Summer's Here! Let's All Topple The Noda Government!

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, According to the Sankei Shimbun, the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party is planning to submit a no-confidence motion in the House of Representatives and a censure motion in the House of Councillors on August 7, one day before the LDP and its ally the New Komeito hopes to have their members in the House of Councillors to vote in favor of bills submitted by said Noda government. The leadership of the LDP is willing to stay its hand on the two disciplinary actions, however, if the Prime Minister Noda promises to ask for a Diet dissolution before the end of this current Diet session runs out, which as of now will be on September 9. (J)

I know none of that scans.

Let us see if it makes sense in gangster-speak:

"We look forward to conducting business with you, as we have agreed, on Wednesday. However, on Tuesday, we are going to shoot you...unless, of course, you agree by Tuesday to shoot yourself sometime within the next 40 days...and we expect you to stand by that promise to shoot yourself, because if you don't, we'll shoot you."

Nonsense, of course -- but even more so because, as we know, Noda does not have a gun and the LDP, if it wants to shoot Noda, will have to borrow ammunition from the Democratic Party of Japan.

What the heck is going on here?

It seems the little visit Koizumu Shinjiro paid to LDP headquarters on August 1 with six of his fellow Young Turks has paid some dividends, as the leadership seems to be singing from Koizumi's hymnal. The seven striplings met with party president Tanigaki Sadakazu and told him had he to repudiate the June 15 agreement made with the DPJ on passing the government's reform bills, including the bill raising the consumption tax. Barring a repudiation of the agreement, the LDP had to wave a no-confidence motion or a House of Councillors censure motion in Noda's face. (J)

That the LDP senior leaders would roll over and offer up their throats to Koizumi -- who, one must remember, is in his first term -- is ludicrous. However, so is the position the LDP finds itself. It holds veto power over any non-budget legislation, due to the DPJ-People's New Party ruling coalition's holding only 88 seats in the 242-seat House of Councillors. In response, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko is sending to House only bills the LDP cannot refuse to support -- as they are drawn up based on promises the LDP made in its campaign manifesto. So while the LDP, which wants to act like an opposition party in the basest, most brain-dead way, by opposing the government at every turn, finds it has to accept what the government has been proposing.

The LDP leaders were not just pushed by Koizumi and the younger generation; the other opposition parties have presented their own threat to box in the LDP and the New Komeito. The seven opposition parties not party to the June 15 agreement met on August 3 and decided to submit their own no-confidence motion by June 8, in symbolic protest against the likely House of Councillors vote on that date raising the consumption tax. (J)

Pressed from both inside and outside, the LDP leadership is reduced to issuing absurd threats. Absurd not in the no-confidence motion's being dead upon delivery -- there is still a chance that some number of DPJ members greater than 15 will vote for the motion. Absurd in that the current government is following the LDP's policy script; a no-confidence motion cannot trigger a dissolution of the Diet; and the LDP leadership, to demonstrate it is still viable, must follow the lead of its most junior members and its pipsqueak political enemies.

Party By The Numbers

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, All day...and all of the night.

Public funding of elections

On April 6, the Ministry of General Affairs and Telecommunications announced its dispensation of public campaign funds to the established parties.

The winners and their winnings (in yen) are:

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)
16,505,302,000

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
10,154,000,000

New Komeito
2,279,166,000 yen

Minna no To (Your Party)
1,118,299,000

Social Democratic Party (SDP)
763,697,000

People's New Party (PNP)
442,543,000

Kizuna Party (Kizuna)
275,585,000

Tachiagare Nippon (Sunrise Party)
173,779,000

Japan New Party (JNP)
136,022,000

Shinto Kaikaku (New Renaissance Party - NRP)
119,610,000

Shinto Daichi-True DPJ
115,325,000

(Link)

The ones making out like bandits are the PNP, who after the coup last week will be splitting up amongst the six remaining members an apportionment for eight.

The Japan Communist Party (JCP), out of principle and/or basic stupidity (at times the two resemble one another), does not take public funds.


Seats in the Diet, both Houses

Following the resignations of Kamei Shizuka and Kamei Akiko from the PNP and the dissolution of the caucus linking the PNP and the JNP, the memberships of the Houses of the Diet are divided as follows.

House of Representatives

DPJ-Club of Independents 291
LDP-Association of Independents 120
New Komeito 21
JCP 9
Kizuna 9
SDP 6
Your Party 5
PNP 3
Shinto Daichi- True DPJ 3
Sunrise Party 2
independents 10
unoccupied 1

House of Councillors

DPJ-Shinryokufukai 104
LDP-Sunrise Party-Association of Independents 86
New Komeito 19
Your Party 11
JCP 6
SDP-League to Protect the Constitution 4
PNP 3
NRP 2
Shinto Daichi- True DPJ 2
independents 5

The Shinryokufukai is a party is a political relic, existing only in the name of the House of Councillors caucus.

So The Budget Passes. Now What?

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Since Sunday the government of this blessed land has been operating without a budget, an embarrassing state of affairs which happens from time to time (the last time was 14 years ago). For reasons that escape me for the moment, the Democratic Party of Japan's floor leaders managed to demonstrate an alarming inability to count backwards 30 days from April 1, alarming in that it is both simple to do and also reminiscent of the inability of the floor leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan to count backwards 60 days during that party's final years in power.

With the budget bill set to become law today thanks to the 30 day rule written into Article 60 of the Constitution (seemingly the only article of the Constitution that is worth a damn), the opposition-dominated House of Councillors, ever ready to prove itself more than just a place to take a good nap, roused itself yesterday to vote the budget down. This triggered the rigmarole of the formation of a joint committee of both Houses which, amazingly, after long minutes of hard bargaining, found itself in an irreconcilable deadlock on the bill, meaning that the budget bill automatically became law.

On the surface, the 2012 budget is smaller than the 2011 budget, the first year-on-year nominal drop in six years. Add on all the special accounting for the recovery and reconstruction efforts resulting from the triple disaster of 3/11, however, and the budget is the largest ever. (J)

Just getting the budget passed is not much to write home about. The hurdle is the budget enabling legislation (yosan kanren hoan), primarily the approval of the issuance of bonds to pay for the items in the budget. With all the attention that has been focused on the bill raising the consumption tax, which is the sexier story due to the internecine battle it has spawned inside the DPJ, the Diet fight over the enabling legislation has been ignored.

However, passage of the enabling legislation is the real make-or-break fight for the Noda government. Last year Prime Minister Kan Naoto, in a fantastic bit of legerdemain, forced the LDP and the New Komeito to vote for the enabling legislation by threatening that if they did not, he would not resign as prime minister*. Prime Minister Noda, who has no intention of resigning, will have to find his own lever for prying a "Yes" vote from out of the hands of the LDP and the New Komeito.

One of the strategies proposed is keeping the Diet in extended session until the opposition parties just give up. I am not sure how the incentives are supposed to work here, unless the plan is to freak out Tanigaki Sadakazu over his trying to win reelection as LDP President whilst leading his party in a do nothing strike in the Diet, obstreperous behavior that will earn the LDP a serious lashing by the mainstream press (all except by the Nippon Terebi network, which has proven to be even more pro-LDP than its owner the Yomiuri Shimbun). The Diet session is going to be extended anyway due to the number of controversial bills the government has submitted for Diet approval (J). In terms of atmospherics, it will be difficult to disentangle which part of the extension is being carried out in order to complete Diet business and which is meant to drive the opposition parties nuts.

Working out a quid pro quo between the ruling coalition** and the opposition parties would be an option, if this blessed land's political classes could consider Houses of the Diet being controlled by different parties a natural state of affairs. However, the political classes are united in considering such a division unnatural, calling it a "twisted Diet" (nejire kokkai). The quid that the opposition parties want the ruling coalition to pro quo is a dissolution of the Diet in return for a yes vote on the enabling legislation and the bill raising the consumption tax. Since the DPJ is neither suicidal (assuming recent poll numbers are correct, the party would be demolished were elections held this summer) nor unaware that the current Diet district seat apportionment system is unconstitutional, the LDP and the New Komeito are making offers that the DPJ can do nothing but refuse.

So the stage is set for a lengthy stalemate.

Whatever the supercomputers of the Japan Meteorological Agency may be predicting, it is going to be a hot, hot summer.

-------------------------

* The essay is "Kan Won" in Reconstructing 3/11: Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown - how Japan's future depends on its understanding of the 2011 triple disaster available from Amazon.com. (Link)

** Yesterday, Shimoji Mikio, the erstwhile secretary-general of the possibly still extant People's New Party ostensibly fired his superior, Kamei Shizuka, replacing him with Financial Services Minister Jimi Shozaburo (J). Kamei, as one can imagine, does not accept his being fired by his subordinate. At present we seem to have two PNPs: one composed of Kamei and his distant relative, the other of the six MPs who say that the PNP has not withdrawn from the ruling coalition.


Later - Critical minds think in parallel: today's Tokyo Shimbun has a lead editorial on the above subject. (J)

The Tokyo Shimbun's editors seem to be of the opinion that it is worthwhile to remind the legislators that ultimately it is the citizens who will be deciding their political futures. Somehow this reality, of which the legislators have heretofore been seemingly been ignorant, will entice them into turning away from their petty, immediate obsessions and instead stir them to provide leadership for the country.

While the editors are at it, they might as well wish for ponies for everyone as well.

We Ain't Leavin' Til We Get What We Came Here For

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, In the end, Kamei "Pavarotti" Shizuka could only convince his policy research council chief Kamei Akiko (who, strangely enough, is not a close relation. She is the direct lineal descendant of the daimyo of the Tsuwano han. He comes what might be a branch line that reverted to being peasants during the Sengoku period) to leave the government. For reasons that only he can fathom, he thinks he can decamp with the People's New Party banner under his arm, leaving the 6 now former PNP members to labor on in the Diet as independents.

Kamei's leaving in a huff allows Jimi Shozaburo, the financial services minister, free to vote in the next cabinet meeting in favor of the bill increasing the consumption tax -- the last hurdle the government of Noda Yoshihiko had to vault before it could offer the bill to the House of Representatives.

Unfortunately for Kamei, and for persons trying to make sense of the situation, Jimi, party secretary-general Shimoji Mikio and the 4 others say they have not left the PNP. (J)

Something has to give. Likely as not the 6 will form a new party that can then join the government in a new coalition, maintaining the leverage they need in order to pressure the Democratic Party of Japan into scheduling a vote on a postal counter-reformation bill the 6 like. Or they can rely on the assurances of the prime minister (5 of them met with Noda last night) that the raison d'être of the PNP will be respected, even if the PNP is in the state of non-être.

So after Fukushima Mizuho of the Social Democratic Party of Japan, Kamei Shizuka of the PNP has headed for the doors on a point of principle (the point of principle not being the execution of three death row convicts, the other subject that kept Kamei Shizuka, a fervent death penalty opponent, busy yesterday).

The first post August 2009 election prime minister Hatoyama Yukio, Kamei and Fukushima, the trio who ushered in the new era of Japanese politics just 2 1/2 years ago (or quartet, if one adds the shadow prime minister Ozawa Ichiro) have all strode off from center stage, leaving their respective parties either hobbled or in shambles.

The revolution rolls on, having devoured its first generation of leaders -- as is so often the case.

The Usual Suspects; The Usual Outcome?

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, They were supposed to wrap things up on Friday but they could not come to an agreement.

They were supposed to come up with some neat ideas over the weekend to patch up the yawning fissure in between the two sides. However, there were no realistic ideas, just a lot of wishes expressed.

Monday was supposed to be the day when the final offers were made...but...you can guess the outcome.

Finally, in the wee hours of this morning, the chair of the Democratic Party of Japan ad hoc committee trying to forge an intra-party consensus on the conditions for the raising of the consumption tax declared the debate over. Those opposed to the raising of the consumption tax raised a fuss...but that is what they were going to do anyway.

So the drafting of the final language of the bill is handed over to (ichinin suru) Policy Research Council Chairman Maehara Seiji, which is tantamount to this multi-week debate's never having taken place.

The Noda Yoshihiko led-executive did offer some last minute concessions. The first was the mentioning of economic growth targets in the body of the bill as a necessary consideration for reconsideration of the appropriateness of the timing of the tax rise, without actually having those targets serve as triggers. What was promised was sort of "It would be nice if we have nominal growth of 3% and real growth of 2% when the tax is raised. It we do not have these levels of growth we will be vewy, vewy sad." Opponents to the tax rise have been demanding the numerical triggers. They were, shall we say, less than impressed at the leadership's offer.

The other concession was the elimination of the article in the bill which left the door open for further raising of the consumption tax beyond 10% after 2014. Both sides of the debate, however, knew from the outset that that particular article was a sacrificial lamb, so its elimination is more an insult than a concession.

So the bill is set for approval by the Cabinet this Friday, meeting a deadline set in a 2009 bill for reforms of the consumption tax. Will the anti-tax group, most of whom are either supporters or past supporters of splitists (borrowing the Chinese pejorative) Ozawa Ichiro and Hatoyama Yukio, go so far as to break away from the DPJ?

No.

Why say that with such conviction? These folks have been staying up late (last night's session lasted 7 hours), night after night, doing their darndest to stymie the leadership from offering to the Diet its own version of the bill.

Yes, and after all that effort, they did not manage to do diddly, did they?

Let us surmise that this was a debate with a pre-determined outcome, a pantomime show put on for the benefit of those either hoping for

1) a break up of the DPJ,
2) a halt in the raising of the consumption tax,
3) evidence of real, considered policy debate within the ruling party,
4) an intra-party political drama keeping the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito off the nation's TV screens and political news pages, or
5) any combination of the previous four elements.

The first hint that this was a set piece was the players. In a real debate, there would be twists and turns, unforeseen heroes, impromptu memorable quips. However, in this show, we saw the same seven characters:

Policy Research Chairman Maehara Seiji
Tax Committee Chairman Fujii Haruhisa

in the pro-tax corner

Azuma Shozo (now with a beard)
Kawauchi Hiroshi
Yamada "Mr. No To Everything" Masahiko

in the anti-tax corner

with Ozawa Ichiro and Hatoyama Yukio catcalling in from undisclosed locations, never from within the confines of the committee room itself (the place was packed last night, with 200 legislators attending)

saying the same darned things one would expect them to say.

The second hint was that this debate was framed as an "Ozawa vs. the Leadership" smackdown. By now we should have learned that when push comes to shove, Ozawa does not have the numbers to back up his either dominating the DPJ or breaking it. The closest he came was in September of 2010, when he ran directly against Kan Naoto for the post of party leader. At least among the Diet membership, Ozawa came tantalizingly close to beating Kan in the voting. The takeaway from that date, however, is that despite having so much of the present membership of the Diet indebted to him for their seats, he still failed to win a majority of the votes of the Diet membership. As for the votes of the assembly members and the party supporters, Ozawa got snowed under.

When Ozawa had the chance, nine months later, to put Kan away by leading his followers in voting "yes" for an LDP-sponsored no-confidence motion, he demurred, not even bothering to show up at the Diet chamber for the vote.

So when the fight is billed "Ozawa vs. the powers that be" we should be suspicious, even with the big dog about to slip his leash.

Of course, there is a major problem looming for the leadership: Kamei Shizuka's opposition to the consumption tax hike. Friday's Cabinet approval has to be unanimous. If the People's New Party's representative in the Cabinet, Financial Services Minister Jimi Shozaburo (who is kind of busy right now) does not vote for the proposal, it cannot be offered to the Diet as a government bill. Oddly, the commentariat is largely silent on the possibility that Noda will have to fire Jimi in the same way as Hatoyama had to fire Consumer Affairs Minister Fukushima Mizuho when she refused to sign off on the Futenma-to-Henoko decision. If Noda fires Jimi, then the PNP will likely follow the Democratic Socialists out of the government.

While the departure of the PNP would not mean much for the Noda government in terms of lost votes in the Diet, the optics of such a break up would be poor.

Since Kamei has been talking on and on about the establishment of a new "true conservative" party, however, it is possible that the PNP is already dead. Jimi can thus be ready to vote "yes" for the bill on Friday, making the PNP's moribund state official, and allowing Noda to move on to the next phase: corralling either the LDP or the New Komeito into voting for the bill.

Back Again, With The Same Message

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, This morning's The Tokyo Diplomat has a very subtle and clever analysis of the People's New Party's next moves, if there are to be any -- and a smart look at the current status of the consumption tax debate within the Democratic Party of Japan.

Of course, one cannot find out what I am talking about without a subscription.

Out the goodness of his heart, Michael Penn, the editor of The Tokyo Diplomat, has made available the counterfactual essay I was praising the other day.

It can be read here.

Just do not count on goodness to keep the goodies coming.