Ozawa whips the DPJ and the Diet into shape

Speaking at a convention of the Osaka branch of the DPJ, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano Hirofumi spoke succinctly of the role of the DPJ's backbenchers in the new government. Hirano said that not only is it unnecessary for DPJ backbenchers to ask questions in Diet proceedings, but also the DPJ's many first-term Diet members should be focused on consolidating their support bases in their districts.

Welcome to life in Japan's emerging Westminster system, in which the job of backbenchers is — contrary to the argument made by Paul Scalise and Devin Stewart that a major problem with Japanese politics is backbenchers lacking policymaking resources (discussed here) — to show up and vote as the party, acting at the behest of the cabinet, requests.

Hirano's remarks dovetail with Ozawa Ichiro's unfolding plans to reform the mechanics of the Diet. Upon his return from Britain last month, Ozawa outlined plans to revise the Diet law to, among other things, prohibit testimony by bureaucrats so to strengthen debate among legislators. (This ban would also prevent officials of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau — a longtime Ozawa target — from appearing as witnesses in the Diet.) Ozawa also wants to trim the number of Diet committee members so that Diet members can focus on a specific policy area instead of dividing their time between multiple committees — and he wants cabinet and sub-cabinet officials to participate in committee deliberations so to clarify government policies for legislators.

Ozawa met with the secretaries general of the SDPJ and the PNP, the DPJ's coalition partners last week to discuss his plans for revising the Diet law, although the SDPJ is skeptical of the need to revise the law and it seems unlikely that revising the law will figure highly on the Diet agenda for the forthcoming extraordinary session after Hirano met with Yamaoka Kenji, the DPJ's Diet affairs chair, and suggested that the bill should be delayed until next year's ordinary session.

Ozawa is otherwise working to consolidate control of the DPJ caucus and to exclude the ruling parties from the policymaking process. Concerns about Ozawa's forging a dominant Ozawa faction out of the so-called "Ozawa children" seem to be giving way to complaints that Ozawa is consolidating his control of the DPJ and the Diet through more conventional means. Ozawa has announced the lineup of the new party executive, and is being criticized for streamlining the party leadership by folding up a number of deputy leadership posts and concentrating party in his hands and in the hands of Koshiishi Azuma, an upper house member who is not a longtime Ozawa loyalist but who has reportedly moved closer to Ozawa in recent years. (It is less than clear who is doing the criticizing: the conservative press or DPJ malcontents who would prefer to remain anonymous.) There is a greater number of upper house members among party members tapped for leadership posts, which may simply reflect the importance of the upper house for moving the government's agenda. According to Mainichi, six of ten members of the party executive are upper house members. Ozawa was also less concerned about preserving balance among the DPJ's different groups, and did not include party members from groups that have opposed him in the past, most notably Edano Yukio, a senior party member who was given neither a cabinet post nor a party leadership post.

Far from wanting to forge first-termers into a force capable of controlling the policy agenda, Ozawa does not want to see first-term DPJ members in Nagata-cho: Ozawa's group for first-term members has been suspended, and Ozawa has commanded first-termers to focus on political activities in their own districts, telling them "the work of a freshman member is to win the next election."

It is not only first-term DPJ members who have to fear Ozawa. At the meeting with his SDPJ and PNP counterparts last week, Ozawa flatly rejected an SDPJ request to convene a regular meeting among the governing parties to coordinate coalition parties, saying that it was for precisely that reason that the SDPJ's Fukushima Mizuho and the PNP's Kamei Shizuka were included the cabinet, rendering an extra-governmental meeting of secretaries general at best irrelevant and at worst harmful to cabinet government.

For all the concerns that surrounded Ozawa's appointment as DPJ secretary-general, one month into the Hatoyama government it appears that many of them were overblown. As was becoming clear even before the government took power, Ozawa sees his job as ensuring that the ruling party and the Diet are not obstacles to the cabinet's implementing its policy agenda. Ozawa has been largely silent — at least publicly — on policy questions and at every opportunity has stressed the importance of enhancing the cabinet's ability to govern. Far from dictating terms to the government, Ozawa has thus far been nothing but loyal to the Hatoyama government. There is plenty of time for that to change, but sooner or later Ozawa critics who argued that Ozawa's "army" of youngsters would be a DPJ version of the Tanaka faction will have to admit that they were mistaken about Ozawa's intentions.

Ozawa's role as the buckle linking cabinet to ruling party and Diet is critical, but ultimately he is working to strengthen the cabinet, not to undermine its power.

An important week for the Hatoyama government

Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio has returned to Japan after what appears to have been a successful introduction to the world in New York and Pittsburgh last week. The visit to the US may not have accomplished much in practical terms, but it did have symbolic importance, showing that the Hatoyama government will not shy away from speaking out on pressing international issues but that the government can also be trusted to manage Japan's relationships, most notably the US-Japan relationship.

Now the new government's work will begin in earnest. The DPJ-led government is, after all, less than two weeks old and its policymaking system has yet to make the transition from a set of orders and outlines to a working policymaking process.

At the same time, the government also faces urgent policy questions, especially the matter of what to do about Japan Airlines.

For now, the most immediate task for the prime minister is dealing with Kamei Shizuka, the People's New Party leader and minister for postal reform and financial services. In Hatoyama's absence Kamei continued to press for a law that will provide a debt repayment moratorium for small- and medium-sized enterprises — and continued to assert that despite his nominally minor position within the cabinet, he alone is responsible for ensuring that this proposal becomes law, even after Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano Hirofumi said that Kamei was speaking for himself and not for the cabinet as a whole. Kamei seems to think that each minister has clearly delineated turf over which he or she has undisputed power, a vision of policymaking that directly conflicts with the DPJ's plans for cabinet committees that will hammer out government policies.

Appearing on TV Asahi Sunday, Kamei issued a direct challenge to the prime minister, saying that if Hatoyama is opposed to his proposal, then the prime minister ought to dismiss him.

Hatoyama cannot delay any further in resolving the Kamei problem. I am still convinced that Kamei's antics stem from a desire to enhance his position in the cabinet given the ambiguities of his post, and that Kamei can be managed. The way to manage him is, of course, through the cabinet committees. The prime minister should ignore Kamei's demand that the prime minister dismiss him (he didn't say he would resign, after all), and convene a financial sector cabinet committee with Kamei, Fujii, and METI minister Naoshima Masayuki. The prime minister needs to stress that policy will be made through this system, not through an individual minister using the media as an outlet to announce his personal policy preferences. The same must go for the Basic Policy cabinet committee, comprised of Kamei, Deputy Prime Minister Kan Naoto, and Fukushima Mizuho, SDPJ leader, which is scheduled to meet for the first time Monday afternoon. It is unclear what role this committee will play in the government, but arguably Kan's task should be to marginalize it as a policymaking outfit, limiting its pronouncements to broad principles rather than specific guidelines for other cabinet ministers. Hopefully Kan and the DPJ can rely on Fukushima to isolate Kamei in the committee.

The fact that cabinet committees are only forming now shows that it is too early to panic about the workings of the Hatoyama government. The government still has not set to work in earnest. Indeed, also meeting for the first time Monday will be a committee headed by Kan to review the compilation of next year's budget, the most important task facing the new budget.

The task then for this week is to establish how the government will make its policies. As much of a nuisance as Kamei has been since the government took power, the damage has been limited and he can be bested simply by quickly getting cabinet committees in place to begin work on the government's legislative agenda for the forthcoming extraordinary Diet session — and reiterating that Kamei does not speak for the government.

At the same time, Ozawa Ichiro, fresh from a trip to Britain, where he studied parliamentary administration, will have to pressure Kamei from another direction. The PNP caucuses with the DPJ in the House of Councillors, presumably giving Ozawa power over the PNP's five upper house members. If the DPJ can rely on the PNP's support in the upper house even if the government does not do as Kamei wants, Kamei will have a much harder time defying Hatoyama.

One way or another, we should know more about how the DPJ-led government will work after this week.

Assembling the new coalition government

The DPJ has been in intense negotiations with the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ) and the People's New Party (PNP) to finalize the terms of their coalition government.

The DPJ's goal in negotiations is naturally to minimize the disruptiveness from having two parties (and their internal politics) interfere with the DPJ's plans for a streamlined policymaking process in which the cabinet will control the ruling party, and through its control of the ruling party, the Diet. In order to ensure that the same process works for the upper house, the cabinet will have to represent the will of the ruling parties — Hatoyama, in a conversation with SDPJ leader Fukushima Mizuho, stressed the importance of the government's policies reflecting the SDPJ's positions. Naturally the best way to have the ruling parties represented is by having their leaders take up positions in the cabinet. Indeed, the three parties — with Kan, the likely minister responsible for the national strategy bureau sitting in for Hatoyama, representing the DPJ — will form a committee within the cabinet to coordinate policies, the "Basic Policy Cabinet Committee," perhaps the first instance of a DPJ commitment to form a cabinet committee. (In his report on the British system of government and his article in Chuo Koron, Kan was particularly impressed by Britain's cabinet committees as a means of overcoming unanimous decision-making and stovepiping within the government, but until now it has been unclear just how the DPJ will use cabinet committees, if at all.)

As of Tuesday, the parties had agreed that leaders would join the cabinet, but were still negotiating joint positions in foreign policy, not surprisingly the area not included in the joint manifesto produced by the three parties during the campaign (which this Sankei editorial called "irresponsible"). The sticking point appears to be text related to the coalition's position on how to deal with opposition to the bilateral agreement on realignment as it pertains to a Futenma replacement facility: the DPJ and PNP have accepted a statement that stresses a bilateral solution without identifying the particular grievances (i.e., actually naming Futenma), while the SDPJ wants the statement to include specific details. The SDPJ also wants a commitment to involve only the Coast Guard in anti-piracy activities off the Horn of Africa.

Nevertheless, the parties are still trying to reach an agreement Wednesday. There appear to be few difficulties with the PNP: PNP leader Kamei Shizuka will join the cabinet as a minister without portfolio. The problem for the DPJ is, will probably continue to be, the SDPJ. The SDPJ wants to take a harder line than the DPJ is prepared to take, and given that its votes are needed in the upper house, it has power far disproportionate to its seven lower house and five upper house members. The difference is not necessarily a matter of policy preferences, but of tactics and emphasis. The DPJ appears to recognize that it can only push the US so far before it causes real damage to the alliance. I hope the Obama administration recognizes the difference between the DPJ and the SDPJ when it comes to the bilateral issues the new government wants to address — and that Washington finds some consolation prize to help the DPJ save face in lieu of full-blown renegotiation.

Managing the DPJ's relationship with the SDPJ will be much more troublesome than managing the left wing of the party, not least because the DPJ — with some credit going to Ozawa Ichiro — has forged a working consensus on foreign policy that is probably more acceptable to the left of the party than the right. (Revealingly, Yokomichi Takahiro, the unofficial leader of the party's left and an Ozawa ally, has been tapped to serve as the speaker of the House of Representatives after serving for four years as deputy speaker.)

Accordingly, even as the three parties were negotiating the terms of the coalition, Ozawa was meeting with Rengo, the labor organization, to ask for its support in next year's upper house election — stressing that the DPJ "must win a majority in next year's upper house election by any means necessary."

UPDATE: The three parties have finalized their agreement, which reportedly reflects the DPJ's softer line. Jiji's report adds that the DPJ can now accelerate the process of filling in the remainder of the cabinet.

The final numbers

The DPJ finished with 308 seats (221 SMDs, 87 PR), the LDP with 119 seats (64 and 55), Komeito with 21 (all PR), the JCP with 9 (all PR), the SDPJ with 7 (3 and 4), PNP with 3 (all SMD), YP with 5 (2 and 3), NPJ with 1 (SMD), Suzuki Muneo's micro-party won 1 PR seat in Hokkaido, and 6 independents won SMDs.

The DPJ does control a supermajority with the help of its likely coalition partners, but that won't matter much.

The DPJ swept eight prefectures, but not Hokkaido as I reported while live-blogging last night: Iwate, Fukushima, Yamanashi, Niigata, Nagano, Aichi, Shiga and Nagasaki.

The DPJ can win a majority — but what will it mean?

Having tabulated the predictions made over the course of my election handbook, I think it's appropriate that I return and answer my initial question.

Can the DPJ win an absolute majority?

Based on my district-by-district predictions, I think the DPJ could win 279 seats, the LDP 159 seats, Komeito fifteen seats, the JCP and PNP seven seats each, the SDPJ five seats, Your Party three seats, LDP-affiliated independents three seats, and small parties (affiliated with the DPJ) two seats.



In other words, the DPJ would gain 167 seats, the LDP would lose 144 seats, Komeito would lose sixteen seats, the JCP would lose two seats, the SDPJ would lose two seats, the PNP would gain two seats, and the number of independents and representatives from small parties would fall by two.

Before I go into the implications of the DPJ's winning so substantially, it was worth recalling the words of the great philosopher Yogi Berra (or, alternatively Niels Bohr — what a pair): "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." The number 279 is not in and of itself important. I suspect that my figure is probably the upper bound of a range in which the DPJ will likely win, and there is still time for the LDP to retake seats on the margins. What I think my survey suggests is simply that by looking at the race from the bottom up, it does seem likely that the DPJ will exceed the 240 seats needed for an absolute majority.

Given that the DPJ is already committed to a coalition government, however, the symbolic importance of a DPJ victory may be more important than its importance for a DPJ-led coalition, although the DPJ would presumably have more bargaining power with its coalition partners having a majority of its own. If the DPJ wins as decisively as my estimate suggests, it will truly mark the end of the LDP's permanent rule. Unlike in 1993, there will be no doubts about the public's having voted for "change." The DPJ will have a mandate. What that mandate means may, as I previously suggested, be unclear, but the DPJ will have the power to act, forcing its rivals to reconsider how best to oppose a ruling party with this level of support.

At the same time, however, the public will expect the government to act. Having an absolute majority will likely mean higher expectations for a DPJ government, its lack of a majority in the upper house notwithstanding. Of course, the higher expectations that will accompany a DPJ majority will make the July 2010 upper house elections even more important to the government.

In short, a DPJ majority could be both a blessing and a curse: public affirmation that the DPJ has arrived as a ruling party, accompanied by expectations that the DPJ do something with its mandate. Indeed, arguably at least one factor in the LDP's likely defeat will be that it squandered the mandate it received in 2005. That should be a warning for the DPJ.

What, meanwhile, would this outcome mean for the LDP? Naturally it will mean a certain amount of disarray, with faction chiefs and other party leaders losing their seats. The factions have already seen a precipitous decline in their influence within the party in matters other than the selection of sub-cabinet officials. Would a landslide defeat that includes losses by several faction leaders be the final blow to the influence of factions, as the LDP's survivors reorganize themselves along more ideological lines? After a general election the fight in the LDP will be to determine who should be nominated to run in the next general election, presumably a fight between traditionalists in places like Kyushu and Shikoku who think that the party needs to return to its roots and Nakagawa Hidenao and survivors from urban districts who think that the defeat shows why the party has to focus on winning in places other than Kyushu and Shikoku. Does anyone think that the factions would play the leading role in determining who will get the LDP's endorsement in single-member districts?

In the nearer term, the same question goes for the campaign for the party's leadership, which will be held in the weeks following the election? Especially given the breakdown in recent party elections, does anyone think that the forthcoming LDP presidential election will be decided along factional lines?

If the LDP indeed loses as badly as it appears it will, the fight within the LDP for the soul for the party will be brutal and protracted. Ozawa may not need to do anything to help the LDP tear itself to pieces. It will likely emerge stronger from defeat, but it will not be the same LDP. In the end, the LDP may find itself looking for candidates like the DPJ's this year: younger, a bit more female, and perhaps some bureaucratic experience (but not too much) or else backgrounds in finance or the media. It will certainly have no problem saying no to a DPJ government.

Kyushu, a conservative bastion

This is the eleventh and final installment in my general election guide. For an explanation of my purpose in making this guide, see here. For previous installments, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Kyushu regional block contains thirty-eight single-member districts spread over eight prefectures: Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Okinawa. The block elects an additional twenty-one representatives through proportional representation, for a total of fifty-nine seats.

The region's major population center is Fukuoka, which constitutes roughly a third of the region's population, with the rest of the region's prefectures being roughly equal in population. The region's economic profile is mixed, including agricultural production suiting that region's sub-tropical climate and heavy industry in northern Kyushu. It was once a major mining center, home to Aso Mining, the family business of Prime Minister Aso Taro.

Along with Shikoku and Chugoku it has been a historically important electoral base for the LDP.

In 2005, opposition parties won seven SMDs, four of those being won by DPJ candidates. Meanwhile the LDP won twenty-five seats and Komeito won six. In PR voting, the LDP won nine, the DPJ seven, Komeito three, and the SDPJ and JCP one each. In 2003, the LDP won twenty-six seats, Komeito one, and the opposition parties eleven, with the DPJ winning eight.

However, opposition parties in five of the region's single-member upper house districts in 2007, suggesting the possibility of DPJ gains in the region.

Fukuoka

In Fukuoka in 2005, the LDP won nine seats and Komeito and the DPJ one each.

The DPJ's Matsumoto Ryu (first district) should easily win the district in which he has won every election since the first election under the new system in 1996.

Meanwhile LDP candidates are likely safe in two districts: Aso Taro (eighth district) and Takeda Ryota (eleventh district). Given that Aso is acting as if his seat is vulnerable — he is declined to run simultaneously as a PR candidate — perhaps I should not list his seat as safe, but I think that Aso will not join John Howard as a leader who loses his government and his constituency in the same election. DPJ candidate Yamamoto Gosei may put pressure on the prime minister — he'll be helped by the absence of a JCP candidate — but I expect Aso will win. If he doesn't, perhaps these predictions are the lower bound for the DPJ's performance on 30 August.

Takeda, who after three attempts finally won a seat in 2003 as a conservative independent who joined the LDP in 2004 only to leave it in 2005 as a postal rebel and win the district as an independent once more, will run as the LDP's candidate this year. He faces the SDPJ's Yamaguchi Haruna and JCP candidate Yamashita Tomiko. The fight will be over the 78,000 votes received by Yamamoto Kozo, the LDP candidate in 2005. Takeda will likely win.

But otherwise LDP candidates across Fukuoka are vulnerable. In the second district, Yamasaki Taku, an LDP faction leader, has profited from divided fields in 2003 and 2005 to win reelection. In 2000, the last time the field included only a DPJ candidate and a JCP candidate (as it does this year) Yamasaki lost by 10,000 votes. Yamasaki is high on the list of LDP heavyweights likely to go down to defeat, bested by DPJ newcomer Inatomi Shuji.

Ota Seiichi in the third district may be even more vulnerable than Yamasaki: in 2005 Ota defeated Fujita Kazue, this year's DPJ candidate and winner of the district in 2003. Fujita will likely win again.

In the fourth district the DPJ may benefit from the absence of a JCP candidate, as JCP candidates received around 15,000 votes in the past several elections, turning what would have been close races into comfortable victories for LDP incumbent Watanabe Tomoyoshi. This time DPJ candidate Koga Takaaki has the field to himself, and could emerge as the winner as a result.

Similarly, in the fifth district DPJ candidate Kusuda Daizo will try for the third time to unseat LDP incumbent Harada Yoshiaki. Harada won by 35,000 votes in 2005, 25,000 in 2003, when Kusuda won a PR seat. But in 2003 Harada shared the field with candidates from the JCP and the SDPJ, who combined for 30,000 votes, enough to swing the election to Harada. This time Harada won't have help from other opposition parties.

Also vulnerable is Hatoyama Kunio, DPJ leader Yukio's brother, who parachuted into the sixth district in 2005 and defeated DPJ incumbent Koga Issei. Koga lost by 22,000 votes and won a PR seat, with a JCP candidate taking 11,000 votes. The absence of a JCP candidate should help Koga, but for his part he is publicly skeptical of his chances, citing the press Hatoyama received due to his departure from the Aso cabinet. Hatoyama may hold on to win.

A third LDP faction leader — besides Yamasaki and Aso — is up for reelection in Fukuoka, Koga Makoto in the seventh district. Like Aso, Koga has declined to run simultaneously as an SMD and PR candidate. Koga faces the DPJ's Noda Kuniyoshi, who previously served as mayor of Yameshi city — and no other candidates. The JCP, for example, took nearly 20,000 votes in 2005, which made little difference in 2005 but could be decisive this year, especially since Koga's vote total has fallen gradually since 2000. Like Yamasaki, I think Koga will lose.

The DPJ may have an even easier time in the ninth district, which until 2005 had been represented by Kitahashi Kenji, first elected in 1996 as an NFP candidate and reelected in 2000 and 2003 as a DPJ candidate. He lost by 15,000 votes in 2005 and won a PR seat, but resigned to run for and win the mayoralty of Kita Kyushu city. In his place the DPJ is running Ogata Rintaro, a former foreign ministry official. Given the DPJ's history in the district, I suspect Ogata will win against LDP incumbent Mihara Asahiko.

Finally, in the tenth district LDP incumbent Nishikawa Kyoko faces the DPJ's Kii Takashi, who first ran in 2003 and finished 12,000 votes behind the LDP's Jimi Shozaburo. Jimi left the party as a postal rebel in 2005 and finished second behind Nishikawa with 65,000 votes, 5,000 votes ahead of Kii. The JCP is running a candidate again, but the SDPJ, which received 10,000 votes in 2005, is not. If Kii can take the bulk of the votes received by Jimi in 2005, he should win the seat.

The DPJ should do very well in Fukuoka, winning at least eight of eleven seats.

Saga

In 2005, postal rebels won two of three seats, with the LDP winning the third. As the postal rebels have returned to the LDP, the LDP is defending all three seats in the prefecture.

In the first district, DPJ candidate Haraguchi Kazuhiro has run in each of the four elections since 1996, winning in 1996 as an NFP candidate and 2003 as a DPJ candidate, and losing in 2000 and 2005 as a DPJ candidate but returning as a PR representative. In this race he faces Fukuoka Takamoro, the victorious LDP candidate from 2005 who Haraguchi defeated in 2003. Haraguchi should return as the SMD representative.

In the second district, 2005 postal rebel Imamura Masahiro returns as the LDP candidate facing Oogushi Hiroshi, the DPJ candidate from 2005 who lost by 15,000 votes and won a PR seat. The question in the second district is what will happen to the 35,000 voters who supported LDP candidate Dokai Chiaki in 2005: do they vote for the party or for the policy line, and if so, which policy line? Imamura could hold on to his seat.

The third district features, in addition to the LDP's Hori Kosuke — another postal rebel — and the DPJ-backed SDPJ candidate Yanase Eiji, candidates from the JCP and Watanabe's YP. Hori should retain the seat.

The DPJ will win at least one of three seats in Saga.

Nagasaki

In Nagasaki's four districts in 2005, the LDP won three and the DPJ one.

The DPJ Takaki Yoshiaki (first district), who has represented the district since 2000, should win reelection comfortably.

In the second district, Kyuma Fumio, Japan's first ever defense minister, faces Fukuda Eriko, the twenty-eight-year-old leader of the Kyushu group of victims of Hepatitis-tainted blood transfusions, handpicked by Ozawa to run against Kyuma. Kyuma is clearly worried after having years of being reelected comfortably. Like Koga Makoto in Fukuoka, Kyuma's vote shares have gradually declined in recent elections. Kyuma may also suffer from memories of the remarks regarding the Nagasaki bombing in 2007 that led to his resignation as defense minister. With the DPJ focused on defeating Kyuma, Fukuda might win the upset.

Tanigawa Yaichi, the LDP's incumbent in the third district, has fought close elections with the DPJ's Yamada Masahiko in the past two elections, winning by 6,000 votes in 2003 and 9,000 votes in 2005. Yamada won PR seats in both elections. Reporting suggests that Tanigawa is confident that he can retain his seat on the back of Komeito support in the district, as is the LDP's Kitamura Seigo in the fourth district, who faces DPJ candidate Miyajima Daisuke. Miyajima won a by-election in the district in 1998 as an LDP candidate but lost to Kitamura by 30,000 votes in 2005.

The result could be a split in Nagasaki.

Kumamoto

In Kumamoto in 2005 the LDP won four seats and the DPJ won one.

The DPJ's Matsumoto Yorihisa (first district) will win the seat he first won in 2000.

In the second district the LDP's Hayashida Takeshi, running again in the SMD after alternating with Noda Takeshi in a Costa Rica arrangement, faces DPJ newcomer Fukushima Kenichiro and should win the district.

The third district was won by the late Matsuoka Toshikatsu in 2005, and was won by independent Sakamoto Tetsushi in the by-election following Matsuoka's suicide. Sakamoto has since joined the LDP, and faces the DPJ's Goto Hidetomo and former LDP member Miura Issui, running as an independent. It seems, however, that Sakamoto and Miura may divide the support of groups that have traditionally supported the LDP. Nevertheless, the DPJ has never done well in the district, and the winner will be either Sakamoto or Miura. Miura may edge out Sakamoto, who did the same to Matsuoka running as an independent in 2003.

In the fourth district LDP incumbent Sonoda Hiroyuki should win reelection easily, as should Kaneko Yasushi in the fifth district.

The LDP will win three, the DPJ one, and an independent conservative one.


Oita

The LDP took two seats and the DPJ one in Oita in 2005.

The DPJ's Kira Shuji (first district), who first won as an independent in 2003 and won reelection in 2005, should win the seat again.

In the second district, the SDPJ may be poised to pick up a seat, as Shigeno Yasumasa runs for the third time against LDP incumbent Eto Seishiro. Shigeno lost by 21,000 votes in 2005, closing the gap from 2003 and earning Shigeno a PR seat. With no JCP candidate running this time — the JCP received nearly 15,000 votes in 2005 — Shigeno could unseat Eto.

In the third district, the DPJ's Yokomitsu Katsuhiko will try for the third time to unseat LDP incumbent Iwaya Takeshi. Yokomitsu, losing by 12,000 votes in 2003 and 15,000 votes in 2005, won PR seats both times. The election will be close, and may ultimately depend on the ability of Yokomitsu to bring out SDPJ voters — Yokomitsu ran in 2003 as an SDPJ candidate before switching to the DPJ, and the two parties had a bitter dispute over who should run in Oita in the 2007 upper house election, resulting in both parties' fielding candidates and the LDP's winning the Oita single-member district.

Iwaya could hold on, with the result that the DPJ wins one, the LDP one, and the SDPJ one.

Miyazaki

Miyazaki is odd: LDP-affiliated candidates won all three seats in 2005, although at the time two of three were running as independent postal rebels (and both had first won in 2003 by running as independents, joining the LDP after the election). The postal rebels have returned to the LDP, but meanwhile, Nakayama Nariaki (first district), the one LDP member who did win in 2005 and is now known for resigning three days after taking office as Aso's transport minister due to comments about Nikkyoso, initially announced that he would retire but changed his mind and is now running as an independent, albeit as an independent with the support of senior LDP leaders like Machimura Nobutaka.

In the first district, the field includes, in addition to Nakayama, LDP-related independent Uesugi Mitsuhiro, a former upper house member who ran as the LDP candidate in the second district in 2005 and lost, Kawamura Hidesaburo, a former MAFF official running as an independent with DPJ, SDPJ, and PNP backing, and a JCP candidate. I suspect that Nakayama will win reelection.

Eto Taku, a postal rebel who returned to the LDP, is seeking another term in the second district, facing the DPJ's Dokyu Seichiro and an independent. Eto will likely win reelection.

In the third district, Furukawa Yoshihisa should win reelection easily.

With Nakayama likely to return to the LDP after the election, the LDP will presumably win three seats in Miyazaki.

Kagoshima

Although the LDP did not win all five seats in 2005, it is now defending all five seats in Kagoshima.

The DPJ's best chance of picking up a seat is in the first district, where LDP incumbent Yasuoka Okiharu faces the DPJ's Kawauchi Hiroshi, who has lost to Yasuoka by roughly 20,000 votes the past two elections and 9,000 votes in 2000, winning PR seats each time. The JCP is fielding a candidate and independent Yamashita Junichi is running, but Kawauchi may manage to win the district this time.

The LDP candidate in the second district, Tokuda Takeshi, was elected as an independent in 2005 but migrated to the LDP and now faces DPJ candidate Uchikoshi Akashi, a former prefectural assemblyman. As the DPJ has never fielded a candidate in the district, it is unclear how the DPJ brand will do. Uchikoshi ran as an independent in 2005 and received nearly 45,000 votes, but Tokuda and the LDP candidate combined for nearly 160,000 votes. Tokuda will probably be reelected.

In the third district, the PNP may be poised to pick up a seat as the joint PNP-DPJ candidate, Matsushita Tadahiro, finished second in 2005 to the LDP's Miyaji Kazuaki, but the DPJ vote combined with Matsushita's votes would have bested Miyaji.

The DPJ candidate in the fourth district is former Rengo Kagoshima vice president Minayoshi Inao, who faces LDP incumbent Ozato Yasuhiro. Ozato has consistently beaten opposition candidate by 40,000 votes and should win again.

Moriyama Hiroshi, the LDP's former postal rebel incumbent in the fifth district, won by 55,000 votes of an LDP "assassin" in 2005 and in 2003 defeated the DPJ's candidate by nearly 100,000 votes. He will be reelected.

The LDP will win three seats, the DPJ one, and the PNP one.

Okinawa

In Okinawa in 2005 the LDP won two seats, the SDPJ won one, and a DPJ-backed independent who has since joined the PNP won one.

In the first district, PNP incumbent Shimoji Mikio should win reelection, as should the SDPJ's Teruya Kantoku in the second district.

The LDP's incumbent in the third district, Kakazu Chiken, won in 2005 because both the DPJ and the SDPJ fielded candidates, Tamaki Deni and Tomon Mitsuko respectively. Once again the two opposition parties will be fielding these candidates, despite their combined vote in 2005 being enough to defeat Kakazu. All that may change this year is that Tamaki finishes second instead of Tomon.

Finally, in the fourth district the LDP's Nishime Kosaburo faces DPJ newcomer Zukeran Chobin. Nishime also won due to a divided field, with the DPJ, JCP, and PNP dividing up 72,000 votes that would have been sufficient to beat Nishime. Zukeran, having the field to himself, may win the district for the DPJ.

The result in Okinawa will be one for the DPJ, one for the LDP, one for the SDPJ, and one for the PNP.

Proportional representation

It is unlikely that the DPJ will run as strong in the Kyushu regional block as it will elsewhere, especially because Komeito will run stronger in Kyushu than it will elsewhere. In 2005, for example, Komeito received nearly 16% of the vote and won three PR seats. The likely PR outcome is for the LDP and the DPJ to reverse their totals, and perhaps the PNP winning a seat instead of the SDPJ, leaving the distribution at nine for the DPJ, seven for the LDP, three for Komeito, one for the JCP, and one for the PNP.

If these predictions, the DPJ will win twenty-four seats, the LDP twenty-five, the PNP three, Komeito three, the SDPJ two, the JCP one, and an independent conservative will win the last seat.