So much for the LDP's popularity

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

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

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

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

The DPJ's way forward should not include Hiranuma

Convinced that a major electoral breakthrough is at hand following Hiraoka Hideo's impressive victory in Yamaguchi-2 Sunday, the DPJ leadership (a.ka., Ozawa Ichiro) has decided that it will continue to try to force the government to dissolve the HR and call a general election.

To that end, Mr. Ozawa indicated yesterday that the DPJ will push for an HC censure motion if and when the government passes the road construction plan in the HR a second time, expected after 12 May.

It has never been likely that a DPJ-backed HC censure motion would push the government to call an election — or else it would have passed one by now. With the government reeling from its defeat Sunday and Mr. Fukuda's future bleak, it is even less likely that an HC censure motion will trigger a general election. There may yet be a general election this year, but Sunday ensured that it won't be held under Mr. Fukuda's watch. A censure motion at this point will be a powerless stunt, one more blow to Mr. Fukuda's shambolic government, and a tiny one at that. I don't think it will hurt the DPJ, but it won't change the situation either. As Yamaguchi Jiro argues, the non-binding censure motion is a "wooden sword:" it won't topple the government, but it can damage Mr. Fukuda's reputation at home and abroad. So if the DPJ is determined to pass a censure motion, it should do it and then move on, without over-dramatizing the measure. It will mean exactly what it says it is; the DPJ is disappointed with the government's indifference to public opinion and is registering its disapproval officially. That's all.

That said, Mr. Ozawa is clearly feeling more confident and more powerful within the party following Sunday's victory. Sankei reports that he was all smiles at yesterday's press conference, for good reason, because the Yamaguchi-2 by-election probably stifled the gathering effort by DPJ reformists to find a serious candidate to run against Mr. Ozawa in the party's September leadership election. But it is at moments like this that the DPJ has to be especially cautious, given Mr. Ozawa's tendency to get carried away in his efforts to exploit what like to be prime opportunities.

It is worth noting that Mr. Ozawa dined with none other than Hiranuma Takeo on Monday evening, where they exchanged views about the political situation and prompted speculation that Mr. Hiranuma's still non-existent "Hiranuma New Party" and the DPJ could cooperate. Both agreed that the LDP is "useless." The DPJ will already cooperate with Mr. Hiranuma in one sense, in that the party will not be fielding a candidate in the Okayama-3 district he represents. I hope that Mr. Ozawa and the DPJ don't go any further in their cooperation with Mr. Hiranuma. I don't see how the DPJ can gain from closer association with the arch-conservative Hiranuma (although the DPJ would obviously benefit if Mr. Hiranuma were to form a party and pry away his LDP friends in Nakagawa Shoichi's study group).

As I argued yesterday, the DPJ needs to worry less about how to hasten a general election and more about how to hone its image as the reformist party that is more sensitive to the public's needs than the LDP. The LDP is tearing itself apart with the DPJ doing little more than using its control of the HC to stymie the government's agenda. It should keep doing that — and not look for apparent shortcuts to a general election that could tarnish the DPJ's image.

Dissecting Hiraoka's victory

It is probably safe to call Hiraoka Hideo's victory in Yamaguchi-2 resounding.

He received 116,348 votes, approximately 13,000 more votes than he received in 2005 when he lost to Fukuda Yoshihiko and 7,000 more votes than his previous high (109,647), which he received running for reelection in 2003. He received 22,000 votes than the LDP's Yamamoto Shigetaro, and his 116,348 votes amounts to 54.7% of the 212,540 votes cast. Interestingly, the 13,000-vote improvement over 2005 is roughly equivalent to the amount of votes received by Yamanaka Ryoji, the JCP candidate in 2005. Given that Mr. Yamamoto received approximately 10,000 fewer votes than Mr. Fukuda did in 2005, Mr. Hiraoka's margin of victory cannot be attributed solely to the absence of a JCP candidate — but it certainly didn't hurt. (For data on Yamaguchi-2, please see Japanese Wikipedia's entry on the district.)

It is a mistake, however, to draw too many conclusions about the DPJ's prospects in a general election based on this campaign, given the number of conditions in the DPJ's favor that had little to do with the national political situation. Given the DPJ candidate's history of success in the district, the party was the prohibitive favorite — it would have been a problem if the party could not pick up the seat. It does suggest that Mr. Ozawa's effort to recruit quality candidates may yet bear fruit. Obviously there is no more "quality" candidate than an incumbent (PR) member of the lower house who had previously won the district in multiple elections. But the candidate matters, and the more candidates the DPJ can recruit who have won elections, regardless of the level, the better the party should fare. (Recall that this is an element of Ethan Scheiner's argument about opposition failure.)

Is it possible to divine the state of the Japanese electorate from this by-election? Machimura Nobutaka says no. In a literal sense, Mr. Machimura is right. The votes of citizens in Yamaguchi-2 reflect the views only of those citizens. It is also difficult to discern the extent to which the campaign was driven by local issues and by national issues. As MTC suggests, for example, the presence of MCAS Iwakuni in the district may have been a hidden factor in the election. But national issues, especially the government's poorly planned introduction of a new medical care system for seniors clearly played an important role — as expected — and the government is delusional if it thinks it's dealing with localized grievances.

While Mr. Hiraoka's victory may have been a foregone conclusion, the size of his victory was not. Arguably this by-election is but the latest manifestation of the deep and growing discontent among the Japanese people with the government, the disillusionment that prompted voters to reject LDP HC candidates throughout the country last summer. Mr. Hiraoka took this line in discussing his victory. The LDP-led government has done little since July to combat the malaise; indeed, the government has arguably worsened the malaise as a result not only of its inability to fix old problems — the pensions scandal — but its inability to present a coherent program to voters. Perhaps Mr. Hiraoka's margin of victory is a sign that voters have rejected the government's attempts to blame the DPJ for policy paralysis. Perhaps the voters recognize, even if the pundits don't, that the general election ought to and will be a referendum on LDP rule, not on the DPJ's ability (or lack thereof) to wield power.

How will the Fukuda government respond? As MTC notes (see link above), "...It will almost certainly increase the timidity of the Cabinet and the ruling coalition as regards policy innovation and implementation. When you are down, everything difficult looks like a threat. When you are struggling, every challenge looks too unpopular to undertake." I suspect that's the right conclusion to draw. The risk-averse school — the besieged elders — in the LDP will continue to call the shots, which means that the Fukuda government will continue its race to oblivion. For the LDP's leaders, the least risky thing to do is to proceed exactly as planned, re-passing the tax bill on Wednesday and the prevailing road construction bill — not Mr. Fukuda's "compromise" bill — after the sixty-day period expires on 12 May.

At this point the DPJ needs to do little more than continue to harass the government and undermine whatever claims it makes to be fighting for reform. Tend your own garden, Mr. Ozawa. Ensure that your candidates are ready for an election when it comes. Call attention to the inconsistencies in the government's plans. Flesh out just what "regime change" will mean for Japan.

In the meantime, the LDP will continue to crumble, as potential successors campaign more openly to replace the enfeebled prime minister and as the party's contending schools of thought fight bitterly over how the party should proceed and by extension what identity the party should adopt.

And the malaise will spread.

Hiraoka wins

As expected, Prime Minister Fukuda was welcomed back to Japan after his trip to Russia by a DPJ victory in the Yamaguchi-2 by-election.

Hiraoka Hideo defeated the LDP's Yamamoto Shigetaro by a still unknown margin of victory. Mainichi reports that the turnout rate was 69%, a fall from 2005's 72.45%.

It's hard to make any definite conclusions without seeing just how big a victory Mr. Hiroka won, but undoubtedly this will intensify pressure on the government from the LDP, but more importantly, it will likely intensify pressure from within the LDP on Mr. Fukuda. Expect more "post Fukuda" talk in the coming weeks. Additionally, after a rough couple of months, Mr. Ozawa may find himself bolstered within the party and hungrier to press on to a general election.

Counting down to X-Day

With less than a week until 30 April — "X-Day" — when the government intends to bring the tax bill to a vote in the HR again, the DPJ is apparently stepping away from threats to censure the government in response to the revote.

Kan Naoto indicated at a press conference Thursday that the party has yet to decide how it will respond to the expected reinstatement of the temporary gasoline tax, noting that there is a discussion underway about whether a censure motion will pressure the government into dissolving the HR and calling a general election.

This should come as no surprise. It became clear last fall that despite being able to pass non-binding censure motions, the HC is largely powerless when it comes to resisting a government armed with a two-thirds majority in the HR. For all the complaints from the LDP about how irresponsible the DPJ has been acting, the government has still been able to get what it wants through the Diet, even if it has to wait sixty days on occasion (which would be less of a problem if the government planned better).

The DPJ's only ally in its fight against the government is public opinion. The public's ambivalence about the MSDF refueling mission meant that the DPJ was impotent in the face of the government's determination to restart the mission. Will the same dynamic apply next week?

Both parties are keenly watching how public opinion breaks in the days between the by-election in Yamaguchi-2 on 27 April and the HR vote on 30 April. As Sato Hiroya suggests:

Whether the LDP wins or loses, if there's a narrow margin, the LDP will likely go ahead and forcibly pass this bill again. However, if the LDP candidate loses by an unexpectedly large margin, it is likely that it will not be easy for the LDP to take the strong step of passing it again on the 30th.

In short, the government will conclude that the political consequences of the temporary tax are negligible and proceed as planned. A close and/or victorious election will stand in for the numerous opinion polls showing opposition to the temporary tax.

Pushing forward with the tax bill does, however, entail some risk to the government, particularly if public opposition translates into a vocal backlash following the bill's second passage.

It's possible that the situation is not as dire for the Fukuda government as it appears. Yamamoto Ichita thinks that both the potential rebels within the LDP and the DPJ are full of bluster but will ultimately fail to deliver: the rebels will fall into line and vote with the party, the DPJ will not pass a censure motion in the HC, and the government will get its way on the two votes (the tax bill vote next week, and the road construction bill sometime in May). In short, the government will survive this crisis by acting resolutely and not wavering.

As suggested above, he may be right about the DPJ. I'm still not convinced, however, that the LDP has stifled the rebellion, especially if Sunday results in a DPJ landslide, an entirely plausible outcome.

That's the flaw in Mr. Yamamoto's "election avoidance syndrome" theory. Of course elected officials would prefer to put off an election for as long as possible. But they would also like to win the election when it comes. Given a choice between taking an action that might bolster their electoral prospects at the risk of hastening a general election, which instinct wins out? If a DPJ landslide provides a clear illustration for LDP HR members of their vulnerability in a general election, will they be as inclined to vote again for a measure opposed by an overwhelming majority of the public?

In short, an overwhelming DPJ victory in Yamaguchi-2 could have far greater impact on how the government proceeds than the threat of a censure motion ever could.

Koizumi goes to work for the government?

The Fukuda government has announced that it will definitely proceed with plans to submit the tax bill to the HR for a second vote on 30 April, the day after the expiration of the sixty-day Article 59 window. No word from Asahi or Mainichi about whether the LDP and Komeito will face defections when the HR votes — recall that it will take all of eight defectors to defeat the measure and trigger a crisis. Presumably the government is confident that it has the votes if it is announcing that it will definite reimpose the tax. But it will still have to weather the blow to its popularity from reinstating the unpopular measure.

No better time for Koizumi Junichiro — who is, as discussed in this post, still more popular among LDP supporters and the public at large than Mr. Fukuda and his likely successors — to begin playing a role defending the government.

On Tuesday, Mr. Koizumi met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura, and stated that he thinks that a mooted HC censure motion will not have the support of the public. The government has already started to make the case that it has nothing to fear from a censure motion, and it will need all the help it can get in prelude and aftermath to the HR vote.

Whether Mr. Koizumi has the power to blunt public opinion running against the government may be tested this week. The LDP executive has stated its desire to harness Mr. Koizumi's popularity and use him to explain the government's new pensions plan to concerned elderly voters who may be leaning towards Hiraoka Hideo.

Unlike the Abe cabinet, which did everything it could to distance itself from the former prime minister, Mr. Fukuda and his leadership team have no concerns about letting Mr. Koizumi overshadow the prime minister if it means a victory for the party, whether in Yamaguchi-2 or in the showdown with the DPJ over the temporary tax.

Asahi reported that the LDP executive wants Mr. Koizumi's help. But no word on whether Mr. Koizumi wants to help — or whether his active support will be able to reverse Mr. Fukuda's declining popularity.

DPJ cruising to victory in Yamaguchi-2

As expected, the DPJ's Hiraoka Hideo is in a strong position with less than a week before the by-election in Yamaguchi's second district.

A poll conducted by Mainichi over the weekend reveals that voters' concerns favor the DPJ. Health and welfare policy are the top priority (22%), followed by the pensions problem (20%), administrative reform (14%), economic growth (12%), regional revitalization (12%), education (8%), combating inequality (6%), and agricultural policy (2%). A majority of respondents who said that health and welfare, and the pensions problem are most important stated that they support Mr. Hiraoka; a majority of those who gave highest priority to regional revitalization said they favored the LDP's Yamamoto Shigetaro. The poll also found that Mr. Hiraoka bested Mr. Yamamoto among respondents in their 60s and 70s, a distressing sign for an LDP that has relied on the elderly vote. Another encouraging sign for Mr. Hiraoka is that the absence of a JCP candidate will be to his advantage: approximately sixty percent of JCP supporters said they would vote for Mr. Hiraoka, compared to only twenty percent who said they would vote for Mr. Yamamoto.

The LDP is clearly panicked over the prospect of getting trounced in Yamaguchi, not least because it could both doom efforts to reimpose the temporary gasoline tax and inject a degree of urgency into the post-Fukuda discussion. The party is particularly concerned about the defection of elderly voters, and is scrambling to provide a simple explanation of the party's plans for a new pensions system. (Jun Okumura has more on the new pensions scheme here.) The LDP and Komeito continue to hope that visits from high-level officials will rally their supporters — Mr. Fukuda and Mr. Ota were in district over the weekend — but it is unlikely that these campaign visits will be enough shift the momentum in Mr. Yamamoto's favor.

The DPJ, not surprisingly, is feeling confident, although the DPJ and other opposition parties are sending party leaders to the district too. On Saturday, Kan Naoto (DPJ), Tanaka Yasuo (NPJ), Kamei Shizuka (PNP), and Fukushima Mizuho (SDPJ) attended an event for Mr. Hiraoka. The speakers attacked LDP rule as failing to protect the weak and revive stagnant regions — and Mr. Kan attacked bureaucrats for putting their interests before the people's interests.

The contrast between the LDP's and the DPJ's positions in advance of the by-election is revealing. The LDP is struggling to figure just what it's running on, while the DPJ is hammering away at the government for misuse of power. Whatever the national opinion polls say, the DPJ sounds increasingly ready to contest a general election and strike another major blow against the LDP.

Off to the races in Yamaguchi-2

Today marks the official start of campaigning in the by-election for Yamaguchi's second electoral district; the election will be held on 27 April.

The election, to fill the seat vacated by newly elected Iwakuni mayor Fukuda Yoshihiko, pits the LDP's Yamamoto Shigetaro (59) against the DPJ's Hiraoka Hideo (54). Mr. Hiraoka is a three-term Diet member who first won election in 2000, winning 104,372 to 97,355 votes over the LDP incumbent, Sato Shinji. He was reelected over Mr. Sato in 2003, widening his margin of victory to 109,647 to 91,087 votes. In 2005, however, he was narrowly defeated by Mr. Fukuda, 104,322 to 103,374, although he was returned to the Diet via the Chugoku PR block.

Mr. Yamamoto, competing in his first election, is a recently retired bureaucrat who began his career in the construction ministry in 1972 and as of 2007 was coordinating regional revitalization policy at the office of the chief cabinet secretary.

As Sankei notes on the by-election, the campaign is the primary battleground now as the road construction/gasoline tax fight reaches a climax (the HR will be able to vote again on the tax bill from 29 April), with major figures from both parties trekking to Yamaguchi to campaign on behalf of the candidates. The election is, of course, also a test for Prime Minister Fukuda. If Mr. Yamamoto can win, Mr. Fukuda may be able to shore up his position within the LDP on the basis of his ability to get LDP candidates elected.

I feel confident predicting that Mr. Hiraoka will regain the seat he lost in 2005. Given his history of success in the district (winning his seat by defeating an LDP incumbent first elected in 1979), his narrow defeat in 2005 (a terrible year for DPJ candidates, making his close margin of defeat a point in his favor), and the general loss of confidence in the Fukuda governmen, Mr. Hiraoka will win an impressive victory over the newcomer Mr. Yamamoto. Mr. Hiraoka's previous election results attest to his skills as a campaigner and his support in the district, something that Mr. Yamamoto — even with the backing of LDP heavyweights like Aso Taro and Koike Yuriko — will be unable to top. In fact, I expect that Mr. Hiraoka may equal or better his 2003 total of 109,647 votes and will likely be aided by the absence of a JCP candidate in the race. (Yamanaka Ryoji, the JCP candidate in 2005, received 13,499 votes, more than enough to make a difference in the narrow race.)

The Japanese media's take on this by-election is that it's rooted in national dynamics. Maybe, but I would argue that the national dynamics hurt Mr. Yamamoto far more than they help (or hurt) Mr. Hiraoka. It would take a fair wind in the LDP's favor to neutralize Mr. Hiraoka's advantages. That's what happened in 2005, after all, and even the LDP won by only the slightest of margins. The fundamentals of the race favor the DPJ.