news20090831lat

[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[World > Asia]
Japanese voters reject longtime ruling party
The untested Democratic Party of Japan defeats the Liberal Democrats on a wave of public anger over high unemployment and fraying social services.
By John M. Glionna and Yuriko Nagano
August 31, 2009

Reporting from Tokyo and Seoul - Japanese voters on Sunday handed a humiliating defeat to the Liberal Democratic Party after its half-century of nearly unbroken rule, opting for an untested opposition party that pledged to revive the nation's ailing economy.

Signaling frustration over a declining quality of life, a record-high unemployment rate, unraveling social services and political scandals, voters rebuked Prime Minister Taro Aso and a party that had dominated national politics here since the Eisenhower administration.

In landslide numbers, they turned to Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama, the wealthy grandson of a former prime minister, who left the Liberal Democratic Party and in 1996 helped found a now-thriving opposition movement. His party won 308 seats in parliament's 480-member lower house, according to the final tally reported by Japanese news media, assuring that he will be elected prime minister in the coming weeks.

The Kyodo News Agency reported that Hatoyama, 62, has begun talks early today on forming a new government.

Still, questions remain about how Hatoyama and his Democratic Party will fulfill their campaign promises in the face of an entrenched and often unwieldy bureaucracy and a stagnant economy. The strength of the party's mandate also is unclear, despite the numbers -- some experts believe that many voters were more intent on defeating the Liberal Democrats than putting the opposition party in power.

Despite Hatoyama's campaign assertions that his government would reexamine Japan's policies toward the United States, few expected any major changes between the two allies.

In a speech carried nationwide, Hatoyama said he would form a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party and People's New Party, acknowledging that he rode a sentiment of public anger against the Liberal Democrats.

"We have felt this great need to change things to make life better for the public," he said. "We have been vowing to change the government in this election. It feels very likely that that is the situation that is unraveling."

In a hastily called news conference this afternoon, Aso announced his resignation as party leader. Late Sunday, the prime minister had taken responsibility for the LDP's defeat. "The outcome of this election has been a very tough one. I am taking what the Japanese public is saying sincerely," he said.

Throughout the campaign, the Democratic Party of Japan, or DPJ, echoed the promise of change that propelled Barack Obama last year to the U.S. presidency. Although experts say there was jubilation among many voters Sunday, they believed that those high spirits were tempered.

"People feel better and lighter because the LDP is gone, but there is not the same jubilation felt in America after Obama's election," said Masaru Tamamoto, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute. "Obama told America where he was going. But the Democratic Party really hasn't told us where it and we are going."

The Democratic Party's campaign platform pledged to wrest control of government from bureaucrats who it says have failed to fix the nation's ailing pension system. Hatoyama said he would form a National Strategy Bureau comprising both the public and private sector to advise the government.

The platform included child allowances for middle-class families and assistance for struggling farmers. The party promised to bolster the economy, which is suffering its worst recession in six decades and in July saw a record 5.7% jobless rate.

In the past, Hatoyama has also emphasized that Japan must develop a more "independent" stance from the U.S. But as prime minister, many believe, he will not immediately risk upsetting the status quo with his nation's most crucial security ally.

"He's not going to rupture the relationship, but I do think he will try to have a somewhat more Asia-centered than U.S.-centered policy," said Ellis Krauss, a professor of Japanese politics and policymaking at UC San Diego.

One stumbling block will be Japan's role refueling U.S. ships in the Indian Ocean carrying war materiel to Afghanistan, a mission Hatoyama opposes.

"He's going to pretty quickly confront some realities of Japan's situation and find it might be a little difficult at times," Krauss said. "I mean, he's in a hard place. This isn't a great way to start off a relationship with the Obama administration."

Under Hatoyama, Japan will probably shift toward friendlier relations with China, Krauss said.

The Democratic Party leader has already indicated that, unlike some past prime ministers, Hatoyama will not visit the Yasukuni war shrine where many of the nation's veterans are enshrined -- including convicted war criminals. Such visits have angered Japan's Asian neighbors.

"All the bad memory stuff will go away," Krauss said. "It will be an immediate improvement."

The untested Democratic Party of Japan defeats the Liberal Democrats on a wave of public anger over high unemployment and fraying social services.

This is the first election in which the Democrats represented a viable alternative to the ruling party, which has become isolated from voters after a series of scandals and leadership gaffes by Aso.

Voters were derisive of Aso's often stumbling use of the language. His finance minister was forced to resign this year after he appeared drunk in public at a conference in Rome.

Sunday's results represent stinging defeats to politicians, including at least one former prime minister, unaccustomed to losing elections.

One was Liberal Democrat Toshiki Kaifu, who served as prime minister from 1989 to 1991. At 78, he lost his bid for a 17th term in parliament.

Yoshio Tezuka was one benefactor of the power shift. He regained a seat in Tokyo's 5th District that he had lost to a Liberal Democratic opponent in 2005 after two terms in office.

Tezuka, 42, said before Sunday that he sensed change was in the air. Still, he wasn't taking any chances. Forsaking the election vans that candidates often use to cover more ground, broadcasting their message to voters via loudspeakers, Tezuka campaigned on foot between train stations to meet voters up close.

"Japan has never gone through a real political power shift. I think voters are feeling the possibility of the regime change being real," he said. "I feel a lot of sense of anticipation that may come from something like that. I've never gotten this much response in my career as a politician."

Still, many voters struggled in their choice.

"I gave quite a lot of thought about whether to vote for the LDP or the DPJ candidate," said homemaker Fumie Nakasone, 56, on Friday as she cast an early ballot. "I don't think the LDP has given enough effort [to serve the public] in the last few years."

Not everyone fed up with the Liberal Democrats chose the Democratic Party. "I don't think we can really rely on the DPJ. I don't think their policy issues are on the right track," said student Masayuki Sato, 22. "They also don't have the track record to prove they can lead."

Even in defeat the Liberal Democrats kept some loyalists.

"I've always voted for the LDP," said Tazuko Sakamoto, 75. "I think they have taken care of me well enough. Mr. Hatoyama is promising many big things, but I wonder if he will be able to actually deliver those promises. That's questionable."

news20090831nyt

[Today's Newspaper] from [The New York Times]

[Asia Pacific]
With Bold Stand, Japan Opposition Wins a Landslide
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: August 30, 2009

TOKYO — Japan’s voters cast out the Liberal Democratic Party for only the second time in postwar history on Sunday, handing a landslide victory to a party that campaigned on a promise to reverse a generation-long economic decline and to redefine Tokyo’s relationship with Washington.

Many Japanese saw the vote as the final blow to the island nation’s postwar order, which has been slowly unraveling since the economy collapsed in the early 1990s.

In the powerful lower house, the opposition Democrats virtually swapped places with the governing Liberal Democratic Party, winning 308 of the 480 seats, a 175 percent increase that gives them control of the chamber, according to the national broadcaster NHK. The incumbents took just 119 seats, about a third of their previous total. The remaining seats were won by smaller parties.

“This has been a revolutionary election,” Yukio Hatoyama, the party leader and presumptive new prime minister, told reporters. “The people have shown the courage to take politics into their own hands.”

Mr. Hatoyama, who is expected to assemble a government in two to three weeks, has spoken of the end of American-dominated globalization and of the need to reorient Japan toward Asia. His party’s campaign manifesto calls for an “equal partnership” with the United States and a “reconsidering” of the 50,000-strong American military presence here.

One change on the horizon may be the renegotiation of a deal with Washington to relocate the United States Marine Corps’ Futenma airfield, on the island of Okinawa. Many island residents want to evict the base altogether.

The Democrats, who opposed the American-led war in Iraq, have also said they may end the Japanese Navy’s refueling of American and allied warships in the Indian Ocean.

The White House issued a statement on Sunday saying it was “confident that the strong U.S.-Japan alliance and the close partnership between our two countries will continue to flourish” under the new government. “President Obama looks forward to working closely with the new Japanese prime minister on a broad range of global, regional and bilateral issues,” the statement said.

Political analysts expect Japan to remain a close American ally, but one that is more assertive and less willing to follow Washington’s lead automatically.

“This is what happens when you have a government in Japan that must be responsive to public opinion,” said Daniel C. Sneider, a researcher on East Asia at Stanford University. “It will end the habits from decades of a relationship in which Japan didn’t challenge the United States.”

At the same time, the Democrats want to improve relations with other Asian countries, including on the touchy issue of history. Analysts say the party seeks to reverse Japan’s growing isolation in the region under decades of right-wing Liberal Democratic rule.

Such changes are not likely to come quickly. Diplomatic analysts expect the Democrats to steer clear of security issues for the time being because they could prove too divisive for a party dependent on a broad ideological spectrum.

And some analysts have played down the rhetoric of Mr. Hatoyama, a bushy-haired former management professor, as a nod to his party’s left-leaning base rather than a firm pledge to alter dealings with the United States drastically. In recent interviews, Democratic leaders have insisted there will be no major changes in that relationship.

“It’s complete nonsense that a non-Liberal Democratic government will hurt U.S.-Japan relations,” said Tetsuro Fukuyama, a Democratic lawmaker who oversaw production of the campaign manifesto. “But there are many things left unchanged from the last 50 years that need to be re-examined.”

Analysts, however, saw the vote less as an embrace of the Democrats than a resounding rejection of the incumbents. The conservative Liberal Democrats, who with their precursors have held or shared power for 62 of the past 63 years, led Japan from bombed-out rubble to economic miracle, while keeping it firmly in Washington’s camp.

But the party has appeared increasingly exhausted and directionless, and Japan’s traditionally apolitical electorate, in a rare display of popular democratic muscle, firmly blamed it for the decline of this former economic superpower and its increasingly cloudy future.

“We have been trying to outgrow this old one-party system ever since the collapse of the Berlin Wall,” said Takeshi Sasaki, a political expert and former president of the University of Tokyo. “It took two decades, but we finally made it.”

Prime Minister Taro Aso told reporters that he would take responsibility for the defeat, and stepped down Monday as head of the party.

The exhilarating sense that Japan had reached a turning point drew long lines of voters to polling stations in Tokyo, where they braved darkening skies from an approaching typhoon. About 70 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, according to NHK, the highest turnout in nearly two decades.

“I want the Democratic Party to have a go at running the country,” said Akiko Tanaka, a 34-year-old nursing home care worker who voted at a junior high school in the Tokyo suburb of Sayama. “If we keep going like we’ve been, nothing will get better. We need a new government.”

A top priority for the new government will be simply maintaining the unity it achieved on Sunday. The largely untested Democrats, a broad coalition of former Socialists and Liberal Democrat defectors, hope to avoid the mistakes of the only previous non-Liberal Democratic government, in 1993, which collapsed in just 11 months because of infighting and defections.

That imperative virtually assures no sudden, radical departures in foreign policy. Rather, analysts expect the Democrats to focus at least initially on their more ambitious domestic agenda.

The party has pledged to change the postwar paradigm here as well, promising to ease growing social inequality by handing more money and social benefits directly to residents rather than to industry or other interest groups.

It has promised to strengthen the social safety net and raise the low birthrate by giving families cash handouts of $270 per month per child. And the party has said it will rein in the powerful central ministries in Tokyo, which have run postwar Japan on the Liberal Democrats’ behalf.

But even here, most people have not embraced the party’s platform with much enthusiasm, nor are they optimistic about the Democrats’ ability to solve looming problems like the growing government debt and a rapidly aging population.

To many voters, the most important fact of this election was that they finally had a choice.

“This vote is about making a system where parties that fail get kicked out,” said Yoshiyuki Kobayashi, 40, one of the white-collar corporate workers known here as salarymen. “We need to teach politicians to be nervous.”

news20090831wp

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

[Asia/Pacific]
Ruling Party Is Routed In Japan
Lagging Economy Cited for Vote Ending 54 Years of Dominance
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 31, 2009

TOKYO, Aug. 31 -- Breaking a half-century hammerlock of one-party rule in Japan, the opposition Democratic Party won a crushing election victory Sunday with pledges to revive the country's stalled economy and to steer a foreign-policy course less dependent on the United States.

But it was pent-up voter anger, not campaign promises, that halted 54 years of near-continuous dominance by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The party had become a profoundly unpopular, but deeply entrenched, governing force that so feared it would be swept from power that it had put off a national election for nearly three years.

In a record landslide on a rainy day, voters awarded 308 seats in the powerful 480-seat lower house of parliament to a slightly left-of-center opposition party formed by disaffected LDP veterans. It is led by Yukio Hatoyama, 62, a Stanford-trained engineer who will probably be chosen prime minister in mid-September.

"I believe all the people were feeling a great rage against the current government," Hatoyama said. "Everything starts now. We can finally do politics that the people are building their hopes on. My heart is too full for words."

The grand strategist behind the win was Ichiro Ozawa, a former LDP power broker. He was the Democratic Party's founding leader until he was forced to resign this year in a campaign finance scandal.

Hatoyama thanked Ozawa on Sunday night for engineering the victory and said he wants Ozawa either to serve in his cabinet or to continue as campaign manager for the party.

"Frustration against the LDP, which ignored people's lives and favored the bureaucracy, has been felt nationwide," Ozawa said, explaining his party's win.

Japan was the postwar wonder that grew into the world's second-largest economy. But it became enfeebled and directionless in the latter years of the LDP's long watch, with stagnant wages and sputtering growth, the worrying rise of the world's oldest population, and a monstrous government debt that will soon double the gross national product. Unemployment set a record last week, and the economy shrank for much of the past year at nearly twice the U.S. rate.

For these failings, voters seemed eager to punish the LDP and its unpopular leader, Prime Minister Taro Aso. On Sunday, Aso called his party's defeat "very severe."

"I think it is a result of the people's dissatisfaction and distrust towards LDP's leadership," Aso said, adding that he takes responsibility for the loss and will step down as party leader.

Judging from polls and voter interviews, the opposition won not because of its attractive policies or charismatic leadership. There is skepticism about how sound those policies are and doubt about how capable the party's unproven leaders will be. Instead, the Democratic Party won by default, as the only available means by which voters could wrest power from the LDP.

"It is not really that I am voting for the Democratic Party," said Atsushi Neriugawa, 49, owner of a consulting company, after voting in Tokyo. "I simply want power to change. If the Democratic Party happens to be no good, then I will revert back to LDP."

Hatoyama said the party will meet Monday to form a coalition with two smaller parties. The coalition would give the Democratic Party and its allies more than a two-thirds majority in the lower house, enabling it to control legislation in parliament and pass into law any bills rejected by the upper house.

The election marked the first time in postwar Japan that an opposition party seized power with a majority in a national election. The Democratic Party's capture of 308 seats was a record in the lower house. Final turnout was projected by the Kyodo news agency to be 69 percent, highest since the current electoral system was introduced in 1996.

The upper house is controlled by the Democratic Party, but that could change after an election next year if the new ruling party stumbles.

A stumble is probably likely, given the severity of Japan's economic problems. By the go-go standards of Asia, this country's economy is dead in the water -- averaging about 1.09 percent growth since 2000. In the past two decades, Japan has skidded from fourth to 14th among industrialized nations in per-capita gross domestic product.

On Monday, the Nikkei 225 Stock Average slid 0.4 percent after climbing as much as 2.2 percent.

Growth is desperately needed to pay for pensions, health care and other costly social services for a fast-aging population, 40 percent of which will be 65 or older by 2050. Accelerated growth is also needed to raise enough tax revenue to begin reducing a public debt of $9.14 trillion, the heaviest debt burden in the industrialized world, measured as a percentage of the country's economy.

The Democratic Party says increased growth will come through higher domestic consumption. It says it will give parents $276 a month to raise children, and will also eliminate highway tolls, increase support for farmers and raise the minimum wage.

"We'll make sure the economy recovers by providing benefits to households," Hatoyama said in a speech last week.

But analysts say his party's plans do not add up to a credible strategy for reinventing Japan's export-addicted economy. Voters, too, are skeptical, telling pollsters they do not understand where money will come from for $178 billion in new spending. The party is promising not to raise the public debt or increase consumption taxes for the foreseeable future.

"The Democrat Party actually has no economic policy," said Minoru Morita, a political analyst. "They have no systemic proposals, no New Deal. Without a plan, they cannot overcome the crisis left to them by the LDP. If they drive the economy recklessly, then they could lose big-time in the upper house election next year."

The new government will probably be formed by mid-September, after a meeting of parliament that will pick Hatoyama as prime minister.

One of his party's first priorities is to shake up the elite bureaucracy that has long dominated the government, often molding policy to fit the needs of the country's largest companies.

Hatoyama has said he will dispatch 100 members of parliament to seize decision-making authority in the bureaucracy and bend it so that it serves the needs of citizens.

The Democratic Party has also pushed for greater independence for Japan from the United States, which has about 50,000 military personnel stationed here and is treaty-bound to defend the country from attack.

"Until now, Japan has acted to suit U.S. convenience," Hatoyama said in a TV appearance last week. "But rather than doing so, Japan-U.S. relations should be on an equal footing so that our side can strongly assert Japan's will."

Japan helps pay for the cost of stationing U.S. forces on its territory, a policy the Democratic Party has questioned. It says it wants to rethink the entire agreement that keeps U.S. soldiers here.

Hatoyama has spoken of adjusting the focus of Japan's foreign policy to create stronger trade and diplomatic ties with China, South Korea and other countries.

But in recent weeks he and other party leaders have said they will not seek major changes in foreign policy. Hatoyama said the U.S.-Japan alliance would "continue to be the cornerstone of Japanese diplomatic policy."

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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[World news > Japan]
Japan awakes to new era as opposition sweeps into power'
We have reached the starting line,' says new PM Yukio Hatoyama after election landslide redraws political landscape
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
guardian.co.uk, Monday 31 August 2009 12.44 BST Article history

Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, began the delicate task of forming a new government this morning, hours after inflicting a devastating defeat on the ruling Liberal Democratic party [LDP].

The euphoria of the night before, when his Democratic Party of Japan [DPJ] secured 308 out of 480 seats in the lower house, quickly gave way to the business of addressing record unemployment and deflation as Japan struggles to emerge from its worst recession since the second world war.

Questions are already being asked about his government's ability to end the bureaucracy's stranglehold on economic policy and to focus on the interests of consumers rather than those of powerful corporations.

"It has taken a long time, but we have at last reached the starting line," Hatoyama told reporters at his home in Tokyo. "This is by no means the destination. At long last, we are able to move politics – to create a new kind of politics that will fulfil the expectations of the people."

His opponent, Taro Aso, resigned as president of the LDP, which now has just 119 MPs in the lower house compared with 300 before the election.

Hatoyama has about two weeks to put together his administration. Elite bureaucrats and business leaders will use that time to prepare themselves to work with a different ruling party for only the second time since 1955.

Japan's parliament will look radically different when it formally elects Hatoyama as prime minister at a special session in the middle of next month. The lower house will contain 158 first-time MPs, just over 90% of them from the DPJ, and a record 54 women, 40 of them from Hatoyama's party. The chamber's 480 MPs have an average age of 52, with the youngest aged 27.

The LDP's depleted ranks will be missing several senior politicians, including the current finance minister, Kaoru Yosano. Over 46% of its remaining MPs are "hereditary candidates" who inherited their seats from their fathers or mothers, compared with just over 10% among DPJ MPs.

The financial markets reacted positively to the prospect of a new government, with the Nikkei benchmark index rising to a near-11-month high before retreating slightly as a stronger yen pushed down shares among exporters.

The DPJ's honeymoon period promises to be shortlived amid nagging concerns about its ability to fund spending pledges that are expected to reach 16.8tr yen over the next four years.

The party has vowed to end wasteful spending and invest heavily in welfare, to introduce a child allowance and to raise the minimum wage while keeping the consumption tax unchanged at 5% for the next four years.

But despite disquiet about Hatoyama's recent attack on "unrestrained market fundamentalism", business leaders offered him a cautious welcome.

Fujio Mitarai, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, said the DPJ had made a "genuine transition of power" possible for the first time in Japan's postwar history.

Kaoru Yano, president of the electronics firm NEC, said the result was "an expression of the people's call to break out of these tough economic and stagnant social conditions".

The US president, Barack Obama, said he looked forward to working closely with Hatoyama, who has promised to end Japan's "subservience" to US foreign policy. In recent days, however, Hatoyama has toned down his rhetoric, pledging that the bilateral alliance would remain the "cornerstone of Japanese diplomatic policy".

"The people of Japan have participated in an historic election in one of the world's leading democracies," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "President Obama looks forward to working closely with the new Japanese prime minister on a broad range of global, regional and bilateral issues."

The new US ambassador to Tokyo, John Roos, said: "The challenges we face are many, but through our partnership our two great democracies will meet them in a spirit of cooperation and friendship."