The long sayonara

My hunch about Shinzo Abe (a.k.a. Tom Conti, a.k.a.Scarecrow) proved to be right. His death (politically speaking) on the night of the Upper House election in July was being covered up the Soviet Communist/Liberal Democratic Party hierarchs in order to maintain the peace and stability of the Motherland/Beautiful Country. In the weeks since the disastrous reshuffle, however, the best efforts of the LDP embalmers have not been able to prevent putrefaction, and Taro Aso (LDP Secretary-General) and Kaoru Yosano (Chief Cabinet Secretary) have decided to give him a decent burial.

Shinzo Abe has resigned - or rather announced his intention of resigning as soon as someone is appointed to take his place.

Rather embarassingly, I was in Seoul when all this happened. I write this in Gimpo airport waiting for the afternoon flight back to Tokyo. So here are my - necessarily, not fully informed - thoughts.

1) This was inevitable. Looking back it is bizarre that Abe held on for this long after such a historic trouncing in the Upper House elections. It must be taken as a sign of discombobulation and panic within the LDP, that the Abe fiasco has been allowed to drag on like this. In the old days, the LDP as a party was always bigger and more powerful than individual prime ministers. If one of them became a liability, the vigorous imune system of the party organism would excret them and place someone better suited to the moment in their place. Junichiro Koizumi's great achievement as prime minister was to increase the power of the prime minister's office, and show the LDP who was boss - and people loved it. But the new balance of power depends on having someone with the sharp wits and commanding personality of Junichiro Koizumi. During Abe's turn in office, both party and leader are enfeebled.

2) Taro Aso will probably be the next prime minister, but it is not a certainty. He is a good communicator, deft and confident (if a bit lordly and arrogant), and has something of the henjin (eccentric. weirdo) quality which distinguished Koizumi and which Japanese have come rather to like in their leaders. But, as Tobias Harris points out at Observing Japan, the chaos which this sudden announcement will create presents opportunities for an outsider to swoop in, much as Koizumi did in the mess of the Mori government.

3) The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) under Ichiro Ozawa are stronger than ever. This is their resignation, the biggest political victory they have had in years, just what Ozawa needs to rally the troops and overcome the gaping divisions among their factions. With Abe's entrails smeared on their sweaty faces, his head impaled on a war spear, they will go into battle in the Diet more berserk and blood crazed than ever . . .

They're calling my flight . . .

Comments

east,east! But, why it's not Mr. Machimura?

[Masako]

Is Mr Aso "a bit" arrogant? No. He's very very arrogant. I know this as I am a Japanese. Anyway, nice one, Richard san! Safe journey to Tokyo.

[Eleanor Goldsmith]

Abe resigns as PM: Tom Conti laments the end of his career (opening izakaya and soaplands) as a Japanese PM-alike.

Still, maybe now Mr Conti won't have to put up with election jokes....

[Milica, Tsukuba]

An excited and exciting analysis, RLP, always a pleasure. I am slightly miffed myself that this news has caught me in Europe. What an earthquake for Japanese politics, and so soon after the unusual premiership of Koizumi!

There may be a chance for a real leap ahead within the stale political machine in this general mess and confusion. But I fear we're getting ahead of ourselves. With Ozawa rapidly turning out to be another political dinosaur unable to capitalize on his stunning good luck, DPJ is likely to swap spears for trenches and slings and continue to put a spanner in the works of every political move of the next PM. How boring and unproductive. I'd like to be wrong, but I have a feeling we'll end up laughing about this blip on the political landscape over our beers at the izakaya, while Japanese politics sinks deeper into the quagmire of a nasty stalemate. It'll be interesting to see who'll eventually extend the branches...