The LDP race begins

The race to succeed Aso Taro as LDP president begins today, with three candidates vying for the unenviable task of fixing a broken Liberal Democratic Party.

Surprisingly the race includes none of the candidates who Aso defeated to win the job last year: Ishiba Shigeru, despite being perhaps the most enthusiastic of the potential candidates, backed down earlier this week as Tanigaki Sadakazu gathered support from party elders.

Tanigaki, at sixty-four the oldest candidate in the race, faces two forty-six-year-old rivals, Kono Taro and Nishimura Yasutoshi. Kono is the articulate, intelligent, American-educated son of now-retired LDP elder statesman Kono Yohei; Nishimura is a three-term representative from Hyogo and former METI official. Neither of the younger candidates has ministerial experience, although Kono is renown for his policy expertise and has been parliamentary vice ministery of justice as well as chairman of the lower house foreign affairs committee (and has served five terms to Nishimura's three). Nishimura meanwhile is a former Machimura faction member, but half of his endorsements came from Machimura faction members.

As a result the race is not surprisingly being cast as a clash of generations: Tanigaki, not necessarily old but older and backed by the party's old guard, against Kono, scion of an old LDP family but brimming with policy ideas and reformist zeal, with Nishimura unlikely to cut into Kono's vote. For his part Tanigaki is trying to bridge generations by presenting himself as the most viable reform candidate, not the cat's paw of the factions.

The race is more unpredictable than it appeared after Tanigaki entered the race with the backing of senior party leaders, because the race will be decided not by the party's 199 Diet members but by the 300 votes wielded by prefectural chapters. A Yomiuri poll found Tanigaki and Kono running virtually even, with Tanigaki leading Kono 34% to 33%, with Nishmura receiving the support of a mere 2%. (Yamamoto Ichita, a Kono supporter, is heartened by these numbers.)

Were Kono to win, it would be a sign that LDP supporters are ready for the party to move in a new direction, even if the party's Diet members are more reluctant to do so. But electing Kono is also risky. While he would no doubt be more enthusiastic about reorganizing the party — for example along the lines proposed by the party revival council, which most notably called for the end of factions despite having said it would soften its position on the factions — he would probably have a harder time than Tanigaki getting party elders to commit to even modest reforms. He may be a more formidable challenger for the DPJ on policy terms, given Kono's policy expertise and seeing as how Tanigaki may be closest to the DPJ in terms of policy preferences. But it is difficult to see how Kono could succeed in remaking a party that after the election is top heavy in terms of the ratio of old to young. It would be all too easy party elders to resist Kono when it comes to fundamental reform. The election of Kono would bear at least superficial resemblance to the DPJ's election of Maehara Seiji following the disastrous 2005 election — resulting in Maehara's equally disastrous stint as party leader. Kono would not necessarily make the same political errors that doomed Maehara, but he would likely face even more daunting obstacles than Maehara faced.

A majority of the public expects that the LDP will be able to fix itself and remain the second pole in a two-party system. The problem in the party leadership election is that while Kono's election would have greater symbolism as a break with the past (despite his lineage), Tanigaki might be more capable of moving the LDP even modestly in a new direction. Nevertheless, LDP members have two good choices before them, and both represent a step forward for a party that in recent years has been characterized mostly by its distance from the concerns of the Japanese people.

Tanigaki as the compromise candidate

For the second time in three months, an effort by younger LDP members to lead the party in a different direction has run out of steam not long after getting started.

Ishihara Nobuteru (52), the last hope of the LDP's younger members, bowed out of the upcoming LDP presidential election on Saturday, clearing the way for Tanigaki Sadakazu (64), who has entered the race as the preferred candidate of the party's elders. Tanigaki will likely face Ishiba Shigeru and possibly Kono Taro (46), who has expressed interest in running and is undoubtedly a rising star in the party but is perhaps too young to assemble a winning coalition in time for this month's election. If the LDP is going to change, it won't be as the result of generational change within the party.

The LDP's "Rebirth Council," discussed here, has already backed away from harsh criticism of the factions and their leaders. If anything, the demographics favor the LDP's elders. 40% of the party's winners are over 60, the average age of the party's Diet members rose to 56.6, and Diet members who have won seven or more elections outnumber those who have won one to three elections 38 to 30, with the remaining 51 having won between four and six elections. In other words, too many leaders, not enough followers — and the leaders are not about to bow to the followers.

What of the prospects for party reform should Tanigaki win, and given the number of votes given to party chapters his victory is far from assured? Probably modest at best. The gist of Tanigaki's remarks is that he will try to please everyone as the party prepares for next year's upper house election: the young have a role to play, the factions should not be dissolved but should play a different role, and senior leaders should spend more time traveling the country speaking with voters. As Jun Okumura suggests, having the dovish Tanigaki as opposition leader might signal less of a policy departure than meets the eye: Amari Akira, a member of Aso's cabinet and one of the outgoing prime minister's lieutenants, said Friday that Tanigaki is the right man for the job. Yamamoto Ichita, one of the party's young reformists, would prefer a generational change but had nice things to say about Tanigaki's qualities as a politician.

Tanigaki would soften the party's image, but it seems unlikely that he would demand much or receive much in the way of internal reorganization. Tanigaki strikes me as the candidate of as little change as the party elders perceive as necessary for the LDP to retake power. By comparison, Ishiba is offering something more radical — he is not, for example, holding back from labeling the factions as outdated.

The LDP's first steps towards a new party

A week after the Liberal Democratic Party suffered its first ever electoral defeat, a new party is already taking shape from the ashes.

The biggest change, of course, is the final demise of the factions as a force within the party. As Koike Yuriko said earlier this week upon announcing her departure from the Machimura faction, "The age of the factions is over."

Having already given way to ideological groupings before the election, it is increasingly likely that LDP members will associate more with others sharing their ideas instead of joining factions. Nakagawa Hidenao, an important player in this transition before the election who called for the dissolution of the factions earlier this week, has announced that he will call a meeting of reformists — including Shiozaki Yasuhisa, former chief cabinet secretary — on Monday.

Yamauchi Koichi, a former LDP member who won a PR seat this year for Watanabe Yoshimi's Your Party, has some thoughts about ideological groups within the LDP. One, he says, is the "pure conservative" group of hawks clustered around Aso Taro and Abe Shinzo, about which he says that in their focus upon ideological conflict with the left wing — symbolized by their hatred for Nikkyoso — they will have a difficult time broadening the party's popularity. Another group, led, he says, would be a "liberal" group. Led by Tanigaki Sadakazu, it would resemble the DPJ, with a focus on regions and the creation of a "twentieth-century-style" welfare state. (I'm not quite sure what he means by the label twentieth-century-style.) The third, led by Nakagawa and Shiozaki, is a neo-liberal group, emphasizing small government, administrative reform, economic growth, and free markets. Yamauchi makes clear that he approves of the third as providing the best contrast with the DPJ, which he caricatures as a pork-barreling, big government and twentieth-century-style welfare state-supporting, anti-market, anti-American, anti-globalization political party.

Whatever one thinks as Yamauchi's ideas about which path the LDP should take, his classification scheme is useful. In the forthcoming party election, LDP members will pick one of these courses.

The least coherent is Yamauchi's second group, the "liberal" group. Revealingly, Tanigaki's candidacy for the LDP presidency has the backing of Mori Yoshiro, whose power within the party may have been enhanced by his having narrowly won his single-member district last week — even though Tanigaki does not yet have the support of his own faction, the Koga faction. That Mori would indicate his support for a candidate not from his Machimura faction is a sign of that the power of factions is weakening, but it also suggests that the liberal group is not quite liberal — rather it is the "change as little as possible" group. What, after all, is Mori's ideology? Under the leadership of this group, the LDP's ideological identity would be blurry. While the other two choices would pursue a course of opposing the DPJ at every turn, drawing sharp distinctions between the LDP and the DPJ, the middle group would be a bit more "constructive," answering the government's plans with drafts of its own, perhaps using foreign policy as the issue to separate the two parties.

In short, the LDP's debates are going to resemble the DPJ's debates over the past decade. Should the LDP be "constructivist" or "oppositionist?" The problem for the LDP is that the "oppositionist" line preferred by the conservatives and neo-liberals concedes considerable ground to the DPJ in policy terms, because it means focusing on issues that are less important to the Japanese public than the issues stressed by the DPJ. But this may be a temporary problem.

If the DPJ is successful in power, the oppositionists will be eventually forced to adapt or will be eliminated as the LDP struggles to return to power. Much as the Labour Party became New Labour and the Conservatives have become New Labour-Lite under David Cameron, so the LDP will be forced to become a new LDP that both accepts the changes introduced by a DPJ government and finds a way to critique the DPJ for the inevitable policy failures and corruption scandal that will emerge the longer the party stays in power.

But for now, the oppositionist approach may be the most satisfying as the party tries to reorganize after defeat. I expect that LDP members may be tempted to support a strict oppositionist candidate in this month's presidential election, which would be a natural continuation of the demonization of the DPJ that was central to the party's general election campaign strategy. Will Ishiba Shigeru, a policy wonk trying to position himself as the front runner in the race to replace Aso, be able to tap into the vein of resentment against the DPJ present in large portions of the party?

Ishiba doesn't fit comfortably in any of the aforementioned ideological veins. He is best known as a hawk and a self-described "defense otaku," but he is a defense policy wonk; his hawkishness differs from the cultural hawkishness of Abe and Aso, who view a strong defense more as a cultural imperative than as a "mere" policy matter. He is not particularly well-connected to the neo-liberal group, but he is not particularly traditionalist either. In short, he may be the perfect leader to revive the LDP — if not today, then eventually. He may have a hard time assembling the necessary votes this time around.

Who will lead the LDP?

Masuzoe Yoichi, the upper house member who I recently listed as the obvious front runner in the race to replace Aso Taro as LDP president, said Wednesday that he would not seek the position.

Masuzoe cited his responsibility as a member of the ruling cabinet for the party's defeat as his reason for not seeking the position — although Jiji suggests that Masuzoe's candidacy faced opposition from within the party, not surprisingly given that Masuzoe has been stubbornly independent even as an LDP member. (Incidentally, it is worth recalling as Masuzoe prepares to leave office that he actually managed to serve in the same post from the reshuffled Abe cabinet in August 2007 — which he joined after criticizing the prime minister following the upper house election defeat — until the present, a remarkable run considering the circumstances.)

Masuzoe was joined by Koike Yuriko in bowing out from the race: the former defense minister said Wednesday that she would not seek the post for the second year in a row, citing her weakened status as a "zombie" politician, in the Diet only by virtue of proportional representation after losing her seat.

Ishihara Nobuteru, another potential front runner, remains noncommittal about running in the race.

For those who ultimately decide to run, it will be a harder race — and harder to ascertain the outcome in advance. To compensate for the dramatic decline in the number of LDP Diet members, the LDP will give its prefectural chapters 300 votes in the election. The chapters will each receive a minimum of three votes, with the remaining 159 votes distributed proportionally on the basis of the number of votes in a chapter. Combined with the 200 votes of Diet members, 500 votes will determine the next LDP president.

Between the decline of the factions and the tremendous power that will be wielded by the prefectural chapters, the outcome will be difficult to predict. But given the manner in which the prefectural votes will be distributed, the race could be won by a candidate popular in urban areas capable of getting (presumably discouraged) party members in populous prefectures out to vote in large numbers.

It appears as if we are witnessing the birth pangs of a new LDP. Nakagawa Hidenao, renewing his fight to make a new LDP, writes that the first step to the LDP's rebirth is the dissolution of the factions. Whether or not they are officially dissolved, the age of factional politics appears at an end. Instead we will be witnessing a renewed period of ideological conflict within the LDP, conflict that will often fall along geographical lines. As a member of the former Tanigaki faction now in the Koga faction said, since Koizumi's bid to make the LDP an urban party destroyed the party's provincial base, the next LDP leader ought not to come from an urban district. It seems to me that this kind of thinking assumes that it is possible to resurrect the "conservative kingdoms," if only the LDP reorients itself to a rural base, ignoring the mounting evidence that in the present age floating voters are everywhere — and that Komeito has become an indispensable LDP support group, which happens to be closer to the DPJ in policy terms, is in even worse straits than the LDP after its entire leadership went down to absolute defeat Sunday thanks to the decision not to run simultaneously for PR seats, and is publicly reconsidering the nature of its partnership with the LDP.

It seems that perhaps the most essential quality for the LDP's next leader is the ability and willingness to work closely with Komeito on a new path to power, lest the party forfeit even more support than it already has.

Meet the new LDP

Having fallen 181 seats to 119 seats in the new Diet, the LDP that will face a governing DPJ will be a peculiar party.

What I find most striking is that fifty-five of the LDP's winners are hereditary members, constituting 46.5% of the party's new caucus. By comparison, of the DPJ's 308 winners, only thirty-two (10.4%) are hereditary Diet members. The DPJ majority truly signifies the arrival of fresh blood into the political system, even as the LDP has become even more colored by its political princes. (Of course this outcome makes the LDP's pre-election debate about banning hereditary members look farcical.)

As MTC astutely noted well before the election, how will the LDP's new leaders discipline the party when some many of its members survived by distancing themselves from the party and campaigning on the basis of their name or other personal qualities? As Tanaka Makiko quipped, the Jiminto (LDP) has become a collection of Jibunto (personal parties) even more than it was before the election.

The result, of course, will be greater conflict among the party leaders who survived, all of whom have different visions for how the LDP should act in opposition. Abe Shinzo, naturally seeing the defeat as an opportunity to reinsert himself into the center of the party, suggested that the LDP will press the DPJ hard, although I suspect that will mostly mean criticizing the DPJ from the hard right, which, as the Abe government's 2007 defeat showed, is hardly an effective means of attacking the DPJ.

It may be a bad thing that so many LDP heavyweights survived. Abe, Aso, Fukuda, and Mori all survived, as did Nakagawa Hidenao, who was defeated in his electoral district but revived in PR. The post-election LDP may be cursed with too many leaders and too few followers. That is the significance of the defeat of the Koizumi children, only ten of whom survived (out of seventy-seven). Nakagawa is convinced that his survival through PR was a matter of destiny, and presumably he will be even less reluctant to make his opinions about the party's conduct known. Overall, the LDP may be just as divided, just smaller, with fewer new faces (and new ideas) in the mix. Only five LDP winners are first-timers.

Meanwhile, the factions really may be finished. The Machimura faction, which has dominated the LDP for the past decade, fell from sixty-one to twenty-three seats in the lower house, leaving it with fifty between the two houses. The Tsushima faction fell to one-third of its pre-election strength in the lower house, to fourteen seats, leaving it with thirty-seven between the two. The Koga faction's strength was nearly halved, to twenty-five, leaving it with thirty-four between the two houses. The Nikai faction suffered most, falling to one in the lower house (Nikai himself) and three between the two houses. All are smaller, and of little value to their remaining members.

What lesson will the LDP learn from the DPJ's battle in opposition against the LDP? That saying no can be effective? If that's the lesson the LDP learns, it is in for a long spell in opposition — because the DPJ did not win the support of the Japanese public just by saying no to the LDP, but by saying no and suggesting that the LDP's priorities were completely wrong.

The LDP will have to find a way to win independents: there will be no other way back into power. Exit polls found that more than fifty percent of independents supported the DPJ, certainly a major factor — perhaps the major factor — in the DPJ's victory, although the DPJ also took thirty percent of LDP supporters. (Incidentally, the exit polls also showed that the absence of JCP candidates was another important factor in the DPJ's victory, confirming that the JCP ought to bear some of the blame for prolonging LDP rule.) Inevitably it will win some back as the DPJ disappoints the public, but for the LDP to return as a serious contender for power (that's a weird phrase) at some point the LDP will have to come up with a reason for the voters to take it seriously as a governing party again. It will have to make more than rhetorical gestures in the direction of the issues of greatest concern to the voting public. Having a younger, well-spoken leader could help too. I am increasingly inclined to see Ishihara Nobuteru as the most likely successor to Aso.

The LDP on the brink of disaster

The general election campaign is heading into its final days. Despite another two days of campaigning, the LDP and DPJ are mostly battling for seats on the margins — the LDP to keep from falling below 100 seats, the DPJ to reach the magic number of 320, the number required for a supermajority. As the campaign has developed, the LDP's position has only slipped, both in polls and other measurements, such as weakening support from the organizations that have long been part of the LDP's vote-gathering machine. The latest slippage is from the Japanese Medical Association, which does not approve of everything in the DPJ's manifesto but expressed its support for several of the party's proposals, concluding that "the DPJ wrote too much in its manifesto, the LDP wrote too little." There seems to be little doubt which direction the JMA would prefer the parties to err.

After all, the latest round of polls making predictions for seat distributions matched the first round of polls, which astoundingly suggested that the DPJ could win around 300 seats. Asahi's latest poll suggests the possibility of 321 seats for the DPJ and 103 for the LDP. I still suspect something closer to 300, plus or minus twenty seats. But it will be a major victory for the DPJ regardless. (Asahi reports that the DPJ might not have named enough candidates to its PR list in the Kinki and Kyushu blocks, where all but two candidates are running simultaneously as SMD and PR candidates.) Similarly, Mainichi's final poll before the election records the DPJ doubling the LDP in nearly every category: party support, voting intentions in single-member districts, PR voting, although Mainichi notes that it is difficult to project how these figures — different from the party's survey of electoral districts that produced the 320 seat prediction recently — will play out in SMDs.

But unless we're about to witness what would surely be the greatest polling error in a developed democracy, the LDP is less than three days away from suffering a crushing, perhaps even mortal blow in this year's general election.

Not surprisingly the closer the LDP gets the defeat, the more desperate and bizarre the pronouncements of the party's leaders. MTC has already noted Yosano Kaoru's absurd warning of the dangers of one party dictatorship, which probably wins as the single worst justification for LDP rule made during the campaign.

But the remarkable thing about the past month of campaigning is that the LDP is no closer to offering a clear reason why it deserves another mandate than it was when Prime Minister Aso Taro dissolved the Diet last month. The one consistent strain in the party's message has been fear. While the LDP has tried to paint a "positive" message of itself as the "conservative party" — the party which protects that which should be protected (begging the obvious response of "The LDP: the party that will protect everything except your pension") — it has spent more time talking about how the DPJ will, through its flip-flopping and its blurring, make things worse.



And so in Osaka Thursday Aso wheeled out the punning critique he made of the DPJ back in June, although this time he removed the qualifier and said "if there is regime change, there will be a recession." (In Japanese the words for regime change and recession are homophones.) And not only will a DPJ government prompt a recession, but its advent will also be accompanied by "chaos." Aso has apparently also stopped apologizing for his party's poor performance, although it's probably just as well — why would anyone vote for a party whose leader opens by apologizing for the party's performance in office and then proceeds to ask for a new mandate?

Not surprisingly given his engrained optimism, Aso continues to throw all of his energy into the campaign, even as those around him in the party leadership freely admit the difficulties facing the LDP. After all, it won't be their names in the history books associated with the defeat that finally broke LDP rule. But even Aso's resolve may be cracking. In response to a query regarding the fading prospects of meeting the goal of retaining a majority between the LDP and Komeito, he could do nothing more than lamely stress that "compared with before, there are more young people (at campaign speeches), and the response isn't bad." He even paused to diagnose the LDP-Komeito coalition's problems, chalking it up the government parties' failure to "clearly state the appeal held by conservatism" before returning to the party's emphasis on defending that which should be defended. (Funny, I thought a major contributing factor to the LDP's decline since Koizumi Junichiro was Abe Shinzo's desire to explain the appeal of conservatism to the public when all they wanted to hear was that their pension records were safe.)

The question now is what happens to the LDP in the aftermath of the coming disaster. Echoing a point I made in this post, a Shukan Bunshun article suggests that the LDP's factions may be the feature of the LDP to go in the wake of the election, with next month's party presidential election being a truly post-factional contest. With five of eight factions potentially headless, the stage may be set for the factions to break and reorganize into two or three distinct ideological groups, the two most prominent being an "Abe faction" and a "Nakagawa [Hidenao] faction." (As both Abe and Nakagawa are currently in the Machimura faction, naturally the ideological split would begin, as I've argued before, in the Machimura faction, the faction that has controlled the LDP for the past decade.) At the same time, there is still a push to make Masuzoe Yoichi, the minister of health, labor, and welfare and the most popular politician in Japan (and the LDP politician I've seen on "two-shot" posters), Aso's successor. Yamasaki Taku, one of the embattled faction heads, said Tuesday that Masuzoe is the strongest candidate to rebuild the LDP. Of course, it is telling that Yamasaki spoke in favor of Masuzoe seeing as how Yamasaki, one of a handful of LDP liberals, would fit comfortably neither in the Nakagawa group nor the Abe group — not unlike Masuzoe, who is in the upper house, does not belong to a faction, and is relentlessly independent in his thinking. Masuzoe would indeed make a good leader, although I'm not sure why as bright as Masuzoe would want to take on the herculean task of cleaning up the LDP after this election. And I wonder how Masuzoe would fare in an election campaign split along the aforementioned ideological lines.

Ultimately it is difficult to say anything for certain until the votes are counted, until we know which ideological camp lost more seats in the general election.

But it is no longer in doubt that the LDP is about to suffer mightily at the hands of the Japanese people.

Reaping the whirlwind

How can the LDP govern Japan when it can barely govern itself?

The war of attrition that has been waged between the Koizumian remnant in the LDP and the rest of the party since Koizumi stepped down as prime minister in 2006 has entered a particularly bloody phase as the Koizumians have decided to launch a final offensive in the hope of toppling Asō Tarō before he can call a general election.

Yamamoto Taku, the lower house member collecting signatures to "recall" Asō by forcing an early party election, has stepped up his effort in the hope of collecting the requisite 216 signatures (half the total number of LDP members of both houses and the chairs of the prefectural party chapters) by 13 July, the date of the general meeting of LDP members from both houses. Beyond Yamamoto's signature drive, on Tuesday afternoon a new study group — the Manifesto Association — held its first meeting. The association is a collection of nine different Diet members' leagues of the reformist stripe and plans to draft proposals for inclusion in the party's election manifesto. The association wants the party's manifesto drafted before the Diet is dissolved and an election called. Not surprisingly, many in the party suspect that this group has a not-so-ulterior motive of toppling Asō.

There is a certain symmetry to this explosion of open opposition to the Asō government and, by extension, the LDP establishment, which continues to back the prime minister. Four years ago it was the reformists who were in control of the party and the agenda. During the summer of postal reform, it was the reformists who were advancing, with the LDP establishment doing everything in its power to slow Koizumi's agenda — with the small band of postal rebels eventually emerging to challenge Koizumi openly. Indeed, it was around this time four years ago that the LDP establishment delivered a blow to Koizumi when the LDP's general council broke with precedent to hold a majority vote on proposed revisions to the government's postal privatization bills.

Since then of course the reformists have been in steady retreat against a resurgent party establishment, bringing us to this latest round of infighting, a last-ditch attempt by the reformists to steer the LDP in a new direction.

Whether by design or not, Koizumi appears to have destroyed the LDP. The reformist remnant that was supposed to be the vanguard of a new LDP appears to be better at destruction than creation, skilled at undermining governments deemed insufficiently committed to their reform plans but incapable of putting forward their own candidate for the party leadership or convincing other members of the party to embrace the reformist agenda as being beneficial for the party as a whole.

I am not questioning their policy ideas, which, after all are not altogether different from ideas being floated by the DPJ. The difference, however, is that the DPJ lacks the pathologies of LDP rule. The LDP has become ungovernable. No authority can bring recalcitrant members to heel. No leader can impose a unifying vision on a party home to fundamentally incompatible visions for what the LDP should be.

In some sense the decline of the factions is responsible for the anarchy within the LDP, in that conflict within the LDP used to be conducted among organized groups that obeyed certain basic rules and were fighting less over policy visions than they were fighting for control over party resources. Which is not to say that factional conflict was tame (cf. the Kaku-Fuku sensō), but that it lacked the ideological fervor that the Koizumians have brought to the LDP. Like the international system, a once orderly balance of power has given way to a unipolar factional system (with the Machimura faction playing the role of the US) sitting atop an unruly party in which factions exist alongside a myriad of study groups, non-partisan groups, policy zoku, and other smaller, less organized groups (much as nation-states and U.S. unipolarity exist alongside international organizations, terrorist groups and gangs, multinational corporations and the like).

Anarchy within the LDP has had severe consequences for Japan, having paralyzed the Japanese government just when Japan needed a government capable of assessing problems clearly and responding decisively.

And so we have the Asō government, which is fighting to the death for the privilege to lead the LDP to defeat. To save himself, Asō will say or do anything. The reformists, supposedly eager to save the LDP, will do anything to push their agenda and elevate another party leader, despite the obvious contempt such an act would show for the Japanese public. Asō still enjoys the upper hand in this fight, in that the reformists, while a vocal minority, are still a minority. They are making life difficult for the prime minister (while making life easier for the DPJ, which will face an LDP whose members have spent months fighting amongst themselves), but they cannot dictate terms to the LDP. Shiozaki Yasuhisa and company are deluding themselves if they think that the rest of the LDP will allow the reformists to dictate the party's manifesto, making this round of fighting especially futile. If the LDP were capable of drafting a manifesto that the whole party could accept — no matter how watered down its proposals — and agreeing to stand behind Asō, the party would at least make the DPJ fight for every seat and perhaps deprive it of a majority. As matters stand now, the DPJ stands a good chance of taking a simple majority on its own.

The question remains what will happen following an LDP electoral defeat. Will the reformists use the occasion to break from the LDP and form their own party? Will they continue the internecine fight for control of the LDP? With each act of rebellion against the Asō government, the reformists make it less likely that they will be a welcome part of a post-defeat LDP.

None of this is to say that Asō is an ideal leader or that there is a right side and a wrong side in the battle between the reformists and the party establishment. Rather, the problem is the LDP itself, that LDP government has meant brutal and ceaseless infighting within the ruling party, which has made for irregular and more often than not deeply ineffective government. That is reason enough for the LDP to be removed from power.

The LDP fiddles while its kingdom burns

As LDP members increasingly come to terms with what looks to be certain defeat in this year's general election — described in graphic terms by MTC as the LDP's "thrashing about and coughing up blood" — the party's leaders continue to struggle in vain for some way to avoid destruction.

As I mentioned in a discussion with Ken Worsley and Garrett DeOrio when I recorded my latest appearance on their podcast Seijigiri, the LDP looks like an animal caught in a trap: the more it tries to escape, the worse the pain, for both the party and those who have to watch it struggle.

One manifestation of this struggle is, as MTC noted, the party's foolish discussion of making Diet reform a prominent plank in its election platform. The LDP is considering both a cut in the number of lower house seats and a proposal to eliminate the upper house. MTC lays the former proposal at Komeito's feet, but there appears to be no shortage of enthusiasm for both ideas among the ranks of LDP Diet members. But MTC is right to note that this is an absurd waste of time considering that Japan's economy is in freefall.

But the LDP seems incapable of doing anything other than busying itself with distractions in the hope that one of them triggers a bout of irrationality on the part of Japanese voters that leads them to return the LDP to power later this year. (Yes, irrationality: each day makes it harder to describe voting for the LDP as anything but irrational.)

Hence the irrepresible talk of replacing Aso Taro with yet another party leader and prime minister. The ubiquitous Tahara Soichiro wins the prize for perhaps the worst suggestion for a replacement in a field full of contenders: he suggests that Tanigaki Sadakazu, former finance minister and perennial contender for the party leadership, is the right man for the job. He barely explains why, tucking the suggestion in the final line of an article discussing the political situation more broadly. What can Mr. Tanigaki possibly offer the LDP now that he couldn't offer the party before?

But substitute any name for Mr. Tanigaki's, and the answer is the same. The LDP will not be saved by a new leader, because the LDP's problems are beyond the ability of any one man or woman to fix. The LDP is overwhelmed by the ever-growing mountain of problems facing Japan today. And rather than work on setting priorities, the LDP's leaders are distracted by trivia (Diet reform) or irrelevant factional matters.

In this latter category falls the battle for leadership of the Machimura faction, which has been settled in Mori Yoshiro's favor. The triumvirate that had governed the faction will be replaced, as Machimura Nobutaka will once again become the titular head of the faction, with Mr. Nakagawa staying in place in what will now be a lesser position along with upper house member Tanigawa Shuzen, the third member of the triumvirate. Having been effectively demoted in the faction, will Mr. Nakagawa now go back on his declaration of loyalty to prime minister and party? Not likely. Not surprisingly, Yamamoto Ichita and other younger members of the faction are opposed to the demotion, complaining that a faction member shouldn't be punished for stating policy positions different from certain leaders. The reformists will complain, but ultimately they will stay put, at least until a general election.

At the same time as the turmoil within the party's largest faction, Mr. Aso is in talks with Koga Makoto, head of the Kochikai, the party's third largest faction, with an eye to merging the Aso faction to restore the Kochikai to its old borders and make it the second largest faction. But to what end? What possible difference could it make? It is already clear that the factions have little power over how their members think or how their members vote in leadership elections. Will Mr. Aso's position be any more secure for having the support of the second largest faction, or the largest faction for that matter? Will LDP members grumble any less about the prime minister?

The same goes for that other favorite tool of LDP leaders, the cabinet reshuffle. Other than putting someone competent at the head of the finance ministry, what difference will a cabinet reshuffle make in shoring up public support for the government?

Despite its claims to be the "responsible" party, the LDP is no more responsible or focused on good policymaking than the DPJ. The problem, of course, is that the LDP leads the government.

The elusive Nakagawa Hidenao

Will the Machimura faction live to fight the next election after all?

Nakagawa Hidenao, a member of the triumvirate that leads the faction and a leading critic of Mr. Aso, was defiant in the face of criticism from Mori Yoshiro, don of the faction, seeing no reason for stepping down from the triumvirate. He denied claims that he was "rebelling" against the prime minister, and insisted on unity in faction and party before the forthcoming election.

Despite signs of moving to an irreparable break, however, it seems that the Machimura faction has decided to postpone the debate over the faction's leadership, for fear of damage to government and party.

Yamamoto Ichita, a member of the faction, claims that a majority of the faction's are not loyal to one side or the other but are perfectly capable of accepting different leaders simultaneously. He then reports that the media is to blame for stirring up talk of a split in the faction.

Maybe so, but perhaps the faction really is just a microcosm of the LDP. Just as potential LDP defectors are determined to stay put until a general election is held, so too might the breakup of the Machimura faction be on hold until after a general election. Given the number of seats the party expects to lose, it is not inconceivable that the party's internal balance of power could be completely redrawn by the distribution of losing seats.

For his part, Mr. Nakagawa appears prepared to stay and fight for mastery of the LDP, even after the election. He may be trying to put on a convincing act to justify his staying in the party through an election, which as MTC noted enables him to pocket his share of public political subsidies (and ensures that he would not face an LDP "assassin" in the election). But I wonder whether he might be serious about staying in the LDP when he writes something like this post, in which he claims that he "wants to raise the flag of a new LDP from within the LDP." The LDP, he says, should be remade as the party of "honest politics," compared to the DPJ, honest in its presentation of policies that serve the people, reluctant to engage in the party politics practiced by the DPJ.

While Mr. Nakagawa presents himself as the standard-bearer of economic and political reform, my impression of him is that he is a more committed partisan than he lets on. He did his best to cast the Abe government and its prime minister, under whom he worked as LDP secretary-general, as the natural heir of the Koizumi revolution, its efforts to reform challenged by the Bureaucrats and their allies throughout Japanese society. Similarly, he wrote of Fukuda Yasuo's "silent" reforms, doing his best to present the beleaguered former prime minister as a silent partner of the Koizumi revolution.

At the same time, few LDP members — as far as I can tell — write with as much vitriol about the DPJ as Mr. Nakagawa. His blog is an ongoing litany of the DPJ's faults. One recent post asks whether a DPJ government would be an anti-American government (because it would conduct alliance policy differently from the LDP). Another says that "we have heard nothing about how the DPJ will govern" (the DPJ may have more work to do, but nothing?). In directing his attention to the DPJ's faults, Mr. Nakagawa is in effect making excuses for the LDP. Does he not see the LDP's own faults? Or are its faults largely the faults of the bureaucrats and their allies within the LDP, which will be fixed once Mr. Nakagawa gets control of the party?

None of this inspires hope in me that Mr. Nakagawa is the man to engineer a political realignment and lead Japan to the next wave of great reforms. Maybe his public commitments to the LDP are just an act. But inside the LDP or out, the man will remain the same. And as far as I can tell, the man is a choleric bulldog, more interested attacking enemies than in doing the hard work of governing.

UPDATE: MTC notes that Jun Okumura deserves credit for the theory that the desire to get a cut of the first quarter of FY2009 political funds is keeping LDP members from defecting. Sorry Jun.

Mori wants Nakagawa out

I have chronicled divisions in the Machimura faction since May of last year, and I have written on several occasions of what I think is the impending destruction of the LDP's biggest faction, paraphrasing Monty Python last month to conclude that the faction is in fact an ex-faction.

The destruction of the Machimura faction proceeds apace.

In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun Wednesday, Mori Yoshiro, former prime minister and Machimura faction don, described criticism of the Aso government by Nakagawa Hidenao, a titular head of the faction, as a "total rebellion" and said he wants to see Mr. Nakagawa step down from his leadership post. He also said it doesn't matter whether Mr. Nakagawa leaves the faction. His job, Mori said, "is to protect Aso-san." As the self-appointed defender of the Aso government, Mr. Mori also offered his opinions on the timing of a general election (September if possible, but probably after the passage of the budget), whether Mr. Aso should be replaced before a general election (absolutely not), and the key to Mr. Aso's recovery (cabinet reshuffle). There's also a somewhat resigned tone, as Mr. Mori spoke of the possibility of Mr. Aso's being the LDP's last president.

The Mainichi Shimbun, meanwhile, has reported on the "gradual isolation" of Mr. Nakagawa within the faction. By isolation, I assume Mainichi means his isolation from the faction's leaders, because if they opt to drive Mr. Nakagawa opt, I suspect that he will take a good portion of the faction with him. Mainichi quotes Mr. Mori as accusing Mr. Nakagawa of sabotage, conduct unbecoming a faction chief.

This is an ex-faction.

This is an ex-faction!

Speaking of predictions, the destruction of the Machimura faction is proceeding apace.

Before the LDP's September election, I asked whether anyone thinks that "the Machimura faction, that 89-member monster of a faction that sits at the intersection of the LDP's divisions between 'neo-liberal' reformers, party leaders, and ideological conservatives, will survive this party election."

Events appear to confirm that the Machimura faction is on its last legs, if it is not already dead.

Yomiuri reports that in connection with Nakagawa Hidenao's perceived "anti-Aso" efforts, the rift between Mr. Nakagawa and party and faction elders Mori Yoshiro and Machimura Nobutaka — already pronounced before Aso Taro's ascendance — has widened. Mr. Machimura, along with fellow faction member Abe Shinzo, has emerged as a prominent critic of the prime minister's critics, including Mr. Nakagawa.

Is it reasonable to speak of the Machimura faction as a single faction? Is membership in the faction the most meaningful affiliation for its members, as opposed to membership in study groups and other organizations?

How long before the faction officially splinters? And if the Machimura faction cannot hold, can the LDP, of which the Machimura faction is a microcosm, endure?

On the LDP and its factions

My latest contribution to the Far Eastern Economic Review's website — on the decline of the LDP's factions — can be found here.

Subscribers to the Far Eastern Economic Review can also find my take on the Aso cabinet in the October 2008 print edition.

The field gets crowded

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fault lines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Koike prepares

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aso's the one for Mori

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cracks in the Machimura faction?

Will the Machimura faction, the LDP's largest with eighty-eight members in the two houses of the Diet, be the victim of its own success?

Mainichi reported over the weekend that the Machimura faction — still unclear on who it should support as Fukuda Yasuo's successor, may be on the brink of splitting. The reason? As a result of having been the home of the past four prime ministers, the faction has too many power brokers jostling for control of the faction, with each preferring a different successor for Mr. Fukuda.

As noted previously, the Machimura faction is in some sense a microcosm of the LDP, divided among Koizumian structural reformers, cautious old-guard conservatives, HANA conservatives, and, as represented by Mr. Fukuda, pragmatic "quiet" reformers. Each group's power broker in the faction supports a different candidate for the leadership. Nakagawa Hidenao, who has claimed the mantle of the LDP's leading advocate for structural reform since stepping down as LDP secretary-general after Abe Shinzo reshuffled his cabinet in August 2008, has boosted Koike Yuriko, a member of the Machimura faction, and may be a contender in his own right (although his sordid past may still haunt him). Mori Yoshiro, the leading old-guard conservative and defender of Mr. Fukuda, has not only ridiculed Ms. Koike's prospects but tried — with little success — to stifle speculation about the post-Fukuda era. Mr. Abe, meanwhile, is happy to look outside the faction for a leader, and is Aso Taro's leading supporter in the Machimura faction.

On top of this, there's the question of Machimura Nobutaka, currently serving as chief cabinet secretary. Mainichi reports that there are concerns within the faction that if Mr. Machimura leaves the goernment after a reshuffle, he will be free to cause trouble within the faction and do battle with Mr. Nakagawa for control, competition that may force the faction to split as Mr. Nakagawa could leave to form his own faction. If Mr. Nakagawa were to leave the faction to form his own, it would be another indication that the (policy) content-free factions are giving way to new, more ideological and policy-oriented groupings that will jostle for control not just of the LDP's levers of power, but of its identity as a party.

The idea of the Machimura faction's crumbling under the weight of its heavyweights is intriguing. Are the limits of growth for LDP factions not the total number of members, but the number of members with experience in senior party and cabinet posts who can claim considerable personal followings independent on the faction?

And if the Machimura faction cannot keep its disparate pieces together, what does that say for the LDP as a whole?

The post-Fukuda landscape remains open — for now

Aso Taro, who has presumably been vying for the LDP presidency since losing it to Fukuda Yasuo in September 2007, was asked about his intentions at a speech on Monday. Like his potential rival, Yosano Kaoru, Mr. Aso demurred, declining to declare what has been openly acknowledged for months.

I suppose it would be inappropriate for Mr. Aso to start measuring Mr. Fukuda's coffin overtly, especially when he can let the media (and other members of the LDP) do it for him. But no one should take his humility at face value.

As noted previously, Mr. Aso's assumed candidacy has already upset the resurrection of the Kochikai, the onetime mainstream faction that was most notably home to dovish, liberal internationalist prime ministers Ikeda Hayato and Miyazawa Kiichi. An article in AERA, a weekly magazine, illustrates why the rebirth of the Kochikai does not mean the resurrection of the liberal internationalists as a major force within the LDP. The party, the article, notes has moved rightward in the years since the faction split in the aftermath of Kato Koichi's abortive rebellion against then-prime minister Mori Yoshiro in 2000. Not surprisingly, the resurrected faction is a diminished version of the faction that existed in 2000. The difference? The Aso faction, which in 2000 was the Kono (Yohei) group, did not reunite with the Koga and Tanigaki factions, largely because Mr. Aso's policy perspective is vastly different from the policy positions of leaders of the Kochikai.

Mr. Aso's candidacy poses a threat to factional discipline in all LDP factions, the Kochikai included, thanks to Mr. Aso's popularity among younger, reformist LDP members who are distributed throughout the party. Thanks to his "insurgents," Mr. Aso's showing in September 2007 was surprisingly strong considering that he was opposed by all factions but his own. It seems that Mr. Aso has learned his lesson, however: rather than tempt his supporters to buck their faction leaders, he appears to be using the fact of his cross-factional support to make appeals directly to faction chiefs. Two days after the Kochikai's first party, Mr. Aso met with Koga Makoto in an effort to heal a longstanding personal rift — presumably in the hope that Mr. Koga will swing the faction behind Mr. Aso's candidacy (which, as noted previously, would risk alienating his partner, Tanigaki Sadakazu).

Meanwhile the Machimura faction's failure to back a post-Fukuda candidate thus far is now an established fact. Mainichi, reporting on the occasion of the faction's party Monday night (which was attended by approximately 5000 guests), notes that the faction's chiefs are divided on whether to support a candidate from within the faction who if elected would be the fifth consecutive LDP president from the faction. Nakagawa Hidenao spoke of a "hero or heroine," presumably suggesting that he is continuing to back Koike Yuriko, despite Mori Yoshiro's openly dismissing her prospects. Mainichi rules out both Mr. Nakagawa and Machimura Nobutaka, the chief cabinet secretary and titular faction head. No word on Mr. Mori's thinking. Mainichi suggests that the faction leadership wants to nominate someone from within the faction for fear of forfeiting the faction's position, but there is no obvious contender — and the worst outcome of all (for the faction) would be for the faction to nominate one of its own over the opposition of a significant minority, prompting that minority to vote for another candidate.

Division within the Machimura faction is probably good news for both Mr. Aso and Mr. Yosano, as it raises the possibility that either might receive the support of the largest LDP faction should it prove unable to resolve its deadlock.

Indeed, it seems conceivable to me that Mr. Aso might offer a "Tanakasone" arrangement to Mr. Mori and the other leaders of the Machimura faction, agreeing to pack his cabinet with members of the Machimura faction in exchange for its support in the party election.

The post-Fukuda era looms

Asahi conducted a poll of LDP and DPJ prefectural chapters asking about support for the current party leaders.

In the DPJ, Ozawa Ichiro's relationship with the prefectural chapters is secure: forty-four of forty-seven want him to remain as party head to lead the DPJ into the next general election.

The news for Fukuda Yasuo, however, is bleak. Twelve chapters want Mr. Fukuda to lead the LDP into the next general election; twenty-two want a new leader (no indication what the other thirteen said). Interestingly, there is little correlation between how a prefecture voted in the September 2007 leadership election and its support for Mr. Fukuda today. The reasons given for discontent with Mr. Fukuda are typical: low public support numbers, poor leadership skills, an inability to make progress on the many pressing policy issues facing the Fukuda government. Asked how they think is an appropriate replacement for Mr. Fukuda, only seven chapters answered with a name (as opposed to qualities desired in a leader), and all seven provided the same name: Aso Taro.

The news from the prefectures contributes to a growing sense in Tokyo that Mr. Fukuda is running out of time, a sense that has grown in the weeks since the LDP's defeat in the Yamaguchi-2 by-election as the party has studied its defeat. There is growing talk in the media of the post-Fukuda era, as the media probes the two leading post-Fukuda candidates, Mr. Aso and Yosano Kaoru, the leading anyone-but-Aso candidate for the LDP presidency. (A Google News search finds ninety-eight uses of the term "post-Fukuda" over the past week.) As expected, Mr. Yosano's failure to say yes or no to questions about his ambitions has only fed media speculation about his designs on Mr. Fukuda's job, and now Mr. Aso and Mr. Yosano are spoken of in the same breath as having barely concealed intentions to hasten the arrival of the post-Fukuda era. Indeed, both men have articles in the June issue of Bungei Shunju discussing their plans for saving Japan.

Mr. Aso is at the point where he can no longer deny his intentions. At a press conference Friday, Mr. Yosano was asked whether he intends to aim for the premiership. His response skirted the question: "I am a person who takes pride in his work, and if I have a task, I perform it with all my might. I have no awareness of my individual ambition — I want to do good work." Not quite "I'm in. And I'm in to win." But it is consistent with his overall media approach in recent months: Mr. Yosano has emphasized his desire to do what needs to be done to save Japan (raising the consumption tax rate, for example), regardless of what the polls say.

It is still unclear who has the edge in the post-Fukuda horse race. By dint of his having the support of the LDP's conservative ideologues concentrated in the True Conservative Policy Research Group, his following among prefectural chapters and the public at large, and his tireless efforts to proclaim his understanding of the insecurities of the Japanese people, Mr. Aso probably remains the front runner.

He may also be poised to claim the support of the newly reunited Kochikai, which officially reemerged on Tuesday and with sixty-one members is the third largest faction in the LDP. At its launch the new old faction is already troubled; the phrase that has been used in the press is "setting to sea in the same bed with different dreams." The reason for tension is that there are hints that some faction members are open to supporting Mr. Aso's bid for the party presidency, despite Tanigaki Sadakazu, perennial candidate for the leadership (and likely candidate in the next leadership election), being the faction's number two. Mr. Tanigaki assumed that the new faction would be a major platform for his next bid for the leadership and has reportedly threatened to leave the faction if it fails to support him.

That said, the all-important Machimura faction (i.e., Mori Yoshiro) has yet to signal which way it is leaning, despite Mr. Aso's active courting of Mr. Mori and other Machimura faction chiefs. The post-Fukuda non-campaign campaign is in full swing, the candidates are emerging, and the LDP barons are starting to choose sides — with Mr. Fukuda helpless in the midst of the open campaigning for his job.

Koike fever?

Within days of Mori Yoshiro's calling the prospect of Korike Yuriko, former defense minister, a "joke," Sankei writes that "Koike fever" is taking hold — even though Ms. Koike claims to share Mr. Mori's assessment of a Koike candidacy.

The basis for this "fever" is unclear to me.

The examples cited by Sankei? A long speech to a meeting of the LDP young turks, Nakagawa Hidenao's calling her "a new leader who will be responsible for Japan's future" on a visit to China in March, her participation in Mr. Koizumi's new study group, and Koizumian political instincts.

All well and good, but this strikes me as a thin foundation for declaring that Ms. Koike is in a position to seize the LDP leadership. Does she in fact have any of the support that would make her a viable candidate in a post-Fukuda party race? Being an able politician is not necessarily a criterion for being elected as head of the LDP, and Ms. Koike's "flexibility," which led her to migrate from party to party over the course of the 1990s before ending up in the LDP and Mr. Koizumi's cabinet, surely is less of an asset when it comes to vying for the LDP leadership.

Does she have the support of the party's prefectural chapters, which gave not inconsiderable support to Aso Taro in September 2007 — and which Mr. Aso has courted assiduously since the last LDP leadership election?

Does she have the support of any LDP faction, not least the biggest one, and the LDP's kingpins more generally? The "endorsement" of Nakagawa Hidenao is undoubtedly helpful, but surely Mr. Mori's put-down outweighs his Machimura faction comrade's praise (stunning considering that Ms. Koike is a member of the Machimura faction). Meanwhile, the manner in which she was chased out of the Defense Ministry as the party's leaders closed ranks to defend Moriya Takemasa suggests that she is short on allies in the highest councils of the LDP, not least because she's a woman.

I would welcome her candidacy; she would certainly be an improvement (and a better choice than Mr. Aso). But I must (sadly) agree with Mr. Mori: her prospects are a joke. She will not be elected as head of the LDP as it exists today. She might find a way to the premiership if Mr. Koizumi leads his followers out of the LDP and pushes Ms. Koike forward as his new party's candidate, but for now I feel confident saying that she will not be Mr. Fukuda's successor as LDP president and prime minister.