Word: pension
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...July 29-and the Prime Minister himself could be forced to resign just 10 months into his tenure-pop into the social-welfare office in Tokyo's central Minato ward. Most days you'll find a gray brigade of angry Japanese voters who want to know where their pensions have gone-and they want to know now. In May the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) revealed that records of up to 50 million pension accounts had been misplaced and couldn't be connected to their owners, due to a monumental bureaucratic error. When Abe appeared more concerned with dodging...
...disasters that have beset Abe over the past two months, including the suicide of one minister under a cloud of corruption (Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka), the resignation of another (Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma) for a foolish remark on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, and worst of all, the pension crisis. "The LDP has begun to melt down," gloats Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, a high-ranking DPJ member. A recent survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper pegged Abe's approval rating at an anemic 32%, and it's likely that the LDP and its ruling coalition partner, the New Komeito Party, will...
...That became painfully obvious when news of the misplaced pension accounts broke. The problem arose more than a decade ago when workers at the government's Social Insurance Agency (SIA) began merging the multiple pension streams received by retirees into single accounts with individual identification numbers. In the process up to 50 million names were mistakenly recorded, making it difficult to match payments with people. Though the mistakes occurred under a different administration, and almost all accounts should eventually be joined to their owners, the DPJ used the pension scandal to hammer Abe, who seemed slow to realize its importance...
...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 the tougher question...
...That's the real trouble: no one has. From its endangered pension system to its emerging young underclass, Japan faces existential challenges, but you wouldn't know that from the tone of the campaigns. Real debates-such as whether to raise the consumption tax to reduce public debt-are postponed until after the election, while the media feeds on the latest political scandal. "It's like the campaign is happening on another planet," says Akihiko Matsutani, a pension expert with GRIPS. "These discussions need to take place...