Word: ldp
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Elsewhere, victorious DPJ candidates lifted their arms and hoarsely shouted the celebratory phrase "banzai" after exit polls showed Japan's main opposition party blasted the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from its virtually untested 54-year reign. Polls indicate the DPJ's historic win will likely hand the party more than 300 of the 480 seats in the Diet's lower house, while the LDP is expected to get about 100 - just one-third of what it had before Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolved parliament in July and called the Aug. 30 election. If the DPJ lands more than...
...poised to win more than 300 of the 480 seats in the House of Representatives election. A win of 320 seats would give the party a two-thirds majority and the power to pass bills without the support of other parties or even the upper house. Meanwhile, the ruling LDP party is slated to drop to about 100 seats, according to the daily Asahi Shimbun- an anemic one-third of what it held before Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolved the lower house and called elections in July. The expected reshuffle points to the DPJ's strength not only in cities...
...been gaining momentum since 2007 - the year of its historic majority win of the Diet's upper house. And since official campaigning began on Aug. 18, the LDP, feeling the pinch of competition, has seen its bigwig politicians return to their constituencies to ask for support. Some of the LDP's more well-known members, such as faction leader Nobutaka Machimura and former defense minister and environment minister, Yuriko Koike, will have a difficult time defending their seats, say analysts...
...Japan's economy, however, has been suffering since the so-called "lost decade" of the 1990s following the bursting of Japan's banking and real estate bubbles. The LDP, says Curtis, failed to respond to the changing needs of the people, particularly those living in rural areas. The electorate system, which changed in 1994 to include single-member districts, also chipped away at what helped insulate the LDP from political competition. Before the switch from multi-member to single-member districts, voters who disapproved of the incumbent could vote for another LDP member if they wanted a change. With...
...Former Prime Minister Junichiro] Koizumi delayed the inevitable collapse of the LDP for five years," says Curtis, who says that after Koizumi left office the failure of his reforms became more apparent. Following the end of Koizumi's term in 2006, Japan has had three prime ministers in as many years. "The public was waiting for chance to show their dissatisfaction, which is why they had no election, because [Shinzo] Abe, [Yasuo] Fukuda and Aso knew that they would lose. So, they put it off until the very last moment," says Curtis. "And lo and behold, they're going...