A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (81 page)

Abe was replaced by Fukuda Yasuo, the grandson of the former prime minister Fukuda Takeo (1976–78). As if a change of prime minister was an annual event, Fukuda suddenly resigned the following September (2008), on the grounds that he felt he was in a stalemate with the opposition (the DPJ) and was stepping down to allow proper political processes to take place. This too is suggestive of a drama acted out behind the scenes, though it could simply be that he felt he was not the man for the job.

Continuing the annual turnover, Aso Tar
, a former minister of foreign affairs and secretary general of the LDP, took over as prime minister that September (2008), and ceased to be so the following September (2009). However, in Aso’s case, his loss of office was not due to resignation or ill health, but to defeat of the LDP in the Lower House elections held in August 2009. During his year in office he had become known as Japan’s George Bush, owing to his apparent difficulty with words. His family also came under the spotlight due to the fact that they owned a coal mine in which, during the war, they had used Allied POWs as labourers without pay, and two Australians had died in their employ. He may not have stayed on long even if he had not been defeated in the election.

In the 2009 Lower House elections the LDP won only 119 seats (out of 480) to which they could add 21 seats from their partner New K
meit
, giving a total of 140. The Democratic Party of Japan, by contrast, won 308 seats, to which they could add 12 seats won by four minor parties in alliance with them, giving a total of 320 seats. This was a considerable majority for the DPJ, and a major turn-around from their situation in late 2005. There was a healthy voter turnout of 69 per cent. Those opposed to the LDP would seem to have shaken off their apathy and regrouped. Koizumi had proved to be a hard act to follow, and the public were no doubt fed up with a rapid-fire succession of seemingly ineffective LDP prime ministers. The world economic recession in 2008–09, which as mentioned earlier saw the Japanese economy shrink significantly, was also very probably a factor in the toppling of the LDP, albeit that the economic slump was not necessarily their fault.

The first DPJ prime minister was Hatoyama Yukio, a founding member of the party, who took up office in September 2009. He is from a family of politicians, and his grandfather Hatoyama Ichir
was a prime minister in the 1950s. However, his (Yukio’s) popularity soon declined following a scandal just a few months later in December, in which donations were not properly recorded, and some donations seemed to come from deceased persons. It has to be said as well that his wife Miyuki, formerly an actress and latterly a writer of cookery books, probably did not help his image, for she claimed that her soul once went riding on a triangular UFO to Venus.
²⁸
Koizumi had been seen as a little bit eccentric, though only mildly so, and for some people that was an attractant, but riding on a triangular UFO was probably a bit too far out from the real world. Of course Miyuki was not the prime minister, but not a few people felt uncomfortable over the possibility that she might have a degree of influence with her husband – a scenario not unknown in American politics, for example.

Hatoyama stepped down in June 2010, on the grounds that he had broken a promise to remove an American base in Okinawa. This was rather tough luck for him, for soon after making his promise, tensions flared up between North and South Korea, and he felt it was in Japan’s interest to retain the base after all.

He was replaced by Kan Naoto, another DPJ veteran. Unfortunately Kan’s popularity was immediately dented by his proposal to double the sales tax, from which he soon backed down. He also stepped into controversy by endorsing the role of the Self-Defence Force in establishing a base in Djibouti to counter piracy – personnel having been sent to Somalia the previous year.
²⁹
Some observers feel these may be factors in the relative lack of success in the Upper House elections that followed in November.

The DPJ has indeed been disappointed by its fewer than expected seats in elections for the Upper House. The Upper House, which is also known as the House of Councillors, has 242 seats, and following recent regulation changes has now acquired increased authority, for in some cases – other than legislative bills, draft budgets, the approval of treaties or the designation of the prime minister – it requires a two-thirds majority by the Lower House to overturn a decision by the Upper House. This means that a party in power in the Lower House may put forward some proposal using their majority, but unless that majority is two-thirds or more, the Upper House might block it, depending of course on the make-up of the Upper House and the nature of the proposal. It is therefore important for the party (or alliance) in power in the Lower House to have a very substantial majority in the Upper House.

Regarding seats in the Upper House, in 2004 the DPJ had 79 seats, as opposed to the LDP’s 114 plus 24 from New K
meit
. After the 2007 Upper House election the DPJ had 109 seats, the LDP 83, and New K
meit
20. Following the 2010 Upper House elections the DPJ has 106 seats, with four others to call upon, whereas the LDP has 84, plus 19 from New K
meit
, and two others. The DPJ alliance has a considerable majority in the Lower House but it falls short of two-thirds, and has only a slim majority in the Upper House, so it must tread warily.