Nearing a climax?

Japan's political air is once again full of election talk as the end of April approaches, bringing the first by-election of the Fukuda era and the end of the sixty-day period after which the HR can vote again on the tax bill containing the temporary gasoline tax.

Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, hinted in remarks in Nara-ken Saturday that the election will likely be held before the expiration of the term in September 2009, perhaps as early as this autumn. Mr. Ibuki suggested that Mr. Fukuda might act if he gets a tailwind so as to minimize the blow to the LDP in the general election that everyone knows is coming.

Asahi builds upon Mr. Ibuki's remarks, noting that he added that the party is encouraged by its strong favorable ratings in public opinion polls, many of which have consistently shown the LDP receiving more support than the DPJ.

Koga Makoto, the LDP's chief election strategist, who has been one of the leading advocates in the LDP for delaying until September 2009, has also changed his tune to echo Mr. Ibuki's line.

Mr. Ibuki's emphasis on the party's popularity, however, suggests a certain distancing from the increasingly unpopular Mr. Fukuda. I suspect that the earlier the general election, the greater the chance that it will not be Mr. Fukuda who leads the party into it, especially once the G8 summit has passed. Now that Mr. Fukuda has admitted that he underwent surgery for stomach cancer nearly a decade ago, there's even a convenient excuse for his stepping down, something like "health concerns brought on from the intense stress of the premiership."

But regardless of whether Mr. Fukuda will be at the helm for the next election, it is worth asking whether the LDP is right to feel confident about its electoral prospects based on opinion polls showing greater support than for the DPJ. Do the party support numbers recorded in polls actually have any meaning for how people will vote? Are the LDP and Komeito really willing to bet their two-thirds majority — which Mr. Ibuki admitted will likely not be retained — on the basis of there being some significance to the polls? I have a hunch that the polls fail to capture the extent of the public's discontent. I'm not convinced that the public is any less discontent than it was last summer when the LDP was trounced in the HC election. Will the public really be inclined to punish the DPJ more than the LDP?

The DPJ may not be able to win a majority outright, but anything close will be more than enough to topple the sitting premier, whether Mr. Fukuda or a successor, and possibly break the LDP as its contending sects battle for control of the party.

It is with this in mind that we head into the final weeks of the battle of the temporary tax and road construction. Ozawa Ichiro is still threatening a censure motion should the HR pass the tax bill again, although he has hedged on his threat by suggesting that the final decision will be for the party's HC members to make. Whether a censure motion will have any meaning depends, of course, on the government's response.

If the LDP's leaders are convinced that its popularity will win the day in a general election, perhaps they will call Mr. Ozawa's bluff.

And then?

Tip of the iceberg

Following Prime Minister Fukuda's remarks Thursday at the LDP convention, Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, has also warned darkly of the possibility of the breaking of the LDP.

Speaking in Utsunomiya, Mr. Ibuki said, "If the LDP wins, the DPJ will break. If the DPJ wins, in the LDP people who cannot persevere will spill out."

There are plenty of public signs of the gathering storm within the LDP, but if the president and secretary-general of the party feel compelled to take their fears for the party's future public, then the situation must be worse than even press reports suggest. Given the barely concealed vitriol of the conservatives, who seem to feel that Mr. Fukuda has taken their birthright — control of the party for which they and their ideological predecessors yearned for decades — I don't doubt it.

But Mr. Ibuki is right: I don't expect any movement until after the election. But he's wrong about the winner staying united, the loser dividing. What will count as a victory for the LDP? retaining the supermajority? Best take out the carving knives now. A simple majority for the LDP, without Komeito? A simple majority for the government, but only with Komeito's help? Undoubtedly different actors within the LDP will have their own ideas about what constitutes a win for the LDP in a general election. I expect that Nakagawa Shoichi and the other ideologues will do their best to spin just about any outcome as a defeat, giving them due cause to reassert control over the LDP, and push out their dovish rivals, with a mitigating factor being a strong election performance by the doves that bolsters their numbers within the party. Barring that, the LDP will be rocked by just about any outcome short of the miraculous retention of the supermajority.

As for the DPJ, if it loses — although, again, there is a question about the definition of what constitutes a win for the DPJ — the party will have to confront the question of who will replace Ozawa Ichiro. As revealed back in November, there isn't an obvious replacement, meaning that when Mr. Ozawa goes, there's bound to be chaos within the DPJ as the party's proto-factions search for a new compromise leader who can assuage all factions or purge the party's conservatives, sending them into the arms of the LDP.