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LDP star is undimmed
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Thu, Nov 08, 2007
The Straits Times
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TH | E leadership pirouette of Mr Ichiro Ozawa at the head of Japan's main opposition party has entrenched a singular feature of the nation's politics. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) remains the undimmed star around which will orbit the debris of short-lived and ruptured opposition parties. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is fixed in that trajectory after the weekend's flip-flop events. Mr Ozawa yesterday 'consented' to keep faith with the DPJ, days after resigning out of pique when his party executive renounced a coalition manoeuvre he had executed with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. His diminished credibility, never high because of his opportunistic ways, will damage the Democrats just as they were becoming a force after capturing the Upper House in July. Internal dissension and self-doubt will roil the party following its leader's dismissive comment, made in his resignation announcement, that the DPJ was incapable of winning the Lower House election to form the next government. This was why he was receptive to what he said was an offer by Mr Fukuda to the DPJ to join the government in an enlarged coalition, together with the Buddhist New Komeito Party. Doing so, he reasoned, would clear the legislative logjam, a sop to Mr Fukuda. It would serve as a 'short-cut to establishing a DPJ-led government' at some stage, he told his people.
Amazing insight, coming from a political insider who served in the Yasuhiro Nakasone Cabinet and later became the LDP's powerful secretary-general in 1989. Mr Ozawa was at the centre of the ruling party's split in 1993, the only time the LDP has been out of office. The Japan Renewal Party, his vehicle then, was one of a succession of transient parties that have come and gone, most of them featuring LDP alumni. The LDP had been fearful of its Lower House election prospects, until the Ozawa affair broke. Now it is looking stronger, by default or by design it is hard to judge. Mr Fukuda could be having the last laugh. The DPJ was being touted as the nucleus of an equal-strength two-party system that a liberal democracy is supposed to have.
Does it matter much to the Japanese whether a balanced party system takes root? Not a lot, it must seem. Aside from Mr Ozawa's objection to Japan's involvement in non-combat operations not sanctioned by the United Nations, there is little policy difference between the LDP and the DPJ. Mr Fukuda by turn should worry less about the naval supply mission and more about social and employment issues Japanese old and young are despairing over. That will be most reassuring to the people, never mind the political scene changes.
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