Japanese voters warm to 'popularity politics'

The rise of the Minshuto party as a legitimate and credible option to the LDP is a recent phenomenon, dating to 2001 and the leadership of Naoto Kan. A new alliance between Ozawa's Liberal Party and Minshuto in this election has added to the credibility of a realistic opposition to the LDP, says Minoru Morita, a political consultant in Tokyo.

In an informal lunchtime survey of 14 business people in downtown Tokyo's Ginza district this week, only two stated they were voting for the LDP, and nearly all said they were looking for new candidates and positions. The LDP is expected to do better in rural areas outside the capital.

A life-insurance executive in his mid-30s says he will vote for the Minshuto, and that "most of the colleagues in my office are either voting for the LDP or the Minshuto. That what it is coming down to."

Analysts in both the LDP and the DPJ say that Sunday's election may well hinge on the fickle question of voter turnout. A large turnout is expected to benefit the opposition forces of the DPJ. If the LDP wins more than 241 seats, it will have a majority. Should the DPJ win more than 190 seats, the Koizumi cabinet would probably be unsustainable.

The question of a deployment of Japanese troops to Iraq is politically sensitive - and has been put off until after the elections.

Makiko Tanaka, who served as Junichiro Koizumi's foreign minister before differences led to her ouster, is running for the Diet on an independent ticket. The Monitor caught up with her in her homebase of Niigita prefecture.

ON THE LDP AND REFORM:

I don't think the LDP can make the necessary reforms. Japanese politics under the LDP has been much the same for 48 years. What we need instead is a politics that insists that the policies that are pursued after the election are the same that are promised. Japanese want something different; they want choices. The LDP restricts all members to one policy. There isn't much discussion.

ON US-JAPAN RELATIONS:

[W]hile there are benefits and burdens in the Japan-US alliance, the Japanese nation should also have benefits and burdens in working more strongly within the UN. Japan is insisting that the country should be a Security Council member. I think Japan at this stage ... just follows US policies. Yet don't many [US] intellectuals and scholars expect Japan to have its own message and opinions?

ON THE US-JAPAN MILITARY ALLIANCE:

There are many points that can be reviewed. For example, the rotation of US Marine in Okinawa. There should be fewer marine and elite troops in Okinawa ... and some consideration about rotating them to other places [in Asia.]

ON JAPANESE TROOPS IN IRAQ:

The Iraq case is not as easy as Afghanistan.... I am against the Self Defense Forces going to Iraq. For the next four years, Japan will spend $5.5 billion on Iraq. That money is coming during a stagnant economy. Iraq is still a dangerous place for us to go. We should be supporting medical, humanitarian aid.

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