Opposition faces an uphill task to dislodge Koizumi

In the last two general elections held in 2000 and 1996 respectively, voter turnout was 62.49 percent and 59.65 percent, giving the last election a slight edge over the earlier one. But no doubt, in both such occasions political parties more or less failed to generate real interest among Japanese voters and a significant number of voters simply opted out from exercising their voting right. As political analysts everywhere categorise abstained voters to be those in difficulty in deciding whom to support, their abstention no doubt helped the ruling block to maintain its hold on power. In Sunday's general election too, the outcome is surely to be influenced by the figure of those showing up at polling stations. Recent media reports in Japan suggest that a high turnover might indicate difficulty for the ruling coalition, although it would no way mean that Japan at last is poised to witness a change of guard in its democratic structure.

Of all democratic states of the industrialised world, Japan is the only country that has hardly seen voters expressing their strong desire for a change in power structure. The main ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is in power since November 1955, except for a brief spell of ten months during 1993-94, when a coalition of different opposition groups joined together to oust the party from power but eventually failed to manage their own unity. And if we go back before the period of great conservative merger in Japanese politics in 1995 that resulted in the formation of LDP, it is easy to see that the Liberals and Conservatives were also swapping position of power periodically among themselves since Shigeru Yoshida formed his second cabinet in October 1948. This calculation puts LDP firmly in power in Japan for last fifty-five years, making Japanese democracy partially meaningless with the absence of one of the most important component that compels democratic set-up of governance behave properly. The high growth economy that dominated every aspect of Japanese life until the late 1980s kept voters content with what their leadership was providing, and despite revelation of repeated scandals, they didn't feel any real urge to initiate change in the system that by then was deeply submerged in the game of 'money politics'.

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The political and economic situation in Japan in early twenty-first century has gone through radical transformation. On economic side the high growth situation has been replaced by stagnation and deflation. In politics, despite the LDP still holding its position of power, the party has merely managed to do so by joining hands with smaller partners. As a result, the big question that is naturally being raised in connection with the general elections these days is whether the LDP would manage again to hold on to power by utilising the weakness of opposition forces to its advantage. For the upcoming election too, the same question is being asked by the media and political observers, who in their own analysis and interpretations, are also trying to focus on a possible answer that tend to tilt in favour of the party that in Japan has become synonymous to power.

Despite giving an edge to the LDP, a number of political analysts in Japan also are saying that the election on November 9 is going to be one of the most exciting lower house election that Japan has ever witnessed. For too long voters in Japan never felt any affiliation towards country's prime minister as the opposition always failed to win a majority and the highest post of the government was always decided by the LDP presidential election, the outcome of which was influenced by factional realignment and backdoor negotiations. For the first time the Japanese voters are now given the option to decide who they would like to see as country's next prime minister: incumbent Junichiro Koizumi of the LDP or Naoto Kan, president of the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). While Koizumi is asking people for their support to continue with his reform policy, the argument that Naoto Kan has successfully taken to many of the voters is that, the election is about who should be allowed to take control of the government.

The campaign strategy so far is proving slightly in favour of the DPJ as the party is calling on voters to use their voting rights to bring in real democracy in Japan that necessitates a change in power for the democracy to function properly. The LDP on the other hand, is trying to utilise the image of Koizumi as a leader with a vision for changing Japan structurally to fit in to the demands of the new century. By appointing a relatively younger politician, Shinzo Abe, as the secretary general of the party just before the dissolution of the lower house that paved the way for the election, Koizumi is trying to win over support of the younger generation of voters whose decision would prove vital to win the election. But there is also the other side of the so called "young" secretary general that might backfire if voters dig in for more than how a person looks like and to what age group he belongs to.

On political position Abe belongs to the extreme right of Japan's main ruling party, which presently is notoriously pursuing a single agenda policy of taking a firm stand against North Korea. As Japan has failed to win support of even the closest of her allies on the question of abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korea, there stands the grim possibility that a number of voters might even question the credibility of the position being pursued by the group. But at the same time, much of that might depend on how skill fully the opposition might utilise a sensitive issue to its favour.

Of the total 480 lower house seats, 300 are contested in single-seat electoral districts where the outcome would be decided on winners take-all-basis, and other 180 are to be distributed among parties on the proportion of votes they get. Of the 300 directly fought seats, in 205 candidates from only three parties are contesting. In addition to the LDP and the DPJ, the third party involved in the three-way contest is the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). But since the JCP failed to win a single of its contested seats in the last election, the focus of attention in those 205 seats are on candidates of the two major parties, and the outcome of this direct confrontation between the LDP and the DPJ is going to have a significant impact on the overall election result.

The large number of districts with only three candidates is the result of the recent merger of the DPJ and the Liberal Party, as well as the cooperation DPJ has received from the Social Democratic Party. Within the ruling camp too, cooperation among coalition partners are quite prevalent. In districts where LDP doesn't have its own candidate, the party is extending support to the candidates of New Komeito and the New Conservative Party.

The eventual result of such cooperation and merger is turning the election into a two way fight, the eventual outcome of which too might turn out to be equally interesting if voters in Japan suddenly start feeling an urge to put into practice the right that the constitution guarantees and flock in to polling stations in numbers surpassing by far any such previous figures. But that is an uphill task for the opposition and might prove to be much more difficult one to put into practice than just carrying the message that Japan needs a change.