Hi Blog.\u00a0 Again, remote computer, on the road, so this time just a few thoughts based upon what I read in all the major newspapers this morning (just looking at the matrix of data), nothing insider or anything:<\/p>\n
THE RAW NUMBERS<\/strong>:\u00a0 According to two major newspapers (Asahi and Mainichi, the others had slightly different numbers when they went to press), opposition parties got a total of 322 seats including Proportional Representation (308 for elected seats), gaining 195.\u00a0 Incumbent ruling parties got 140 (119 elected seats), losing 192.\u00a0 This is a landslide for the opposition no matter how you slice it, and an absolute majority of the 480 total seats in the Lower House.\u00a0 In terms of PR (180 seats total), The LDP dropped from 77 to 55, while the DPJ rose from 61 to 86.\u00a0 It was a rout.<\/p>\n THE AFTEREFFECTS<\/strong>:\u00a0 Former PM Aso (get used to that moniker!) almost immediately announced his resignation as party leader.\u00a0 But he showed just how much of an ungracious loser he is (as I mentioned in my last blog entry) when interviewed by being cold, abrupt,\u00a0nasty, impolite, and pretty much impolitic when interviewed by all networks (let’s face it, Aso killed the LDP, and he’s gotta blame somebody else in his mind).\u00a0 And as noted yesterday in a very insightful comment, punditry was advising caution\u00a0and fear (Tahara Souichiro’s opening speech in his debate program was scare-mongering; maybe it’s time to get someone younger to lead these debates)\u00a0and flinty-eyed expectations of the DPJ overnight, as if we can’t quite trust the public to have spoken properly.\u00a0 People have just gotta get used to the LDP being clearly out of office for the first time, as the Yomiuri noted, for 55 years.<\/p>\n THE VOTERS REALLY DID SPEAK<\/strong>:\u00a0 Voting went up in every prefecture except Oita.\u00a0 The average was 69%, the highest since 1990.\u00a0 In terms of individual elected seats, the DPJ won in most prefectures, except for LDP strongholds in outlying Honshu\u00a0(Yamaguchi, Shimane, Tottori, Fukui, Toyama, and Aomori), Kyushu (Kumamoto, Kagoshima, and Miyazaki), and Shikoku (Kouchi and Ehime).\u00a0 The DPJ kicked ass in the Nagoya area (all elected seats went DPJ), also seizing all seats in Shiga, Niigata, Nagano, Fukushima, and Iwate, then seizing almost all seats in Shizuoka, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Osaka, Hyougo, Mie, Hiroshima, Kanagawa, Chiba, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Akita, and Hokkaido.\u00a0 And in all Proportional Representation blocs, even those with prefectures that had LDP wins, the DPJ won more PR seats than the LDP (breaking even with Koumeitou support only in Okayama).\u00a0 Again, there’s no way for the LDP to put a bright face on all of this.<\/p>\n KINGPINS OUT<\/strong>.\u00a0 We got rid of a number of old farts that have long overstayed their welcome.\u00a0 Nakagawa the G8 Drunk.\u00a0 Sexual harasser Yamasaki.\u00a0 Controversial Kyuuma (from Nagasaki, who insinuated positive things about the atomic bombings), former PM Kaifu (former PMs don’t get kicked out; first time for decades), IIRC current cabinet member Fuyushiba, and a couple of others.\u00a0 Biggest embarrassment of the election:\u00a0 Koumeitou leader Ohta, who also lost his seat — and party leaders are supposed to be in safe seats; Koumeitou clearly paid a heavy price for not distancing themselves from Aso.\u00a0\u00a0 Drawing a close second in terms of embarrassment was the number of Aso cabinet members (current and previous)\u00a0who lost their seats entirely (again, Nakagawa, and his replacement Yosano).\u00a0 There may be more, don’t have the current cabinet list\u00a0in front of me.<\/p>\n But with PR, many of the “zombie candidates” (who can run both in single-seat constituencies, and if they don’t get in they can stay in by PR) came out after midnight:\u00a0 Former cabinet ministers Machimura, Noda, Koike, and Takebe, for example.\u00a0\u00a0 The oldest person I saw elected was 77 (Mr Fukui), the youngest 27 (a Mr Yokokume), both DPJ, both Minami Kanto Bloc.<\/p>\n BUT SOME STILL VOTED\u00a0THE PERSON NOT THE PARTY<\/strong>:\u00a0 Former PMs Aso and Abe (and narrowly Fukuda) all maintained their seats.\u00a0 Former PM Mori, the kingpin with the “god’s country” remarks, just squeaked in, but in most cases when there was a close race with the LDP incumbent, the second-place opposition candidate got in with PR to balance it out.\u00a0 Former PM Koizumi’s son did inherit his father’s seat\u00a0(which has done more to deligitimize this “reformer” in my eyes).\u00a0 But of the “Koizumi Children” (young LDP politicians riding K’s coattails to “reform the LDP”, and soon found themselves frozen out from this unsavable party), only two retained their seats; 65 lost.\u00a0 Awful but apparently popular twice-convicted crook (his case is still on appeal in the Supreme Court; he’s stalling for time)\u00a0Suzuki Muneo got in again with his own party on PR.<\/p>\n More LDP notables:\u00a0 Nasty TV personality Hirasawa got back in his individual seat in Tokyo.\u00a0 Even nastier right-wing exclusionary\u00a0xenophobe Hiranuma got in comfortably in Okayama.\u00a0 Daughter of former PM Obuchi (currently in the cabinet) was relected in Gunma in a landslide.\u00a0 BTW, anyone want to count for me the number of women that got elected this time and compare to previous?\u00a0 Heckuva lot!<\/p>\n In sum, a historic day.\u00a0 And it may change everything.<\/p>\n That’s all I time I have for now.\u00a0 More trends, please let the blog know, but I’m again on the road for awhile and may take a while to approve comments.\u00a0 Please be patient.\u00a0 Thanks for reading.\u00a0 Debito in Kurashiki<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE RAW NUMBERS: According to two major newspapers (Asahi and Mainichi, the others had slightly different numbers when they went to press), opposition parties got a total of 322 seats including Proportional Representation (308 for elected seats), gaining 195. Incumbent ruling parties got 140 (119 elected seats), losing 192. This is a landslide for the opposition no matter how you slice it, and an absolute majority of the 480 total seats in the Lower House. In terms of PR (180 seats total), The LDP dropped from 77 to 55, while the DPJ rose from 61 to 86. It was a rout.<\/p>\n THE AFTEREFFECTS:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,4,14,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-news","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-politics","category-tangents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}