Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
Electoral Earthquake Rocks Japan
Did you hear the one about the Japanese Prime Minister that refused to step down after his party suffered a humiliating defeat in national elections? That’s what happened to current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday, when the ruling Liberal Democratic Party-Shin Komeito coalition government lost its majority status in Japan’s House of Councillors. In addition to calls for Abe to resign as Prime Minister and head of the right-wing party that has dominated Japanese politics since the end of the Occupation, the embattled Prime Minister has been under tremendous pressure to announce a snap election to determine control of the lower house of the Diet.
From the moment he was elected to succeed Junichiro Koizumi, the Abe government has lurched from one scandal to another, much as the Bush administration has done here in the U.S. ever since Hurricane Katrina brutally rubbed our noses in Bush’s fallibility. If this proves to be the LDP’s political Waterloo that leaves them out in the wilderness for a while - and to be honest, Jerry Falwell has a better chance of coming back to life and announcing that he’s gay - then Japan will be all the better for it. As I’ve said before, despite its name, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party is hardly democratic, much less liberal. Frankly, the I don’t think the world can stand much more right-wing domination of any country’s politics.
