A surprising twist in Japanese politics

At least our losers have some sense. Hi everyone, and by everyone I mean the two family members and occasional spam-bot who read this. I’m back from a long overdue holiday in the US. I’ll write up a report of the things I found interesting returning to the US of A at a later time. Today I want to talk about Former PM Fukuda.

That’s right, the Japanese Prime Minister resigned this morning. Claiming that he felt he could no longer deal with the multitude of issues facing Japan at the moment and that it was time for someone new to take the reigns. And there have been some serious issues: Record gas prices, the end of the longest post-war economic expansion ever, a fruitless G8 summit, and a new healthcare plan that shifted a lot of burden away from the government and the tax payers and on to the elderly. Considering that Japan has the greyest and longest lived population in the world, this was not a bright move.

In addition, Fukuda had to deal with the first divided parliament in Japanese history. One house is controlled by each party but Fukuda’s LDP (Liberal Democratic Party aka The Conservatives) still maintains the overall majority.

As of last week, his approval rating was down to 29% despite a recent reshuffling of the cabinet, normally a guaranteed numbers boost. So, after less than a year in office, the 72 year old Fukuda chose to quit before he dragged the nation too far into the dirt. Isn’t that a nice idea?

Although the ruling party is able to call for elections whenever they choose, they are not REQUIRED to hold a general election until September 2009. Knowing that they are at a low point approval wise, the LDP has decided not to hold an election and instead the party leaders will privately select the new PM. This may happen as soon as the end of the week since Parliament is due to open a new session on Sept. 12th.

Naturally the opposition party is up in arms about the private selection concept and is clamoring for elections to be held. The claim is that the LDP is not willing to hear the voice of the people. Now, none of this is going to do a blessed thing, but it’s a nice point to mention.

The likely replacement for Fukuda is Aso Taro. I don’t know much about him accept that he is a former Foreign Minister and known to be significantly more conservative than Fukuda. I don’t envy the guy. With mandatory election a year away, his party can’t afford 3 failed prime ministers in a row.

I know that most people are bored by Japanese politics. So to balance the scales, my next entry will be an analysis of Sen. McCain’s VP choice including *gasp* some positives.