Japanese voters longing for change look likely to hand the opposition Democratic Party a historic victory in an election one week away, trouncing the conservative party that has ruled for most of the past half-century.
That would be a stunning reversal of fortunes for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from four years ago, when charismatic leader Junichiro Koizumi led the way to a huge win with pledges of bold reforms.
What’s altered, analysts say, isn’t voters’ desire for change, but their perception of who can achieve it.
“In 2005, it looked like Koizumi would deliver change,” said Chuo University professor Steven Reed. “Now voters are going to try for change again — but this time, with different people.”
Newspaper surveys are predicting Yukio Hatoyama’s decade-old Democratic Party could win by a landslide, taking some 300 seats in Parliament’s 480-member lower house and ousting the LDP for only the second time since its 1955 founding.
Analysts caution that the Democrats’ victory may be less overwhelming, but many do expect them to win a majority.
That would be a huge shift from 2005, when the LDP won a whopping 296 seats and together with its smaller partner, the New Komeito, gained a two-thirds majority in the chamber.
Certainly, the content of calls for change is different now.
Koizumi energized the electorate with a pledge to privatize the giant postal system as a symbol of bold, market-friendly reforms and by kicking out party rebels who opposed the plan.
Four years, one global financial crisis and a recession later, the Democrats are promising to refocus spending on consumers not companies to boost growth, reduce bureaucrats’ clout over policies and cut waste, and rein in what they see as the excesses of US-style, bare-knuckles capitalism.
“We must shift to a policy of directly stimulating household finances and by that means make people’s livelihoods and the economy prosperous,” Hatoyama said in a TV debate on Sunday.
The Democrats also want to forge a diplomatic stance more independent of Tokyo’s top security ally Washington.
Some analysts say for many voters, content matters less than the concept of change given anxiety about a society aging fast and facing challenges such as from rival China.
“Voters want the country to get better. It’s nothing specific. It’s a feeling,” Reed said. “Voters as a mass are not capable of dealing with a lot of policy details; they just want to be confident that these guys know what they are doing.”
Prime Minister Taro Aso has admitted Koizumi’s reforms had a downside, but is trying to convince voters that only an experienced LDP can handle tough problems such as an economy struggling to emerge from its worst recession in 60 years and security threats from an unpredictable nearby North Korea.
But the past three years since Koizumi stepped down may have seriously undermined that claim.
Successor Shinzo Abe shifted focus from economic reforms to a nationalist agenda aimed at making Japan proud of its past and loosening the constraints of its pacifist constitution. He then quit abruptly just months after the ruling bloc lost a 2007 upper house poll due to public anger over scandals in his Cabinet and bureaucrats’ loss of millions of pension records. Yasuo Fukuda lasted only about a year as the next premier in the face of a parliamentary deadlock, and incumbent Aso’s popularity has been eroded by gaffes and policy flip-flops.
To be sure, the momentum for change now feels different from the groundswell of enthusiasm for Koizumi’s reform slogans. “It’s change from the LDP rather than to the Democrats,” said Norihiko Narita, the president of Surugadai University and a former aide to Morihiro Hosokawa, who headed a reformist coalition in 1993-94 when the LDP was briefly ousted. “It’s a punishment vote.”
Some voters remain uneasy at the idea of putting the government in the hands of the novice Democrats and, like many financial market participants, worry their spending plans will inflate an already huge public debt. “Last time, Koizumi had a very positive image and it was change without risk. It was change, but with the people they knew,” Reed said. “This time it’s change with a lot of risk.”
Forecasts of a runaway Democratic victory could fan voter angst. “The unpredictable electoral system could produce a landslide even if the difference in voters is not that big,” said Koichi Nakano, a Sophia University professor. He was referring to the winner-take-all, single member districts that account for 300 of the 480 lower house seats, and where tight races make predictions difficult. The remaining seats are from multi-member blocks where ballots are cast for a party.
“But if I were to play the cautious political scientist, I would say that in the end, voters are likely to think again before they do anything too new, and if so, the most plausible outcome is for a less than overwhelming
