Six New Fredos

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,,

Fredo, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do.

- Michael Corleone, The Godfather, Part II (1974)

On Friday, six Democratic Party of Japan members of the House of Councillors voted against the ittai kaikaku reform bills, including the bill raising the consumption tax. These six defectors are new, not a part of the 12 DPJ members who left the party to join Ozawa Ichiro's People's Life First Party (33 days since its founding and still no party website) or the 3 who left to form the Green Wind caucus.

The six are:

Tokunaga Eri (Hokkaido district seat, elected in 2010)
Mito Masashi (Kanagawa district seat, elected in 2007)
Uematsu Emiko (Kagawa district seat, elected 2007)
Okubo Yukishige (Nagasaki district seat, elected 2007)
Arita Yoshibu (proportional list seat, elected 2010)
Tashiro Kaoru (proportional list seat, elected 2010)

Mito, Uematsu and Okubo face reelection next year,. The other members are in for the long haul. Like House of Representatives member Kawauchi Hiroshi, all six really belong inside the LF. However, they are far more useful to Ozawa as fifth columnists inside the DPJ. Through them he can still influence DPJ policies, even though he himself is no longer inside the DPJ.

The six cannot be expelled or even severely reprimanded. After the defections to the LF and the Green Wind in July, the DPJ is left with 85 members in its House caucus, only one member more than the Liberal Democratic Party. Were the six traitors of Friday to leave the DPJ, the party would fall to the #2 rank in the House, losing the majority of committee chairmanships and most likely the position of President of the House.

Ozawa knows the DPJ's loss of control of the House's chairmanships would eliminate his ability to influence politics. It should surprise no one that he has his acolytes remain inside the DPJ House of Councillors caucus.

Speaking of disobedience, the LDP has decided upon the punishments to be meted out to the seven of its members of its House of Representatives delegation who defied orders to abstain from voting on the no confidence motion against the Noda Cabinet. The seven will receive reprimands, the second strongest of the eight levels of punishment the party can mete out to its members. (J)

This slap on the wrist is surprising, as one of the sinners, Nakagawa Hidenao, was served with a six-month suspension of all party privileges for having abstained from the June House of Representatives vote on the consumption tax.

The leadership had solid reasons to be lenient. The participation of Shiozaki Yasuhisa in the mini-mutiny was a transparent threat of a greater hard-right rebellion against Machimura faction leader Machimura Nobutaka for his milquetoast leadership and his support of LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu. A severe punishment could also push Koizumi Shinjiro to run in the next election as an independent, an outcome the LDP is desperate to avoid. Koizumi the Younger (Koizumi IV) is, as Okumura Jun has put it, the LDP’s Chosen One, the prophesied future leader of the party.

It would furthermore be the height of hypocrisy for the LDP to punish the seven for voting for a no confidence motion only a day after Tanigaki and the LDP leadership abandoned plans to submit their own no confidence motion.

So the six DPJ House of Councillors and the seven LDP House of Representatives members, traitors to the party line each and every one, are virtually untouchable.

The weak responses by both the party leaderships presages further breakdowns in party discipline. An inability to get a straight answer from the LDP will endanger Prime Minister Noda’s plan to squeeze the LDP into voting for the bill authorizing the issuance of new bonds. The LDP leadership is eager for a quick deal on a redistricting bill – a necessity as the dissolution of the House and the calling for new elections would plunge the country into an irrevocable extra-constitutional state. However, if the LDP cannot guarantee party unity on the bond bill, it is of little use to the DPJ as a negotiating partner.

Of course, what can be said of the LDP applies equally, if not more so, to the DPJ. True to the nature of its former leader Ozawa, who recruited the majority of the DPJ’s serving Diet members, party members seem to have only the weakest of understandings of the fundamental importance of loyalty to the party. Disagreements over policy have thus led to a splintering of the party, not along the ideological lines the pundits predicted three years ago, but on the degree of loyalty to Ozawa the person.

Later - This post has been edited for clarity.

Taking Up Sides Against The Family

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Both the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan suffered breakdowns in party discipline in last night's no confidence vote.

As I noted in my live blogging of last night's vote, seven members of the LDP remained in the chamber and voted for the no confidence motion:

Nakagawa Hidenao
Shiozaki Yasuhisa
Suga Yoshihide
Koizumi Shinjiro
Kawai Katsuyuki
Shibamasa Masahiko
Matsunami Kenta

Disciplining the first four will be difficult. Nakagawa is already serving a six-month suspension of party privileges for having absented himself from the consumption tax bill vote in June. What to do now -- extend his suspension to a year?

Shiozaki presents an equally difficult conundrum. As a card-carrying member of the "Friends of Shinzo" -- the coterie of fanatabulist radicals who seized control of the government after their leader, Abe Shinzo, was elected prime minister -- he represents the vanguard of what has been a heretofore largely silent segment of the LDP's support base: the haters of postwar Japan as it is. Punishing Shiozaki severely threatens the unity of the Machimura Faction, which while ruled by a dove is filled with hawkish opponents of the current leadership group, its policies and its tactics.

As for Koizumi Shinjiro, he is a superstar, with the looks and the hooks to bring the house down. He has been among the LDPs most effective critics of the DPJ, from the very first weeks of the DPJ's turn as the party in power. He is a fourth-generation lawmaker, who won his father's district without his father lifting a finger to help him, a brilliant impromptu speaker and a winner in a year when the LDP first-termers had nearly zero chance of election.

He does not need the LDP: the LDP needs him.

On the DPJ side, there were two members who voted for the resolution: Kobayashi Koki, whom I disparaged yesterday, and Koizumi Toshiaki, who spent seven years cooling his heels after two terms as a DPJ district Representative. He was revived in the landslide election of 2009 as the Representative for Ibaraki District #3.

In addition to these two turncoats, who submitted their resignations from the party prior to last night's vote, five members of the DPJ's House of Representatives delegation called in sick.

Former Prime Minister Hata Tsutomu's illness was real: he has been hospitalized since February with an undisclosed illness.

Four other members, however, came down with illnesses of convenience:

Hatoyama Yukio
Kawauchi Hiroshi
Nakagawa Osamu
Tsuji Megumu

Kawauchi (Kagoshima District #1, 5th term) has been the human quote machine for a news media complex eager to find members of the DPJ willing to talk trash about the leadership. He has been a DINO (Democrat In Name Only) for as long as anyone can remember. His personal website (Link) has as its top line Kokumin seikatsu ga dai'ichi, the Ozawa Ichiro-dreamed up 2009 electoral slogan and the name of Ozawa's new party.

Kawauchi can and should be joining one of Ozawa's parties. However, he is far more useful to Ozawa as a DPJ irritant. The party should expel him. However, to expel Kawauchi and not expel Hatoyama will be difficult to explain.

Nakagawa is in his second term, having served from 2003-05 as a proportional seat member from the Kinki bloc. His career was revived by the 2009 landslide, where he became the district seat holder for Osaka District #18.

Tsuji Megumu has had a nearly carbon copy career, serving in a Kinki bloc proportional seat in 2003-2005. He lost his seat in the 2005 LDP landslide, then failed as the DPJ's candidate for mayor of Osaka City that same year. His career was also revived by the 2009 landslide, where he won the district seat for Osaka District #17.

The latter two mid-career veterans, with only a single district victory under their belts, have to be looking at the popularity of Hashimoto Toru's Osaka Ishin no kai and figuring that they have no chance at reelection as Democrats. Unfortunately for the pair, they have no chance of reelection as independents. If they had remained faithful to the leadership of the Democratic Party, then they might have at least had the chance to return to the Diet from the proportional list.

That is all water under the bridge now. The DPJ's local party organization will not support them as district candidates for the next election, ending their political careers.

As for Hatoyama, he is a special case. He is the co-founder of the DPJ. He and his mother bankrolled the party in its early years, when corporations would turn their backs on the party. He will be disciplined but in an insufficiently severe way, making it impossible to put a lid on the loquacious Kawauchi.

However, Hatoyama has gone too far. He has been both treacherous and useless. His tenure as prime minister was a disaster for the party, laying the groundwork for the party's losing control of the House of Councillors and thus the ability to set the political agenda. Since his downfall, an unrepentant Hatoyama has never ceased engaging in limp but still corrosive efforts to undermine his successors. He also encouraged Ozawa Ichiro, a man who has never understood the concept of party loyalty, to cause mischief.

Hatoyama should probably be considered the Fredo Corleone of the DPJ. He's family, so whadda ya gonna do? He is safe "as long as Mama is still alive" -- i.e., until such time as the current Diet is dissolved. The mainline leadership of the party will have to keep him at arm's length, but no further. After the Diet is dissolved, however, the present leadership will very probably take him fishing.

Signs Of The Apocalypse #3

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, The Yomiuri Shimbun sees the world the way I do...and tells the Liberal Democratic Party, "You're wrong in this: chapter, line and verse."

Of course, no one cares about this right now. The Nadeshiko are down 1-2 to the United States with five minutes left to play.

The Ignobility Of Failure

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,,

Soon oh soon the light
Pass within and soothe this endless night
And wait here for you
Our reason to be here...

Yes, "The Gates of Delirium" (1974)

Soon.

Soon (chikai uchi ni).

The Diet will be dissolved...soon.

That is the promise Liberal Democratic Party president Tanigaki Sadakazu was able to wring out of Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko last night, after threatening to submit a no confidence motion in the House of Representatives and a censure motion in the House of Councillors if the PM did not commit to a dissolution before September 9.

After the leadership of the LDP spent the afternoon mocking the prime minister's offer of a dissolution "in the near future" (chikai shorai ni), asking what the heck it meant and demanding a precise date. "'In the near future?' It is ridiculous to think we would ever agree to that," declared LDP Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Kishida Fumio. (J)

For all the energy expended and all the threats, what the LDP has won is the status quo ante. Actually, it came out with less than when it embarked on this campaign of confrontation: its members cannot vote for the no confidence motion six mini- and micro-parties submitted to the House of Representatives and the censure motion seven caucuses submitted to the House of Councillors. (J)

Noda did not cover himself with glory either, at least not on the surface. He agreed to wield the "treasured sword passed down through the generations" (denka no hoto) -- the fancy-pants term for a dissolution of the Diet -- at the request of the LDP.

However, Noda stayed true to the promise he made to his fellow party members yesterday afternoon: that he would not give the LDP a precise date for a dissolution of the Diet. (J)

Furthermore Noda knows -- and one hopes by now the rest of the DPJ knows -- that the meaning of "soon" depends upon how deeply the LDP is willing to injure itself. A House of Representatives election cannot be held until the matter of the unconstitutionality of the districts is settled. If the LDP wants an election "soon" it will have to acquiesce to a DPJ redistricting bill, the details of which are going to make the LDP gag.

As for Tanigaki, this is his Waterloo. He needed to break the Noda government in order to have a chance at reelection in September.

As at Waterloo, the outcome was "a damn nice thing." Noda's fate was not fully secure until the sudden and timely intercession of the six-party and seven-caucus coalitions. Their submissions of motions of no confidence and censure on the 7th scrambled Tanigaki's and the LDP's schedule of attack.

Ever wonder if Ozawa Ichiro's breakaway from the DPJ was an act of political theater meant to confuse the LDP? Sometimes I do.

As for the LDP as a whole, it is in grave peril. Party discipline, which has always been a thing of wonder, will be tested on the no confidence and censure votes. There will be a whirl of activity today, as the leadership tries to keep members of the party from voting for the motions.


Later - Veteran newsman Tahara So'ichiro, writing for Nikkei BP Net, offers a theory: that LDP faction heads, together with Oshima Tadamori, the Talleyrand of LDP politics, cooked up a Tanigaki attempt to renegotiate done deal as a means of guaranteeing Tanigaki's not being reelected party leader in September. (J)

The Mini- And Micro-Parties Wing the DPJ And Clobber the LDP

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, There were a lot of long, exhausted faces at Liberal Democratic Party headquarters yesterday. A basic fact of life had sunk in: nobody loves the LDP.

Check out this [TBS video report - link already dead] NHK video report of the leaders minus Tanigaki filing into headquarters yesterday (WARNING – link will likely fail within 24 hours). Even someone knowing not a jot of Japanese can tell from LDP Secretary-General Ishihara Nobuteru’s blank stare and flat diction that his real message is: "Disregard what my lips and tongue are saying. I do not want to be here. If you do not believe what I am saying, don't worry: I don't either."

The LDP and its coalition partner the New Komeito had been hoping to have their cake and eat it too: first vote with the government on a set of reform bills including a rise in the consumption tax, then turn around and submit a motion of no confidence against the Cabinet in the House of Representatives and a motion of censure against Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko in the House of Councillors.

Coalitions of the mini- and micro-parties of the Diet blew that plan to splinters yesterday. A six-party coalition submitted their own no confidence motion to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. A seven-caucus coalition submitted a motion of censure to the president of the House of Councillors. (E)

Under the rules of order of both Houses, these submissions put all other Diet business on hold, pending the outcomes of the votes on these two bills. This includes the House of Councillors vote on the reform bills, which the LDP had seemingly forced the DPJ to move forward to today (August 8).

The only way the LDP can delay a vote on these no confidence and censure bills is to submit its own two bills, which the party has threatened to do if Prime Minister Noda does not promise today to dissolve the Diet within the next 40 days.

The LDP’s original deadline for action by the prime minister was yesterday. However, yesterday passed by without prime ministerial action. One can pretty much expect the same lack of action today.

If the LDP follows through with its threats to submit its own versions of the bills, the attempted flanking action runs up against a wall of procedure. Which versions of the no-confidence and censure motions make it to the floor is a matter of trans-party negotiations. Since the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the House of Councillors are both members of the DPJ, though on hiatus from membership during their tenures in their offices, the likelihood that the LDP versions of the two bills will win out is nil.

In theory, the LDP could treat the six-party and seven-caucus submissions with contempt, absenting themselves from the votes saying:

"We are the main party of opposition. Nothing happens without us. You did this without consulting with us. We do not care what is on offer: we do not vote on motions where we have been passed over and our views not considered."

Such a strategy has an Achilles heel, however. There is a rule – but an unwritten one (kanrei) – that a House cannot consider the same bill twice in a single Diet session. The LDP’s voting down or abstaining from the vote on the six-party coalition motion or the seven-caucus motion would, under the accepted patterns parliamentary behavior, shut the door on revisiting the substance of those motions until the fall extraordinary session of the Diet.

Of course, the LDP could try to argue that the rule is an unwritten one, and submit a no-confidence motion or a motion of censure after the vote on the consumption tax bill. The news media and public's reaction to the LDP's opposing a piece of legislation only to resubmit it later would be ferocious.

Furthermore, a major party has a strong incentive to uphold the informal rules of order of the Diet, lest under its rule, the opposition, in a tit-for-tat response, flouts the rules to the point that the Diet becomes unmanageable.

A contrarian option remains open, whereby the LDP abstains or votes down the six-party coalition’s no-confidence motion and the censure motion now, freeing up the House of Councillors to vote on the reform package. The LDP then submits a motion for a vote of confidence in the Cabinet in the House of Representatives, which it then votes against.

This option is freakish (submitting a bill in order to vote against it?) and has not, to my knowledge, been discussed by major commentators. However, it does not violate the "one vote on a single bill per session" (ichiji fusaigi) principle.

As for the six-party and seven-caucus coalitions, all of their members deserve a bouquet from the DPJ. This includes, perversely, the People's Life First and Kizuna parties, which are composed of DPJ defectors. While submitting a no-confidence motion in the House of Representatives and a censure motion in the House of Councillors seems a strange way of making oneself beloved of the DPJ and the prime minister, the timing of submission has both tied the LDP up in knots and damaged the LDP's relations with its partner the New Komeito.

The mini- and micro-parties have their issues with the Democratic Party of Japan. There are many things that the mini- and micro-parties want that they are not getting. However, the leaders of the mini- and micro-parties are not nearly so stupid as to believe that they will receive the benefits they seek following a return to power by the LDP.

A pair of motions that appear to attack the DPJ but in fact box in the LDP, driving its leaders to commit absurd acts, are very much to the mini- and micro-parties’ liking. That the motions can be submitted out of what seems to be principle, opposing a raising of the consumption tax because an increased tax rate will have a depressive effect on the national economy, is icing on the cake.

Rushing Forward With No Confidence

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, On Sunday, I put forth the proposition that Koizumi Shinjiro's visit to Liberal Democratic Party headquarters accelerated LDP moves toward submitting either a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet or a censure motion against prime minister Noda Yoshihiko. Koizumi, walking very much in his father's footsteps and also reflecting his long stint in Washington, has become the face of the free market/low tax wing of the LDP, especially since The Big Man, Nakagawa Hidenao, has been put on ice.

In pushing a plant to threaten the PM with a no-confidence motion or censure, Koizumi was also the representative of the members of the LDP who had resigned themselves to the June 15 three-way LDP, the New Komeito and Democratic Party of Japan agreement to vote for consumption tax bill in both Houses of the Diet. Not a few in the LDP were sure the consumption tax issue would lead to the breakup of the DPJ.

The controversy over the raising of the consumption tax did indeed lead to a breakup, with Ozawa Ichiro leading his followers out of the DPJ. However, to the disappointment of those who thought the breakup would result in the DPJ-led coalition losing its majority in the House of Representatives, Ozawa led out of the DPJ only about half of the legislators purportedly under his influence -- well short of the number of rebels needed to transform the DPJ-led coalition into a minority government.

When Koizumi and his six youthful fellow LDP members bullrushed the office of the LDP party president, however, they were pushing on an open door. LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu has known that in order for him to win reelection in the party presidential election in September, he had to have something to show for his first term.

He had to foment a crisis, and in this month.

The dispute over the date of the House of Councillors vote on the consumption tax was too small potatoes for this purpose, at first glance. The LDP proposed to have the vote on the 10th; the DPJ and Prime Minister, wanting delay action in the Diet so that they might cut deals on legislation with Tanigaki's successor, proposed a vote on the 20th.

The DPJ offer was only an initial bargaining position, though. The party's negotiators, in talks with LDP and New Komeito representatives, indicated the August 10th date was acceptable. (J)

Taken aback, the LDP violated all normal negotiating procedures and proposed a vote on the 8th -- a counter proposal to which the DPJ, while indulging in the requisite amount of whining at the LDP's duplicity, agreed to yesterday. (J)

Of course, in the meantime, in the face of the DPJ's violent accommodation to every one of the LDP's wishes, the LDP presented a further demand -- that Prime Minister Noda make a public commitment (kakuyaku) to dissolve the Diet after the House of Councillors vote on the consumption tax legislation. Otherwise the LDP would submit either a no-confidence motion or a censure motion or both.

The Prime Minister, who if anything is calm and controlled in his responses, told the LDP yesterday that the dissolution of the Diet was his problem, the timing of which was up to him and nobody else (J). A seemingly now hysterical LDP leadership responded by vowing to go through with its threatened submission of a no-confidence motion or a censure motion today, and to renege on the June 15 agreement. (J)

It is a rare thing when the representatives of a small religious party have to pay a visit to the headquarters of a large secular party in order to tell the secular party "Calm down or else." Nevertheless, that is what leaders of the LDP's longtime ally the New Komeito, their faces grim, had to do last night (J). Presumably they explained to their LDP counterparts that if an election were held, the LDP-New Komeito alliance would lack a majority in either House of the Diet -- and that no third party would cut any deals on passage of legislation with an LDP that has a history of backing out of major, signed agreements.

So all by indications, Tanigaki has triggered the political crisis he needed. Unfortunately, it seems to be leading to his own private Waterloo, rather than the overthrow of the Noda government he has desired.


Later - This post has been edited for clarity.

Getting The Numbers Right On The No Confidence Motion

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, In my post of yesterday, I asserted that for a Liberal Democratic Party-sponsored no confidence motion to pass, LDP president Tanigaki Sadakazu would have to round up every member of every one of the opposition parties, all of the independents and then 17 members of the Democratic Party of Japan.

Alert reader RK asked in an email: "Are you sure 17 is the correct number?"

Interestingly, the news media in recent days have not posted any hard numbers on exactly the number of ruling coalition defectors the passage of a no-confidence motion would require.

The number, however, is certainly not 17, save under a special case of a specific number of Representatives abstaining.

There are 480 seats in the House of Representatives. At present one of these seats is empty, meaning their are 479 representatives. Furthermore, the Speaker of the House, former DPJ member Yokomichi Takahiro, does not vote, except in the case of a tie.

So the number of voting members will be 478. Half of that number is 239. For the motion to pass with all members voting, those in favor must number 240 (50%+1).

The ruling coalition is composed of 250 member of the DPJ and 4 members of the People's New Party. With 254 in the ruling coalition, Tanigaki would have to lure 16 of the ruling coalition (254-16 = 238) into voting for the no-confidence motion.

However, the chance that everyone will be present and voting is unlikely. The Communists (9 votes) will likely abstain, as they are wont to do (Then why are they even in the Diet at all? Heck, I do not know). This would raise the bar to 20 defectors (469/2 = 234.5, 50%+1 = 235, 254-20 = 234).

Of course, members of the ruling coalition could abstain, lowering the number of defectors needed. Indeed if all 17 of the DPJ Representatives currently under suspension for having voted against the legislation raising the consumption tax abstained, and all the members of the opposition voted for the no-confidence measures, supporters would only have to lure 6 members of the DPJ to switch sides, (478-17 = 461, 461/2 = 230.5, 50%+1 = 231, # in the opposition + independents = 225).

As the math indicates, however, a significant slice of DPJ legislators would have to be sending clear signals on their giving up on the party and the LDP would have to be exercising strict discipline over membership of the rest of the House before Tanigaki could entertain a hope that a no-confidence motion could pass.

The LDP, a cautious, even timid organization, does not move on hope alone.

So the while the idealized minimal number of defectors is 16, the actual minimum is fluid, and the ability to round up the correct combination of defectors and abstainers ostensibly beyond the capacity of the current opposition.

Laboring To Retrieve Some Semblance of Relevance

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, When Yamaoka Kenji dropped off the 40 resignation letters from Democratic Party of Japan members of the House of Representatives at the DPJ secretary-general's office on Monday, the curiously round number of 40 raised some eyebrows. Suspicions were reinforced by the odd coincidence that 40 was precisely the number of likely defectors being batted around in press reporting immediately prior to the delivery of the letters.

No matter how good their reporters are, no paper or television station ever gets the numbers spot on. Close, sure. But on the money? A damn rare occurrence.

It was not outside the realm of conjecture that former DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro and Yamaoka had asked some of those who wanted to quit the DPJ to remain behind, to become sleepers, poised to resign from the DPJ in dramatic style when the new Ozawa-led breakaway party came into being.

However, so botched was the Monday breakout, with 3 of the 40 asking to have their resignations rescinded and a fourth becoming an independent, that a drastic change the narrative was in order. The story was becoming one of laughable oafishness and presumption rather than menace.

So it seems that Ozawa chose to burn one of his presumed sleepers.

Kato Gaku (Nagano District #5, freshman) was one of the 17 DPJ members of the House who had voted against the bill raising the consumption tax to 10% by 2015 but who elected to stay on the in the party. On Tuesday the DPJ executive tagged Kato with a two-month suspension of his party privileges.

Somehow Kato found this punishment, which would see him reinstated with full rights in time for the DPJ's leadership election in September, too onerous to bear. Exile and potential electoral oblivion seems to have been preferable.

Kato's attempts to create the impression that he had come to his decision on his own were almost sad. After meeting with Acting President Tarutoko Shinji, Kato explained his resignation as being a result of the likelihood there will be a House of Representatives election within the next two months and he wanted to prevent the increase in the consumption tax (J) -- two thoughts that whether considered together or in isolation, make not a bit of sense.

After Kato's meeting with DPJ secretary-general Koshi'ishi Azuma, he told waiting reporters, "I have come to this decision by myself." Such a claim is, of course, ludicrous. Whenever an adult male Homo sapiens tells you he came to a decision by himself, it is precisely because he did not.

Meanwhile the other 18 members of the DPJ under suspension -- the 17 others who had earned two month suspension plus Hatoyama Yukio, whose "no" vote on the consumption tax legislation was deemed so heinous, coming as it did from a founder of the party, that he was slapped with a six month suspension -- met with 3 of the House of Councillors members who had had their resignation tendered to the secretary-general on Monday in a study group meeting on of the passage of the consumption tax bill through the House of Councillors. Hatoyama, the parrot that he is, borrowed Ozawa Ichiro's catchphrase of "putting the livelihood of the people first" (kokumin no seikatsu ga daichi - a phrase Ozawa allies today registered as the names of the new caucuses for the DPJ rebels in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors) as the reason he will continue to struggle with the DPJ leadership, even after receiving the party's most severe form of punishment short of expulsion. Hatoyama also parroted the blunt warning of Ozawa Sakihito (no relation (to Ozawa Ichiro) that if the all the members of the opposition, Party Kizuna, the yet-to-be-formed Ozawa party and the DPJ members under suspension were to vote together, a no-confidence motion again the Cabinet would pass. (J)

Theoretically, true. Practically, impossible.

The LDP and the New Komeito crave power; the Your Party hates the Noda government's contractionary economic policies and the deference it pays to the bureaucracy; and the Socialists hate the tax rise and the government's policies on the restarts of Japan's idled nuclear reactors.

But to think that all the members of these parties, plus the Sunrise Party, the other microparties, the independents plus the Communists will all join hands with Ozawa Ichiro and Hatoyama Yukio to topple the Noda government is wishful thinking at its most wishful.

As for Hatoyama's and Ozawa Sakihito thuggish, numerically implausible threats, they have flushed down the toilet any chance of the mainstream DPJ leadership ever allowing either man any responsibility greater than crossing guard or perhaps garbage collector.

How many Kato Gakus still sleep among the ranks of the DPJ? My guess is four, perhaps five more. It is possible, however, that my confidence in Noda Yoshihiko's mastery of the numbers blinds me to the likelihood of a much larger and damaging number of potential defectors remaining.

As for Ozawa Sakihito, he clearly seems to have missed the elementary school lesson that when someone treats you with leniency, you show remorse and, for a decent interval, remain silent.


Later - This text has been edited for clarity.

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.

Ozawa Ichiro Clears A Major Hurdle

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, In his trial for purportedly overseeing the filing of false political funding organization accounts, Ozawa Ichiro today received a huge gift from the Tokyo District Court. The court threw out as evidence the confession investigators forced from Diet member Ishikawa Tomohiro, Ozawa's former political secretary. (J)

Ishikawa's confession was the one damning piece of evidence the prosecuting attorneys had against Ozawa. It had been thrown out of court in Ishikawa's own trial due to evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. Ishikawa was still convicted along with two other former or present Ozawa secretaries of filing false funding accounts based on other evidence.

Commentators agree with Ozawa's lawyers' contention that without the acceptance of Ishikawa's confession into evidence, the case against Ozawa falls apart (J). Only in Ishikawa's confession was there any statement that Ozawa unambiguously assented to the falsification of the recording of a personal loan Ozawa made to his political funding organization, the Rikuzankai.

Ozawa's full exoneration will not come until April, when the court renders its verdict. However, with an acquittal now a near certainty, Ozawa will have greater leeway to inject himself in the political fights within the DPJ, particularly the battle over the raising of the consumption tax (E). He can also be expected to cause headaches for Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko over whether or not he will lead his followers and allies within the party to join with the opposition in passing a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet, as he nearly last June did against the Kan Cabinet.

From all appearances, the big dog has slipped his leash.