3 Strange Things About Japan’s Current Election
When Media Clearly Contributes to Empowering a Right-wing Leadership
If you enjoyed this post, please like it, restack it, and share it with your friends. It only takes a few clicks! Your support will help me reach new readers.
Right now all of Japan is focused on September 27th.
On that day, the votes will be counted to determine who will be the next Prime Minister of Japan. The media is debating who is the most suitable candidate to lead the country, who they think will win the election, or whether a person is the most suitable candidate.
On September 27th, the game will be over and the key to an entire nation will be given in an election that is in no way a national election.
Yes, this is the first strange thing about this election. The election that will determine the future politics of Japan is a party election not a national election. The election to succeed Kishida Fumio (family name first, as is tradition here) as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, the country’s main conservative political party, is only for LDP party members
To better understand this system, let’s imagine that the U.S. has the same political system as Japan and that Joe Biden has decided to resign. The election, which is something like an ‘accidental’ midterm election, will be held without an opposition party. The new president will be chosen by an election within the Democratic Party, with only some (very similar) ‘factions’ (called habatsu 派閥 in Japan) of the same political family opposing to determine the next leader.
You are probably wondering what the word faction means in the Japanese political context. In his study entitled Contemporary Japan: history, politics and social change since the 1980s, Jeffrey Kingston explains that:
The faction (habatsu) system in the LDP [Liberal Democratic Party] is another legacy of Kishi [Nobusuke] that facilitated the institutionalization of corruption. Factions are subgroups within the LDP that coalesce around leaders, less for ideological or policy reasons than for practical benefits — financial support for election campaigns and allocation of influential posts inside the party and in the Diet. (p. 111)
Nothing good here! Factions are still a major political problem.
The second strange thing is that the media coverage of this party election has all the hallmarks of a major national election. You cannot miss it. It is in all media. Even my philosophy students asked my opinion about it.
This party election is presented as an important national election that could change the face of the country, forgetting that all the candidates have more or less the same opinion on issues of economic, political and social importance.
Furthermore, there is no real place for debate here. This election is a festival for the Liberal Democratic Party; an event for a conservative, nationalist and revisionist party in many ways; a party whose leaders deliberately go to pray at the Yasukuni Temple, where war criminals are enshrined (cultivating bad relations with neighboring countries).
What is worse is the media does not hesitate to give this party election the same coverage as a national election.
Imagine a country where the opposition party can only win under very special circumstances. I am not joking. As it turns out, the Liberal Democratic Party has governed the country almost continuously since its founding in 1955, except for a ten-month interlude between 1993 and 1994, and for three years after its defeat in the general elections of August 30, 2009.
And despite some institutional reforms in 1994, there has been little real change in election results.
This leads us to the third strange thing. There is no real place for a strong opposition in Japan. The Liberal Democratic Party multiplies scandals, but still leads the country. They are the masters of time. They can push their own party into new elections and the whole country into a new turmoil whenever they want. Whoever is the master of time has a huge advantage in politics.
Japanese politics give a true advantage to the party in power. Whoever has led the country most of the time from 1955 to the present knows very well how to cultivate victory on the basis of such an advantage.
This advantage is the legacy of Japan’s ‘one-party’ system (i.e., the LDP), a system established in 1955 with the support of the U.S. government, which long dominated democracy and was supported by conservative forces, big business, and the bureaucracy. Jeffrey Kingston notes that:
This [system] provided the LDP [Liberal Democratic Party] with generous campaign funding and opportunities to wield its influence to cultivate and sustain loyal constituencies. LDP candidates enjoyed the advantages of incumbency and once elected usually retained their seats and often kept them in the family, passing them on to sons. (p. 9)
And although this system changed somewhat with the 1994 electoral reform, the Liberal Democratic Party remains the master of the political game.
Let’s explain why.
First, because they always have the support of much of the business community and the bureaucracy. Second, because they are free to refresh the voters’ perception of their party.
If the party is struggling in the polls, it can hold a party election to make people feel that their concerns are being addressed. They can dismiss the prime minister without triggering national elections. Then they can refresh the image of the party.
When the next election comes, the last government that was criticized will be far away, and a new team that does not have the time to hold similar and strong criticism will just be waiting to perpetuate its party at the command of the country. This is certainly good chess.
The saddest thing for me is not only that a less conservative, non-revisionist party cannot make its way to the top of the country, but also that in such a country, where it is so difficult to debate in everyday life, at home, at work, etc., the ideological homogeneity of such a party also makes people think that their political commitment is not important, since everything is resumed in a small factional fight in an ideologically rather homogeneous party.
Many commentators wonder why the Japanese are so disinterested in politics. There are certainly several reasons (no political discussion at home for most families and no real political education in schools, for example), but the fact that hope for change has been stolen and stability has become a local virtue. In such a context, why fight an ineffective battle?
If you are entertained, challenged, or informed by my words, please do not hesitate to become a paid subscriber to Philosopher’s Insight. You will get access to every post in my archive and be able to discuss various topics in the chat room. It will also support my research as well as my writing on Substack.
I was looking for a venue for a book launch in London and came across a hotel that had never been bombed during the war. To my surprise it had been used as a guide for the Luftwaffe because of four turrets... for the bombing of London in WWII. Then, looking further into this building there was a blue plaque on it for The Fabian Society.... Founded in January 1884. I thought this was odd... The Fabian Principle is where frontal assaults are avoided in favour of wearing down an opponent through a war of attrition. It actually was the beginning of a Labour movement to counteract the Conservatives and Liberals of that time. Then discovered that every Labour 'democratic' party member who rose to the top all belonged and still do to The Fabian Society. My biggest surprise was the fact that George Bernard Shaw financed it originally. However, the current party in the UK is not favoured by the elderly because of loss of winter heating help and the media is being very scathing of it at the moment. I do not usually involve myself too much in politics but looking forward it seems very much like Big Brother is watching, and also this rising of career politicians in the world who are not aligning themselves with assisting families or farmers at home, but more interested in foreign policy that is more likely to end in wars over controlling commodities and lands elsewhere. Poking Bears does not help. ***
Thank you for this insight.
It looks like the democratic game is rigged and democratic life is real only inside fewer and fewer deluded minds.
Japan looks like an extreme example, but I think the veil that hides the reality of contemporary democratic systems more generally is being ripped open.
By 'democratic life' I mean a complex system made of a plurality of parties, all aiming at their country's best interests and at the people's wellbeing by means of different policies and fundameental principles, media that are the watchdog of the people and not of political and economic power, an education system that educates free thinkers and competent citizens, and citizens who are involved in social life, freely and openly discuss political matters, freely organise themselves in civic political action when necessary, and think critically about the status quo and ways to improve on it.