Word: ozawa
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Hours after leading his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to a historic election victory, Ichiro Ozawa was nowhere to be seen. As the results rolled in the evening of July 29, tallying up the rising number of DPJ winners in Upper House races, Ozawa didn't appear at party headquarters, didn't speak to reporters, didn't even poke his head out to wave to his supporters. The official explanation was that the 65-year-old Ozawa - a former smoker who suffers from heart problems - was recovering from exhaustion after weeks of nonstop campaigning. It wasn't until nearly...
...Ozawa's no-show aptly symbolizes the anticlimactic letdown that Japan - and the DPJ - is experiencing after an extraordinary parliamentary election. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, suffered the worst defeat in its 52-year history. Meanwhile, by taking 60 out of 121 seats up for grabs, the DPJ became the first opposition party to control the Upper House. The results seem to suggest that, after decades as a virtual single-party state, Japan has finally produced a viable opposition and a true two-party democracy, creating an environment where backroom politics would fade...
...dissension within the LDP, the victorious DPJ will face its own difficult choices. With control of the Upper House, the party will be able to block legislation, although the ruling coalition's two-thirds majority in the Lower House will allow it to override most opposition. DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa could choose to throw the government into gridlock, hoping to force Abe to call snap elections. But playing parliamentary chicken is risky: such a move could prompt the public to see the DPJ as obstructionist and incapable of governing, a charge which has stuck to them in the past. (News...
Virtually anything could happen over the coming weeks - one Tokyo TV station has even helpfully spliced its election coverage with dramatizations of the various scenarios, from Abe resigning to former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi entering the picture, with look-alike actors playing the roles of Abe and Ozawa. But what is certain is that Abe's vision of a stronger, more assertive Japan is finished for now. In one of the election's biggest surprises, the LDP's usually reliable coalition partner Komeito performed well under expectations - in part, suggests Jun Iio of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies...
...Besides, the DPJ fails to beat the LDP at the polls with depressing regularity. "[DPJ leader Ichiro] Ozawa has been singularly good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory," says Richard Katz, editor of the Oriental Economist newsletter. Though the DPJ has gained a slight edge on the LDP since the pension scandal broke, its own approval ratings rarely break 25%, and most Japanese say they're simply fed up with both parties. Even if the DPJ does manage to seize the Upper House-Ozawa has promised to resign if his party falters-they'll be faced with...