawa's resigning, they don't seem to ask whether Ozawa's staying on will dramatically impact their willingness to vote for a DPJ candidate in their district. It is conceivable that the opposition to Ozawa's staying on is soft, driven more by the frenzied news coverage than by an enduring allergy to Ozawa's leadership that would lead a voter to not even consider voting for a DPJ candidate.

Nevertheless, Ozawa is still in a vulnerable position, not helped by Hatoyama Yukio's discussion of the possibility of Ozawa's stepping down in advance of a general election if polling numbers don't improve. Ultimately the only polling numbers that matter are the number of votes received in an election — I don't think newspaper polls are so unambiguously clear that Ozawa and the DPJ should be making decisions on the basis of their findings. Perhaps the party has internal polling that better measures the Ozawa drag on DPJ candidates, but I doubt it. Meanwhile, I think Hatoyama's suggestion that Ozawa (and Hatoyama himself) might resign just before an election is folly. How would the party be helped by being leaderless immediately preceding an election? At some point the party's leaders have to accept that they have taken a calculated risk in leaving Ozawa in to pitch and live with it. I still think it is premature to conclude that the party made a mistake backing Ozawa's decision to stay on as party president.

The end of the beginning

Ozawa Ichiro indicated, in a tearful press conference Tuesday evening, that he will stay on as DPJ president despite the indictment of his chief public secretary — but Ozawa's statement may have only been the end of the beginning of the final act of Ozawa's long career.

The press conference itself was a masterpiece of defiance. Ozawa did not give an inch, insisting on the outrageousness of the actions of the public prosecutor's office and the lack of wrongdoing his part or the part of his secretary. He appealed to the public for support and understanding, and insisted that now as ever his purpose is to build Japanese democracy. (The press conference can be read in its entirety here, here, here, and here.)

But it is unlikely that the press conference will be the end of Ozawa's troubles.

First, by staying on Ozawa will remain a target for the media. As Jun Okumura notes in his reading of editorials on Ozawa, the press has for the most part called for Ozawa's resignation, and will likely to continue to press for it by reporting every snippet of news that might back Ozawa into a corner. To paraphrase another politician who had his troubles with the media, it looks that the Japanese press will have Ozawa to kick around for at least a little while longer — and it will not hesitate to get its kicks in.

The press will also report on every note of criticism of Ozawa from within the DPJ, of which there appears to be plenty. Apparently DPJ members were holding back their criticism in the hope that he would bow out freely, without their having to do anything to force him out. But as before Ozawa's press conference, the press is being disingenous in its reporting on criticism of Ozawa. The critics mentioned in press reports on "cracks in the DPJ" appear to be none other than the usual critics of Ozawa, the youngish, reformist members clustered around Maehara Seiji, Edano Yukio, and Noda Yoshihiko. Mainichi, for example, quotes Sengoku Yoshito as calling for Ozawa to "independently make the political decision [to resign]." Sengoku Yoshito is one of Ozawa's most outspoken critics within the DPJ and had made some noise about challenging Ozawa in last year's party leadership election before backing down like Ozawa's other critics. Maehara Seiji, Ozawa's predecessor and perhaps his most frequent sparring partner within the DPJ, has also questioned the wisdom of Ozawa's decision and wondered why Ozawa received so much from one company. Sankei's discussion of criticism of Ozawa comes entirely from the Maehara-Edano-Noda axis, featuring quotes from Sengoku, Komiyama Yoko, education minister in the DPJ's shadow cabinet, and Edano, who said that Ozawa's explanation was inadequate. Sankei actually mentioned Komiyama's remarks in a separate article, which notes that this was her first public criticism of Ozawa without mentioning her connection to what is effectively the most anti-Ozawa portion of the DPJ.

It is for that reason that the image of a DPJ falling to pieces must be taken with a lump of salt.

The DPJ has a mainstream-anti-mainstream dynamic not unlike that which has characterized the LDP for much of its history. By ignoring this background, press coverage of the DPJ's divisions conveys a misleading impression of Ozawa's having been completely abandoned when in reality criticism from these members is entirely in keeping with their role as the opposition within the opposition. There are critics outside of this section of the party, but for the moment it appears that most of the criticism comes from the party's anti-mainstream. And given their history, it is worth asking whether their criticism is any great concern. In its battles with Ozawa, the Maehara-Edano-Noda axis has repeatedly failed to follow up its criticism with action. After spending most of last summer painting a portrait of Ozawa as DPJ dictator, not a single member of the anti-mainstream decided to run against Ozawa in the September election. When Ozawa stepped down after facing criticism for his discussions with Fukuda Yasuo regarding a grand coalition, not a single member of the anti-mainstream stepped forward as a possible successor. For all of Maehara's participation in LDP-centered study groups, there are few signs that he is actually willing to defect along with other anti-mainstream DPJ members.

In short, the press coverage of the criticism may be worse than the criticism itself. These critics are simply doing what the anti-mainstream is supposed to do, and I read their remarks as being more about election positioning than a serious effort to drive Ozawa to resignation. As I wrote when the first polls after the scandal were published, the indictment merely reinforces the trend towards urban, reformist DPJ candidates running against Ozawa and the party in order to win their seats. But in order to do that, they have to act like anti-mainstream candidates. I don't take their fretting about whether they will win their districts all that seriously: they are still facing LDP candidates who are weighed down by Aso, Fukuda, Abe, 50 million missing pensions records, and a disintegrating economy. Reformist candidates for both parties will be running against their party's leadership — and for all the suspicion surrounding Ozawa, DPJ candidates should still have an easier time distancing themselves from him than their LDP rivals.

I am not ruling out the possibility that the DPJ leadership is making a grave mistake in backing Ozawa, but I do not think that the political situation as been wholly transformed or that an LDP victory is assured by Ozawa's staying on as party leader. The LDP does have more reason to hope; the LDP has officially questioned why Ozawa is staying on, but I think this Mainichi article is right that the LDP would actually prefer Ozawa as the face of the DPJ than any other leader. But Aso has critics of his own within the party, and his future as the head of the LDP is no more secure than Ozawa's future as DPJ leader. And the public is far more concerned with what Aso is doing as prime minister than what Ozawa did or did not do a few years ago in service of his political ambitions.

Will he stay or will he go?

Okubo Takanori, Ozawa Ichiro's chief secretary, has as expected been indicted by the Tokyo district public prosecutor's office for violating the political funds control law..

Ozawa is due to announce whether he will remain as DPJ president today.

In the days leading up to the indictment, the DPJ has rallied behind its embattled leader, which in practice means that the decision to resign is, as Hatoyama Yukio said Tuesday, in Ozawa's hands alone. An uneasy truce, limiting backbencher criticism of Ozawa, appears to be holding, but it is unclear how durable the truce is. In the meantime the party is struggling to limit the damage while waiting for Ozawa to decide. To that end, at a meeting of the DPJ executive Tuesday Okada Katsuya, who still looks to be the most likely successor should Ozawa go, stressed the need to address the public's concerns about money politics in the DPJ — but, as many reformist DPJ members worry, it is unclear whether the DPJ can fix its image with Ozawa as the face of the party, particularly if Ozawa's political organization continues to be investigated for collusion with the construction industry.

I'm due to board a plane shortly, but in the meantime read Aurelia George Mulgan's summary of the meaning of the Ozawa scandal.

Time to go to the bullpen?

Looking at the debate in the DPJ over whether Ozawa Ichiro should be forced to step down, a metaphor — appropriate for this time of year — comes to mind:

The Pedro incident.

Boston Red Sox fans will undoubtedly know what I'm talking about, but for everyone else, the Pedro Incident occurred in the deciding Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series, with the Red Sox leading the New York Yankees 5-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning. Pedro Martinez — the Boston ace — was pitching for the Sox, quickly gave up a run and then continued to struggle to get Yankee batters out. Red Sox manager Grady Little went out to talk to the clearly faltering Pedro, but decided to keep him in the game.

The Yankees scored two more runs in the eighth and won the game in the eleventh on a home run by Aaron Boone.

Five outs away from a World Series appearance — again, apologies to non-baseball fans, but until 2004 the Red Sox had not won a World Series since 1918 — the Red Sox folded after their manager stuck with his ace pitcher for too long.

I cannot help but wonder whether this will prove to be an apt analogy for the DPJ in 2009. Enjoying a sizeable lead in the polls for months leading up to the general election against the LDP, which enjoys a winning record that puts the Yankees to shame, the DPJ has had momentum on its side. The LDP has been buffeted by bad news of every kind and many, if not most of its members are desperate to change leaders one more time before an election. Ozawa has without question been the DPJ's ace, working hard to boost the party's presence in rural areas in which it has struggled in the past, getting his fractious party to unify behind a lowest-common-denominator manifesto, and bringing his critics into the party leadership to make the DPJ's quest for power a team effort.

But with the arrest of his lieutenant, Ozawa, like Pedro Martinez, may have taken the DPJ as far as he can — and should he stay on longer, he could wind up being responsible for an LDP comeback to rival the Yankees' comeback in 2003.

MTC sees the first hints of the LDP rally in a pair of television polls that showed sizeable and surely significant jumps in support for the Aso government that were absent in the newspaper polls published over the weekend. Nakagawa Hidenao, former LDP secretary-general and leading LDP reformist, is ebullient over findings that independent voters are turning from the DPJ in opinion polls in response to the arrest, and is convinced that if only the LDP can change to embrace his "new LDP" vision, the LDP will sweep up the independents and win the general election. DPJ members are starting to fret that perhaps Ozawa will be unable to hold the lead; Asahi reports that DPJ representatives, home for the weekend, heard complaints from voters about the discrepancy between Ozawa's explanation and official reports, and as the polls overwhelmingly showed, voters believe the official reports more than they believe Ozawa. And they wonder why Ozawa hasn't apologized yet.

The DPJ leadership — playing the part of Grady Little — continues to back Ozawa. Ozawa met with the party's executive Tuesday morning and insisted once again on his innocence, which the party leaders continue to accept, at least according to Asahi.

But how long will they stay with their ace, and how long is too long? What point in Game 7 is the DPJ at now? The start of the eighth inning, after the Yankees scored to narrow the Red Sox lead to two? Or has the DPJ already passed the point of no return, like Grady Little after his visit to the mound to talk with his pitcher? If the DPJ waits until Okubo confesses or is found guilty and sentenced, will that be too late to save the party before the general election? Is Okada Katsuya or another potential party leader ready to step in now? If the party acts now, while Ozawa continues to insist upon his innocence, will the party render a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion, with consequences for the DPJ itself? Meanwhile, if Ozawa is forced out before further developments in the Okubo case, will the DPJ be sitting down its ace while he is still of some use to the party? After all, if rural voters are as happy to receive the largesse of the government as MTC speculates, it is hard to see who the DPJ has who will be able to replace Ozawa in his ability to compete for those rural votes.

It is hard to see how this will end well for the DPJ. Like the Red Sox in 2003, the DPJ will surely fight hard until the general election. After all, the Red Sox held on into the eleventh. But the DPJ has let the LDP back into the game.

Regardless of which team wins, however, I fear that for the Japanese people there will surely be no joy in Mudville after the latest turn of events.

(After all this baseball talk, I would be remiss if I didn't direct you to The Tokyo Yakult Swallows blog run by Ken Worsley and Garrett DeOrio of Trans-Pacific Radio. They've been providing handy summaries of World Baseball Classic games, for which I'm grateful.)

The space between Ozawa and the DPJ

The first round of polls following last week's arrest of Okubo Toshinori, Ozawa Ichiro's secretary, has been released, and not surprisingly there are few bright spots for Ozawa and the DPJ.

Oddly enough, the most favorable poll for Ozawa was the Sankei/Fuji News Network poll, which despite Sankei's having pulled out all stops to push for Ozawa to resign following the arrest found that 47.4% of respondents thought Ozawa should resign, compared with 41.4% who thought there was no reason for him to resign. The same poll did record a slight drop in support for the DPJ and a larger drop in the number of respondents who thought that Ozawa would be most appropriate as prime minister (although he still maintains a slight lead over Aso Taro).

Other polls contain worse news for Ozawa. Asahi's poll found that 57% of respondents thought Ozawa should resign, compared to only 26% who supported his staying on as DPJ leader. But despite that, Ozawa still enjoyed a ten-point margin in response to the question of who would make the most appropriate prime minister, despite losing twelve points. Similarly, for 56% of respondents the scandal has not worsened their image of the DPJ, compared with 40% of respondents for whom it has.

Kyodo's poll — discussed in this Sankei article — found that 61% of respondents think Ozawa should go, but Kyodo too found that Ozawa still remains preferable to Aso, and, more significantly, that a DPJ-centered government remains preferable to an LDP-centered government.

Mainichi's poll noted a similar pattern, although 73% of respondents prefer neither Ozawa nor Aso as prime minister.

Meanwhile in all the polls the Aso cabinet's support remained at abysmal levels, although some polls recorded a slight improvement.

There is actually good news for the DPJ in all of these polls, namely that the public appears to be able to separate the DPJ from its leader in a way that it can't (or won't) do for the the LDP and its leader. Perhaps, oddly enough, the DPJ is protected by the ubiquitous image of Ozawa as "old LDP." Perhaps voters are able to separate "old LDP" Ozawa in their minds, chiding the DPJ for employing his services without assuming that the DPJ equals Ozawa. The gap may be temporary, particularly if the press keeps up its relentless campaign to force Ozawa out, but it does suggest that the DPJ could still be victorious with Ozawa at the helm. It might not be pretty — the young reformists will surely do everything in their power to distance themselves from Ozawa — but DPJ members may be able to inoculate themselves from their party leader in a way that LDP members wish they could. For example, Asao Keiichiro, shadow defense minister (and my former boss), said on TV Saturday that if it turns out that Ozawa knew about the Nishimatsu donations, "he's out." This is the same message delivered by Hatoyama Yukio on NHK Sunday, when he suggested that if new information comes to light, Ozawa's resignation may be unavoidable.

This approach is sound: let reformist candidates distance themselves from Ozawa, dampen overt talk about who should replace him (potential successors like Okada Katsuya have been quiet through the scandal), and if Ozawa ultimately has no choice but to step down, minimize the collateral damage to DPJ candidates and hope for an orderly transition. In the meantime, let Ozawa do what he does best: visit with candidates in places where voters will be more indifferent to the cloud of scandal trailing Ozawa. It is far from the ideal of a two-party system with two centralized, top-down parties with strong leaders and clear policy agendas vying for majorities, but there is little in Japanese politics that resembles the ideal.

The DPJ is still in an enviable position for an opposition party within months of a general election. The LDP is utterly incapable of exploiting Ozawa's troubles, weighed down by the albatross that is Prime Minister Aso. Sankei reports that Koike Yuriko is ramping up efforts in a bid to replace Aso in advance of a general election, which I suspect may be more wishful thinking on the part of Sankei than evidence of a serious campaign on Koike's part. Does she really want to take the helm of the party now, in the face of certain defeat? It seems more likely to me that she is positioning herself to be the inevitable leader in the aftermath of the general election, when a broken LDP might be willing to countenance an unconventional leader like Koike. But now? I still have a hard time seeing Aso step down willingly before a general election, and despite the desperation of LDP leaders I think Koike will have a hard time convincing them that she is the answer to their problems.

There may yet be more bad news to come for Ozawa and the DPJ, but if nothing more is forthcoming — if the media is starved of innuendo with which to pressure Ozawa — than the DPJ may be able to contain the damage and press forward. This is far from the best of scenarios, but in campaigning or in governing the DPJ may be unable to do better than Ozawa.

Change you can believe in? Far from it. But a DPJ government — even under Ozawa — would still be a step in the right direction.

Murky outlook for the general election

There is no question now that the outlook for the next general election — which a growing number of LDP officials are reportedly arguing should be held after dissolving the Diet in May — is muddier than before. The scandal in Ozawa Ichiro's political organization has overshadowed all else, including the re-passage this week of the budget-related expenditures bill for the second 2008 supplementary budget (and Koizumi Junichiro's absence from the vote).

After his press conference Wednesday, Ozawa has been silent, but everyone else is talking. Everyone that is, except Prime Minister Aso Taro, who refused to comment Thursday when asked about the DPJ response that the arrest was politically motivated. As expected, Aso has decided to stay above the fray, leaving the political point-scoring to his party. Aso reportedly told his chief cabinet secretary not to be gleeful about the arrest.

The battle lines are clear: the DPJ will do all it can to make this a story about the abuse of power and anti-democratic behavior by an organ of the state, while the LDP will do all it can to keep the focus on the charges, whether or not Okubo is found guilty. The chiefs of the LDP's factions spent Thursday defending the honor of the Tokyo district public prosecutor's office. Machimura Nobutaka, for example, stated that the past arrest of LDP power brokers bears witness to the office's "strict neutrality." (Although Jiji notes that Ibuki Bunmei dissented from his colleagues and stated that it is "shameful" to revel in the non-policy mistakes of a rival. How decent of him.)

Kawamura Takeo, the chief cabinet secretary, was equally scandalized by the DPJ's argument that the prosecutor's office was underhanded, proclaiming, "Japan is a mature constitutional state — it's impossible that the government would even think of such things as a politically motivated investigation." There is, of course, a logical fallacy in that statement. Most would see the United States as a "mature constitutional state" and yet this week it came out that the CIA destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogations that might have involved torture.

Meanwhile, the LDP cannot be too smug about Ozawa's troubles, as some LDP politicians, including cabinet members Ishiba Shigeru and Noda Seiko, have realized. The public hasn't forgotten about the LDP's own ties with the construction industry, and it's learning about ties between LDP politicians and Nishimatsu Construction in the wake of the Okubo arrest. Mori Yoshiro has indicated that his political support group will return 3 million Japanese yen in donations from a group connected to Nishimatsu. More significantly, Nikai Toshihiro, METI minister in the Aso cabinet, has announced that his faction will return 8.38 million yen, the amount that two Nishimatsu-connected political groups purchased in tickets to faction parties from 2004-2006 (although the groups through which the money was funneled no longer exist, raising the question of who will receive the money, if anyone). Mori and Nikai are presumably not alone among senior politicians who have received money from Nishimatsu. Has anyone taken a look at the accounts of Aso's koenkai?

Things may yet take a turn for the worse for Ozawa, as Jun Okumura argues here. But for the moment the situation appears to have stabilized. The government remains unpopular and mired in the need to respond to the economic crisis. The LDP would like to go on the offensive, but is constrained by its own shady ties and is thus left merely defending the prosecutor's office from DPJ accusations. The DPJ has suffered a public relations blow, but Ozawa still has enough of the party's leaders behind him to soldier on barring a conviction or new evidence coming to light that directly implicates Ozawa in the scandal. The DPJ probably still holds the upper hand in a general election, but this may cut into its margin of victory. And the press, led by Sankei, is doing the best it can to keep this story in the news. (For those interested, Sankei has published two more parts in its ongoing exposé on Ozawa's DPJ.) Shokun!, the conservative monthly that announced this week that it will be shutting down after its June issue, chipped in with a short piece discussing how Ozawa treats Japanese democracy with contempt by refusing to appear in the Diet.

What does seem clear is that this general election will be a peculiar election, in that it won't be a single election. Unlike in the past, the most heated competition between the LDP and the DPJ as parties will be in rural districts where Ozawa and the party leadership has devoted the bulk of their attention. Meanwhile, in urban districts LDP and DPJ candidates will both be running against their parties, distancing themselves from Aso and Ozawa respectively and emphasizing their reformist credentials. Yomiuri quotes Nagashima Akihisa as telling his koenkai that he wants to believe that Ozawa is innocent, but he is prepared to reverse his judgment if new facts come to light. I am guessing that Nagashima is not alone among the DPJ's urban candidates.

Thanks to Ozawa, the DPJ may not be able to take the support of urban voters for granted in the forthcoming election, which means that, interestingly, the biggest winners in the Ozawa scandal may be the LDP's reformist candidates who not too long ago were despondent about their electoral prospects. They still have to distance themselves from their party, but now their DPJ rivals will have to work equally hard to distance themselves from Ozawa.

The election may come down to which party's reformists can most distance themselves from their party's leader.

Ozawa fights back

Appearing at a press conference at DPJ headquarters this morning, DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro, under fire following the arrest of Okubo Takanori, his chief secretary, was defiant.

Ozawa stated that he would not step down following the arrest, and insisted that his secretary received money from Nishimatsu construction in compliance with the political funds control law.

In his press conference, Ozawa accused the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office with abusing its powers for political purposes — he described the prosecutor's investigation as being "without precedent." (MTC provides more detail for why this arrest may have been politically motivated.)

Even if Ozawa somehow manages to survive this affair, the damage may well have been done, both to him and his party.

The first reason is simply how the Japanese press operates. The press wasted no time initiating a feeding frenzy surrounding the scandal, with the Sankei Shimbun — which had just published a lengthy hatchet job on Ozawa the day before the scandal broke — the most aggressive shark. A glance at Sankei's most recent political articles reveals that it has published thirteen articles on the arrest since the story broke Tuesday, not counting the four-part reprint of Ozawa's press conference and an editorial running three pages online calling for a full accounting from Ozawa. This glut may be partially attributed to Sankei's heftier web presence, but considering its recent attack on Ozawa, there is obviously more to it. Sankei has taken it upon itself to undermine Ozawa, and it will do everything it can to flog this story. Sankei is not alone, of course. A scandal involving the possible next prime minister and the man everyone in Japanese politics loves to hate? Too good to pass up. And so Yomuiri reports, without naming any names, that part of the DPJ has called for Ozawa to step down. And Mainichi provides a handy reminder that Nishimatsu had ties with the late Kanemaru Shin, a favorite bogeyman from the old LDP.

All of which goes to suggest that Ken Worsley is wrong to argue that the election will simply be a matter of measuring "21 million yen in illegal donations possibly going to balance out against 54 million missing pension payments." Politics do not work like that — electoral politics do not work like that. The voters are not keeping a running account of the LDP's failures versus Ozawa's and the DPJ's shortcomings. Perceptions matter. Reputations matter. As I wrote in my initial response to this affair, Ozawa has spent years trying to remake himself in the public eye, to present himself as an earnest reformer and not the clone of Tanaka Kakuei. It takes very little to destroy a reputation. By fighting back Ozawa might be able to undo some of the damage, but the initial response has surely undone much of his efforts to remake his public image. How much will it take for the public to conclude that they are better off sticking with the LDP — whose corruption and failures are well known — than switching to the unknown and "irresponsible" DPJ?

Given the irregularities surrounding the arrest, Ozawa and the DPJ are right to fight back. I was hasty in suggesting that Ozawa may have to step down, but much will depend on whether the prosecutor's office is able to provide enough evidence to dispel claims that the arrest was politically motivated — and whether the press takes the irregularities seriously or whether it devotes all of its attention to judging Okubo (and Ozawa) guilty until proven innocent. Many are the scandals in which the man at the center of the scandal put up a brave front initially only to cave in the face of relentless pressure.

But there is no doubting that this is a blow to the DPJ. Ozawa has been a blessing for the DPJ, without question. He brought a much needed blend of political realism and policy vision to a party that lacked both in its half-decade of existence. He has disciplined its unruly ranks, forced the party's members to focus on winning, and remade the party so that it can compete in electoral districts across the country. Despite press reports in recent years about potential defectors from the DPJ, he has successfully co-opted rivals and served as a glue for a party that was demoralized by the 2005 election and the 2006 Horie email scandal that led to the embarrassing resignation of Maehara Seiji. But all of that came with the taint of Ozawa's past, both his LDP past and his past as the relentless schemer behind the Hosokawa-Hata non-LDP cabinets and during his wilderness years in the 1990s. A scandal like this was always possible, but it was a risk well worth taking.

Readers will note that I have not called the election for the LDP yet. I myself have argued that the LDP is so far gone that nothing can possibly save it. But Ozawa's stumble has given the LDP an opening. It has changed the focus of public attention from incompetent and unpopular Aso to corrupt Ozawa, a much needed break for a government fighting for its life. If the media continues to probe, and if the prosecutor's office helps to keep the story alive, Aso may continue to benefit from Ozawa's being the subject of a feeding frenzy. Moreover, it may enable the LDP to go on the offensive, something it has been unable to do virtually from the moment Aso took office. The LDP has already jumped on Ozawa's remarks about the US military presence in Japan — a Tuesday meeting of the defense policy subcommittee of the national defense division of the LDP's Policy Research Council was apparently devoted to criticism of Ozawa — and now the arrest has given new life to another line of attack, one that the LDP has already used against Ozawa but which will not undoubtedly have greater resonance. The LDP will go on the offensive, with LDP reformists declaring that the LDP's past is the DPJ's present, while Prime Minister Aso stays above the fray, solemnly proclaiming that he is above politics and focused solely on fixing the economy. I'm not saying that this will be enough to rescue the LDP, but it does give the governing party hope that it did not have before. The party is already lowering its sights for the general election to 230 seats, which, if it can get them, would be enough sufficient for the LDP to sneak back into power with Komeito's holding the key to power.

This outcome would be terrible for Japan.

An LDP-led government even more dependent on Komeito while still facing an upper house in opposition hands would make the current government look dynamic. Such a government would almost certainly trigger some form of realignment. Realignment, while perhaps necessary in the long term, will simply doom Japan to irrelevance in the near to medium term while the new parties reformed from the ashes of the old.

None of which is to say that a DPJ government would be a panacea, but at least a DPJ victory contains the possibility of a sharp break with the past and some progress on the problems facing Japan. Ozawa, for all his failings, is essential to producing a DPJ electoral victory and for making the most of such a victory. His authority, his charisma, and his political abilities are unmatched by any potential successors in the DPJ — and these qualities will be essential if the DPJ is to take on the bureaucracy, as it plans to do should it take power. But undermined by these allegations, Ozawa will have that much less authority over his party and in the eyes of the public.

Finally, as Janne Morén notes, all that may come of this is complete disillusionment with the political system, a sort of anti-"Yes we can"-ism. Some might say that Japan is already there, but I think there are still glimmers of hope among the public that it is not too late to change. Perhaps this can be overstated — Ozawa, after all, has never been seen as a saint — but this scandal may lead many to conclude that Japanese politics is simply beyond fixing.

That would be the worst possible consequence of this scandal. Japanese democracy cannot be reinvigorated without the public's taking a keen interest in how the country is governed, even if taking a keen interest means being anger at the government's failures.