LDP is voted out after more than half a century of uninterrupted rule
Taking a leaf out of Obama’s Presidential campaign, Yukio
Hatoyama of Democratic Party of Japan used “change” as the rhetoric in Japan’s most interesting elections ever. And if it clicked once, it would have clicked again. And click it did.
When sleepy Japanese came out to vote early Sunday morning their conscience was wide awake. The decision they were going to make was not at all simple. Actually far from it. They had to select between a more than five decades old party that they no more had any trust in, and its fledgling 11-year-old rival that has certainly not been in the driver's seat. They made their decision judiciously.
Opposition Democratic Party of Japan bagged as many as 308 seats, out of 480, in the lower house of parliament. With its alliance partners—who bagged another 32 seats—DPJ is all set for a landslide victory. It also saw end to the era of the Liberal Democratic Party, which governed Japan in most of the years after World War II. Yukio Hatoyama is all set to form next government with the help of his coalition partners Social Democratic Party and the People's New Party.
The election gave full control to DPJ in governance as it already had majority in the upper house of the parliament—an instrument it used ruthlessly to scuttle nearly all the bills that her rival LDP proposed on the floor. The filibuster majority will essentially mean a free hand for DPJ to rule the country.
“There are not many dates in post war Japanese history that can claim to change the course. One was certainly in August 1945. Another one probably is this,” reacted Gerald Curtis, a Japanese affairs expert at School of International Studies Columbia University, while talking to TSI. Strictly speaking, nevertheless, this contrasting result is also because of Liberal Democrats’ penchant for committing Hara-kiri. The party that served an umbrella organisation for all the flip-flop lower conservative factions, who shifted allegiance at will, lost its clue in last few years. Their once common hatred against communism was unable to hold them for long. However, their commitment to market liberalism made them a blue eyed boy of corporate and bureaucracy. And that helped them to propel war-ravaged Japan to the status of the world’s second-ranked economy. But as the bubble burst in the 1990s the rift between the functioning of LDP and the ethos and aspirations of Japanese grew wider and wider. The lifetime employment system — Japan’s capitalist response to Communism’s pension scheme — fall apart and Gini Coefficient rocketed, the people on the lower strata started abandoning its support base. The country aged rapidly too and the new generation faced the fact, the hitherto unknown, anxious situation of going from one temporary position to another.
Naturally, the right step would have been fundamental reforms. However they were a few. To give devil its due, it was not that Liberal Democrats were unwilling to introduce change; however, they were helpless in the face of opposition from their most influential support base comprising corporate and bureaucrats. Some other neo-liberal efforts though wrested Gini Coefficient for sometime, in the long run, the disparity between the rich and the poor only grew. Since then, as many as 13 PMs have been replaced.
For a race merely accustomed to degrees of amend — if any — the Japanese have elected a party whose guiding principles differ quite obviously from those of its precursor. It has vowed to produce jobs and lend a hand to customers rather than aligning itself to big corporations. This, quite naturally, will be as tough for the fresh ruler to achieve as it will be for Japanese commercial establishments to agree to. Winds of change are blowing on foreign policy front too. Although Japan will keep acting as US’s second fiddle in Asia in years to come; the earlier “joint to the hip” appearance will definitely cease.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
Taking a leaf out of Obama’s Presidential campaign, Yukio
Hatoyama of Democratic Party of Japan used “change” as the rhetoric in Japan’s most interesting elections ever. And if it clicked once, it would have clicked again. And click it did.When sleepy Japanese came out to vote early Sunday morning their conscience was wide awake. The decision they were going to make was not at all simple. Actually far from it. They had to select between a more than five decades old party that they no more had any trust in, and its fledgling 11-year-old rival that has certainly not been in the driver's seat. They made their decision judiciously.
Opposition Democratic Party of Japan bagged as many as 308 seats, out of 480, in the lower house of parliament. With its alliance partners—who bagged another 32 seats—DPJ is all set for a landslide victory. It also saw end to the era of the Liberal Democratic Party, which governed Japan in most of the years after World War II. Yukio Hatoyama is all set to form next government with the help of his coalition partners Social Democratic Party and the People's New Party.
The election gave full control to DPJ in governance as it already had majority in the upper house of the parliament—an instrument it used ruthlessly to scuttle nearly all the bills that her rival LDP proposed on the floor. The filibuster majority will essentially mean a free hand for DPJ to rule the country.
“There are not many dates in post war Japanese history that can claim to change the course. One was certainly in August 1945. Another one probably is this,” reacted Gerald Curtis, a Japanese affairs expert at School of International Studies Columbia University, while talking to TSI. Strictly speaking, nevertheless, this contrasting result is also because of Liberal Democrats’ penchant for committing Hara-kiri. The party that served an umbrella organisation for all the flip-flop lower conservative factions, who shifted allegiance at will, lost its clue in last few years. Their once common hatred against communism was unable to hold them for long. However, their commitment to market liberalism made them a blue eyed boy of corporate and bureaucracy. And that helped them to propel war-ravaged Japan to the status of the world’s second-ranked economy. But as the bubble burst in the 1990s the rift between the functioning of LDP and the ethos and aspirations of Japanese grew wider and wider. The lifetime employment system — Japan’s capitalist response to Communism’s pension scheme — fall apart and Gini Coefficient rocketed, the people on the lower strata started abandoning its support base. The country aged rapidly too and the new generation faced the fact, the hitherto unknown, anxious situation of going from one temporary position to another.
Naturally, the right step would have been fundamental reforms. However they were a few. To give devil its due, it was not that Liberal Democrats were unwilling to introduce change; however, they were helpless in the face of opposition from their most influential support base comprising corporate and bureaucrats. Some other neo-liberal efforts though wrested Gini Coefficient for sometime, in the long run, the disparity between the rich and the poor only grew. Since then, as many as 13 PMs have been replaced.
For a race merely accustomed to degrees of amend — if any — the Japanese have elected a party whose guiding principles differ quite obviously from those of its precursor. It has vowed to produce jobs and lend a hand to customers rather than aligning itself to big corporations. This, quite naturally, will be as tough for the fresh ruler to achieve as it will be for Japanese commercial establishments to agree to. Winds of change are blowing on foreign policy front too. Although Japan will keep acting as US’s second fiddle in Asia in years to come; the earlier “joint to the hip” appearance will definitely cease.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
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