What next for the LDP?

With the exit polls suggesting that the LDP will edge out the DPJ in this election and recover some of its strength in the upper …

Twisted again

The various newspapers are reporting that according to exit polls, the DPJ won somewhere between forty-three and fifty-one seats,…

Is Ozawa back?

If there is one lesson that this upper house campaign has taught us, it is a lesson that we all should have already learned: ther…

The meaning of the Upper House election

On Thursday campaigning for the House of Councillors election scheduled for 11 July begins, as 440 candidates vie for 121 seats.…

Why did Hatoyama go after Futenma first?

With little surprise, the Hatoyama government has decided to postpone a decision on the future of Futenma, after alienating both …

A new dawn?

On Thursday, Masuzoe Yoichi, former minister of health, labor, and welfare and the most popular politician in Japan, will inform…

Hatoyama is the problem

Watching the shambles that the Hatoyama government has become, I went back into the archives and found the post I wrote on the oc…

The strange death of the LDP

When the Hosokawa government — with Ozawa Ichiro, then secretary-general of one of the leading parties of the eight-party coaliti…