The last days of Abe Shinzo

For a look at how illusory the LDP's purported post-Fukuda unity is, Bungei Shunju has an article called "Shinzo Abe: The truth of the last three days." (It's published in four parts at Yahoo's Minna no seiji site: one, two, three, and four.)

There aren't too many surprises in the article: Aso Taro laughed in Fukuda Yasuo's face when the latter insisted that he join the cabinet; the Aso camp is larger than officially recognized, and will continue to scheme to position Mr. Aso for the post-Fukuda era; Mr. Fukuda doesn't particularly like Mr. Abe, in part due to the latter's efforts to undermine Mr. Fukuda's ideas on North Korea policy under Mr. Koizumi; Mr. Koizumi's surprise "endorsement" of Mr. Fukuda is apparently behind the resignation of Iijima Isamu, Mr. Koizumi's private secretary, who is antagonistic with Mr. Fukuda and only learned of his boss's decision from the press; and Mr. Abe became progressively more decrepit in mind and body as August passed.

Who, the article asks, is the real winner?

I would say Mr. Fukuda, simply by virtue of having emerged as the prime minister, but no one comes out of this article looking particularly good. Mr. Fukuda looks like a scheming, treacherous snake full of grudges; Mr. Abe by the end is a pale shadow of himself subsisting on gruel at Keio Hospital; and the LDP looks more like the court of a Renaissance Italian city-state than a modern political party. Of course, no political party is free from vicious internal disputes and jockeying for power; take the US Democratic Party, for example. But thanks to decades of nearly uninterrupted power and grudges going back generations, LDP struggles strike me as particularly vicious and all too often hidden from the light of public scrutiny. Policy has next to nothing to do with the feuds documented by Bungei Shunju. The only policy dispute mentioned at length is over North Korea policy, and it seems to me that Mr. Fukuda was more outraged at being beaten by the young deputy chief cabinet secretary than at seeing his preferred course of action rejected.

In other words, the LDP was, is, and will always be, at heart, concerned solely with power. No leader can change that, and as long as the LDP has no principles save the pursuit of power, and as long as its leaders are those who can scheme and backstab their way to the top, the LDP will force its rivals to play by the same rules. Under Mr. Ozawa, the DPJ may be able to do that — but is it possible to surpass the LDP's desire for power?

Of course, this means that it is a bit contrived to speak of an old and a new LDP: there is one LDP, with an unchanging purpose. Mr. Koizumi, rather than fundamentally transforming the party, may have simply given contenders for the throne some new tools, including popular support outside the party, which in the right hands can both make up for a lack of support within the party and be used as a weapon against one's enemies, and the intensification of the "reform" theme, which makes it plausible for LDP politicians to run against their own party. And so the dynamics of intra-party competition have changed: the factions are weaker and more strapped for cash; the zoku giin don't have the same influence over policymaking they once had; the Kantei has grown in power. But I wonder whether this transformation has had a perverse effect on intra-LDP politics, making competition for the party leadership that much more intense, because now the premiership is that much more valuable a prize.

I am also uncertain about the contemporary LDP's crosscurrents. In the past, the party was divided along multiple fault lines: factions, policy tribes, bureaucrats versus party men, hawks versus doves. And now? The camps seem less clear cut to me, and are perhaps even more rooted in personality than ever before.

Therefore, in light of all this, I do not expect the Fukuda truce, if it even exists, to last long. The LDP's history is one of chaos and brutal power struggles more akin to those seen in Beijing and Moscow than in Washington. As long as Japan's voters continue to return the LDP to power, the country's leaders will continue to be those who can survive, one way or another, the party's internecine wars. Even after Mr. Koizumi, it is no closer to becoming a top-down, coherent political party.

Fukuda (not surprisingly) purges Aso

Not surprisingly, Mr. Fukuda has acted quickly in replacing the LDP leadership. Mr. Aso is out as LDP secretary-general, Ishihara Nobuteru, his supporter, is out as PARC chairman, and Suga Yoshihide is out as election strategy chairman. Messrs. Nikai and Oshima will retain their positions as chairman of general affairs and Diet strategy respectively.

Stepping in are Ibuki Bunmei as secretary-general (vacating the education portfolio) and, coming in from the cold, Tanigaki Sadakazu as PARC chairman.

I can't say that the new party leadership is surprising, and I'm not altogether sure it's an improvement. Competent, maybe, and sure to do the bidding of Mr. Fukuda — but I guess that's what counts.

UPDATE — I mistakenly omitted the appointment of Koga Makoto as the election strategy chairman, meaning that, as MTC points out, the Fukuda cabinet has become a "faction head employment agency." All but three faction heads (including Aso) are now in either the cabinet or the LDP leadership. I'm not sure what difference it will make, if any. It certainly makes it harder for Mr. Fukuda to present himself as standing for a new LDP, as the DPJ has hastened to note. But will it mean that Mr. Fukuda is excessively deferential to factional interests?

Will Fukuda have a honeymoon?

In his initial remarks yesterday, Mr. Fukuda indicated that he recognizes what Mr. Koizumi recognized, namely that the LDP is responsible for the state of the economy and politics.

Describing the election results, he insisted, "This is not old-style solidarity among factions." His task: "Regaining the people's trust." He spoke at length on the problem of trust in politics, sounding like the most forthright of "outsider" American presidential candidates.

"In particular, concerning the pension problem, the truly big problem is that the people have been given the impression that they cannot trust politics and government," he said. "I think this is an exceedingly big problem. Regarding this problem, each ministry is responsible, but I think that it is also the major responsibility of politicians, who have the position of directing this. In particular, I think the responsibility of the LDP, which has sustained governments for a long time, is great. I fully realize this responsibility, and it is essential to be committed to the idea that the LDP must be reborn."

I have to imagine that we would not be hearing the word "caretaker" if these words came from a new prime minister twenty years younger and considerably more telegenic than Mr. Fukuda. As it is, it's an open question whether Mr. Fukuda will be able to repeat Mr. Koizumi's feat of leading the LDP to victory by campaigning against the LDP. [Ed. — Fool me once...] But I think he means it when he dismisses the idea of his being a cat's paw of the factions. He has his own ideas about the LDP and its future — and they might be disappointing to his backers, Mr. Mori included. The question is whether he will be able to implement them.

Meanwhile, the tone he took on the looming problem of the anti-terror special measures law was distinctly different than that of his predecessors. Namely, he conceived the law in largely negative terms, as a way to avoid the opprobrium of other countries (which have been so kind as to thank Japan for its contribution). Not surprisingly, for this way of thinking Mr. Fukuda has earned the appellation of "realist" from Michael Green. The Fukuda cabinet will likely mean a turn away from the exuberant embrace of the US that characterized Japanese foreign policy under Messrs. Koizumi and Abe. As Mainichi suggests, a flexible, prudent approach will undoubtedly characterize Mr. Fukuda's foreign policy in all areas. The perfervid ideological thinking that resulted in the Abe cabinet's scheme for an "arc of freedom and prosperity" is set to retreat to the back benches and study groups of the LDP, for the time being anyway.

It's actually an amazing trick Mr. Fukuda has pulled: he has managed to convince everyone (or the media, which has subsequently convinced everyone) that he is a mellow conciliator, when in fact his positions will make plenty of people unhappy. For all the talk of LDP unity, how long before young firebrands and old faction bosses get fed up with his way of governance and make their gripes known, loudly and persistently?

One thing is certain. Mr. Fukuda will not enjoy a honeymoon in his relations with the DPJ, no matter how eagerly he tries to reach out and cooperate. The DPJ has signaled that it will not relent in its confrontational stance and will continue to push for an early general election. Whether this strategy will succeed is entirely different question.

Kono looks on the bright side of life

Kono Taro, wunderkind Lower House member from Kanagawa, and Aso supporter, looks at the bright side of Mr. Aso's defeat in a post at his blog:

In Saitama prefecture, with 10,055 and 10,498 votes, we lost by only a difference of 400 votes [Ed. — fuzzy math?]. If we had one won this, we would have taken three votes, giving us a total of 200, and influencing Saitama's Nakano, Imai, and Yamaguchi.

Our predictions were exceeded considerably, and we were in good spirits. Aizawa Hideyuki-sensei [Ed. — 89, LH, Tottori 2] made a toast and joked about not saying congratulations. Someone said it was like the wake of someone who died at 100 years of age, disappointing but sufficient. Someone else said, yes, ninety-seven years of age. The Saitama three laughed bitterly.

The received votes were Aso 197, Fukuda 330.

The party member votes were Aso 65, Fukuda 76.

But the actual numbers of party members' votes cast around the country were Aso 252,809, Fukuda 250,186. Aso won by more than 2,000 votes.

In Tokyo, Osaka, Kagawa, and Miyagi, where he made campaign stops, it was all Aso.

In Kagawa, Ehime, and Kochi, where there were no Diet members publicly supporting Aso, it was all Aso.

There were seventeen prefectures in which Aso won the vote among party members, eighteen where Fukuda won, and twelve prefectures in which party officials decided without regarding member votes.

The population of prefectures Aso won totaled 64,700,000, the population of prefectures Fukuda won totaled 37,890,000. (The remainder was 25,180,000.)

Among the ten most heavily populated prefectures, Fukuda won only fifth-ranked Saitama and seventh-ranked Hokkaido. Excluding the three votes Aso automatically won in ninth-ranked Fukuoka, seven were Aso's (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Osaka, Aichi, Chiba, Hyogo, Shizuoka).

I'm not sure how much significance one should attach to these numbers, but they do suggest that while an Aso insurgency didn't materialize, he did find not inconsiderable support among broad swathes of the country. His support in urban areas, however, may not matter much, because the challenge in a general election is appealing to nonaligned voters — not the party rank-and-file. For the immediate task at hand, healing the party's wounds in advance of a general election, means appealing to the rural rank-and-file, who have recently shown their willingness to desert the party.

Mr. Kono's remarks suggest relatively little ill will, meaning that the risks of an Aso irritant within the party are pretty much nil. He will return to the fold, chastened.

But as Asahi finds in its analysis of the vote, the result among Diet members was beyond the Aso camp's wildest dreams: "It's a protest vote against the contemporary LDP."

It's official

Fukuda Yasuo is the new president of the Liberal Democratic Party and will be (presumably) be elected prime minister on Tuesday.

For coverage of the oh-so-predictable voting, check out Shisaku and TPR.

There's not much I can add to Jun Okumura's assessment of what this means. Mr. Fukuda ended up winning comfortably enough so as not to further exacerbate intraparty tension. While not winning by a landslide in the prefectural votes, Mr. Fukuda had a strong enough showing so as to deny Mr. Aso the opportunity to continue to contest the presidency as a pretender to throne with legitimacy derived from support in the grassroots.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Fukuda will be able to salvage the current Diet session, and whether he will even last long enough to finish Mr. Abe's presidential term, which lasts until September 2009. To hasten the return to normalcy, he is expected to retain most of Mr. Abe's second cabinet. (Yomiuri speculated today that even while removing Mr. Aso as LDP secretary-general, he'll retain Hatoyama Kunio, Mr. Aso's ally, as justice minister.) But he will face a DPJ that is aiming to make the Fukuda cabinet but a short interlude between the Abe train wreck and a DPJ triumph in a general election.

The DPJ has used the unexpected break caused by Mr. Abe's resignation to "go to the people" and continue to sell its agriculture policies to restive rural Japan, reassuring farmers that the money exists to provide the promised subsidies. The party has, in fact, announced that it will submit its income compensation bill to the Diet in mid-October. The debate over that bill, if and when it happens, may be more consequential for the balance between the parties and their prospects leading to a general election than the ongoing battle over the anti-terror special measures law.

A new era dawns?

On the brink of today's LDP election, the government dissolved the "Building a beautiful country" planning group that was to be the vanguard of Mr. Abe's campaign to leave the "postwar regime" behind. The Abe revolution is over.

But what will replace it?

As LDP members vote today, I think that my assessment is correct: an Aso insurgency has not materialized. While Mr. Aso may get a few more defections from among Diet members than initially expected after the factions threw their weight behind Mr. Fukuda, it seems that Mr. Fukuda still enjoys the support of more than two-thirds of Diet members, and the early returns are strongly in Mr. Fukuda's favor — Asahi reports that he has already secured 61 votes to Mr. Aso's 44. Even if Mr. Aso were to sweep up the remaining prefectural chapters (and receive all three votes from each), his victory would be relatively small, winning fewer than two-thirds of the prefectural vote, not nearly high enough to embarrass the faction heads and Mr. Fukuda.

Now to governing. It is unclear what the rise of Mr. Fukuda, the awkward, impolitic reluctant politician — he has actually said that he doesn't really want the job — who apparently resembles Homer Simpson and wears glasses that haven't been style since the 1970s, if ever, presages. To take up Devin Stewart's post asking whether "it's 1975," the emergence of Mr. Fukuda might suggest to some that Japan is going back to the future politically (given the role of the factions in Mr. Fukuda's candidacy).

But for Japan, the US (the subject of Stewart's post), and for Europe, there is no going back to 1975. I view this question from a "Tofflerian" perspective (Future Shock and The Third Wave in particular). The crisis faced by the industrial democracies in the 1970s was effectively the end of industrial society — the end of plans, the end of confidence in the ability of technocratic elites to control reality. Whatever the superficial resemblance of current events to the 1970s, it is only that. The challenge of the present in Japan, the US, and throughout Europe is to build a new order for the post-industrial age. The problem is probably most acute for Japan, which has been slow to de-centralize, is more hierarchical than the other post-industrial democracies, and has had a relatively higher share of its population engaged in agriculture. Of course, in cultural terms, Japan is probably leading the way into the future as its cities grow and urban culture evolves (and influences the rest of the world).

The challenge for Mr. Fukuda, and for his successors for years to come, is to build political and economic institutions for an urban, post-industrial Japan: an education system that prepares children for work other than that in large, hierarchical organizations; trade policy, especially in agriculture, that acknowledges that Japan will not be self-sufficient and thus puts consumer interests ahead of producer interests; a pension system in which the burden for supporting retirees shifts from the private sector to the government. The list goes on and on. Japan is in dire need of institutions befitting an urban society.

Mr. Koizumi understood that without change the LDP would be unfit to lead Japan into a new era. Does Mr. Fukuda recognize this, and is he prepared to do something about it?

Observing Japan in audio, part two

The second part of my conversation with Trans-Pacific Radio's Garrett DeOrio is now online. It focuses mostly on foreign policy questions surrounding today's LDP presidential election.

You can listen to the first part here.

Fukuda follows his father

The LDP presidential election is now just two days away, set to be held on Sunday. All signs point to Fukuda Yasuo being elected as party president and thus prime minister.

Mr. Fukuda evidently has the support of seventy percent of the 387 Diet members and leads in at least twenty-three prefectures.

Mr. Aso simply overplayed his hand, as the controversial article in this week's Shukan Gendai — which discusses Aso's "coup" and his overweening ambition to be prime minister — makes clear, and whatever concerns the prefectural chapters have about Mr. Fukuda's ascending to the premiership on the back of factional support, those concerns do not seem to be significant enough to lead them to buck the parliamentary LDP.

And so Mr. Fukuda will step into the leadership of a broken party, facing circumstances not unlike his father's ascendancy in 1976. Fukuda Takeo took over the LDP following the Lockheed scandal that consumed Tanaka Kakuei and in the wake of the LDP's worst House of Representatives election since the LDP formed, in which official LDP candidates failed to take a majority (the LDP was only able to hold a majority by virtue of conservative independents who ran without the LDP's endorsement and joined the party after being elected). One of the elder Fukuda's first acts as prime minister was to create a headquarters for executing party reform of which he was the head. The headquarters ultimately introduced a primary system for the election of party leaders open to all party members.

Fukuda the younger will not have it as easy as his father: there is no magic bullet to solve the LDP's problems, because there seems to be no easy way to reconcile the party's rural past with an urban present and future, all while holding together a coalition with Komeito and locking horns with an invigorated DPJ.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he's giving few hints as to how he plans to deal with these problems. But I suspect that once in place he could surprise everyone, being a tough, crafty competitor who makes life difficult for rivals and enemies within and without the LDP.

What Fukuda has to look forward to

The LDP presidential campaign is proceeding apace, with substance occasionally intruding into the discussion.

Mr. Fukuda's remarks on North Korea policy — discussed here — have apparently triggered rumbling on the right, if Sankei's editorial today is any indication. Mr. Fukuda is obviously not a favor of Japan's right wing, not being one of their number and apparently not owing them anything. Labeling him as a proponent of the "dialogue line," Sankei calls Mr. Fukuda out on the abductions issue, asking him to provide concrete policies that he intends to pursue. The editorial then quotes some past Fukuda quotes on North Korea to show its readers just how soft Mr. Fukuda would be as prime minister. For example: "It is important that we come to embrace a flexible discussion approach." And: "It is natural that we face a changing international environment. It is likely that tactics will change." Both these lines sound good to me, but I guess the average Sankei reader — or perhaps just the average Sankei editor — is outraged by such unabashed pragmatism. (Sankei depends to know what Mr. Fukuda means by "changing international situation" and "tactics.")

Meanwhile, I wonder what Sankei will make of the prospects of better relations with Japan's Asian neighbors under a likely Fukuda administration. Kim Dae Jung, former South Korean president, has said while on a visit to Washington, DC that a Fukuda cabinet will probably mean a reinvigoration of Japan's relations in Asia. (I can't imagine that Sankei is all that pleased about Mr. Ozawa's December trip to China either. Mr. Ozawa will apparently be taking three charter planes full of DPJ Diet members [fifty in total] and supporters to meet with Hu Jintao.)

The Sankei's — and Yomiuri's — comments on Mr. Fukuda's approach to North Korea are a good reminder of what Mr. Fukuda will have to deal with both within and outside the LDP should he be elected party president. He is set to become the moderate, dovish head of a party of unruly hawks who want nothing more than to see Japan slap around North Korea until Kim Jong Il relents. (I think it's fair to describe Mr. Aso's North Korea policy as the "slap around" approach.) For the moment, the desire for unity and calm within the LDP is outweighing any concerns about Mr. Fukuda's ideas, but how long will his honeymoon last should he become prime minister?

Observing Japan in audio

Yesterday I met with Garrett DeOrio of the always useful Trans-Pacific Radio project to record an episode of Seijigiri, TPR's political analysis program.

Listen in here to the first part of an interview that (I think) covered most of the important issues involved in forthcoming LDP presidential election. A second part will air soon on the foreign policy implications.

Comments welcome, especially since this was a new experience for me.

LDP-lite?

Apparently Fukuda isn't just sounding like the DPJ — he's actually using slogans that DPJ leaders used sometime ago.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Ozawa Ichiro joked about Mr. Fukuda's "self-reliance and harmony" slogan, saying that he had been using it from years before, back in 1993 when he left the LDP to create the Shinseito. Hatoyama Yukio also said that his former Democratic Party had used a similar formulation as one of its principles.

Joking aside, I think this just goes to show the threat posed to the DPJ by Mr. Fukuda's increasingly likely premiership. While the LDP and the DPJ are still expected to clash on foreign policy, especially on the extension of the MSDF mission in the Indian Ocean — Mr. Fukuda emphasized yesterday that "discussion is not the same as cooperation" — in general the softer domestic approach advocated by the front runner will make it that much harder for the DPJ to characterize itself as anything other than a "calorie off" LDP.

Mr. Ozawa will no doubt continue to push for a general election, but as the new cabinet forms and sets to work, his calls will likely become less and less effective as the momentum that the DPJ has enjoyed dissipates, at least for the time being. Sooner or later the DPJ will have to put its Upper House majority for something other than saying no.

It's all about Koizumi

It is impossible to talk about the LDP today without acknowledging that the party — and thus Japan's political system — stands in the shadow of Koizumi Junichiro.

For his enemies in the party, branded by Mr. Koizumi as "opposition forces," he is the symbol of everything they loathe, enabler of what the French call "Anglo-Saxon" market fundamentalism. To the Japanese people and his followers within the LDP, he is the symbol for the changes Japan needs to make in order to remain successful, and a decisive break from the old way of politics. Despite withdrawing from the spotlight since leaving the premiership in September 2006, he is the man central to any discussion about Japan's political future, even if the man himself is likely to remain on the sidelines (and may even be out of the Diet by the next House of Representatives election).

Not surprisingly, then, both Mr. Fukuda and Mr. Aso are positioning themselves in relation to Mr. K. Mr. Fukuda, whatever his personal disputes with Mr. Koizumi, has positioned himself firmly in the Koizumi stream, with the caveat that "If problems arise, reform should be carefully amended." Mr. Aso, however, has been described as taking on a distinctly "leaving Koizumi behind" cast. Consistent with his "rural insurgency" campaign strategy, he is using phrases like "market fundamentalism" to argue for prioritizing the concerns of rural Japan over pushing ahead with painful reforms.

For the LDP's short-term political prospects, it cannot be an either/or decision. By dint of his charisma, Mr. Koizumi was able to forge a national movement under the LDP umbrella that could compete in the cities without chasing rural Japanese from the LDP. Absent that charisma? The increasing incompatible and contradictory interests of urban and rural Japan have become apparent. As Takenaka Heizo, Mr. Koizumi's former lieutenant, writes in Sankei, the legacy of Mr. Koizumi is as much about appearances as about substance: "In a democratic society, to make policy for the people, the government has the responsibility both to explain policy in a way that is easily understood by the people and to execute." For Mr. Takenaka, Mr. Abe's problem is that he failed to market his policies well, and poor personnel selections hindered his ability to execute.

And so the LDP's dilemma. One candidate says the right things and will undoubtedly be wise in his choice of advisers but is utterly lacking in charisma; the other desires a departure from Mr. Koizumi's path, but has popular appeal and the ability to attract voters to his side throughout the country, including younger voters in cities. For the time being, it seems like Mr. Fukuda will do, but it is unclear to me whether he will be able to reassemble the Koizumi movement that led the LDP to a historic victory in 2005. Is there a leader in the LDP who can? I'm skeptical, and so I wonder how much longer the LDP can last as a party that it is trying to compete in the cities without losing its rural supporters (or vice versa). The DPJ obviously faces similar pressures, but the LDP, as the ruling party, has more at stake.

Fukuda the conciliator

The campaign is well under way, and Fukuda Yasuo is starting to sound like, well, the DPJ just a few short months ago in its campaign for the Upper House.

He has emphasized the need for a "self-reliant and harmonious" society and talked of fixing broken institutions and ease the insecurity of dispossessed portions of the populations; Aso Taro, meanwhile, has been going on about "continuing economic growth," Mr. Abe's line in the Upper House election.

Mr. Aso, however, also seems to be burning his bridges by basing his campaign on the "factional collusion" that worked to give Mr. Fukuda a commanding lead. Mr. Fukuda met with parliamentary supporters yesterday, and according to Mainichi, LDP Diet members are unhappy with Mr. Aso's new approach. In response to his remark about "a fatally flawed majority," members described it as "disagreeable" and "excessive."

In addition to wondering about what will happen if Mr. Aso can pull off a landslide victory in the prefectural chapters, I also wonder what position Mr. Aso will be in at the end of a losing campaign, with or without a landslide in the countryside. Will he return to the fold, chastened by the defeat of his insurgency? Will he continue to be a thorn in the LDP's side, payback for his treatment at the hands of party elders? Will he stay in the party?

An Aso victory looks ever more remote, and a Fukuda administration a (temporary) restorative for both LDP and the political system. Mr. Fukuda has said that he would limit changes to cabinet personnel. He also said that in the event of an intractable situation he would be willing to consult with the opposition about dissolving the House of Representatives and calling an election. It seems less and less likely that the government will make it another two years without calling a general election.

Outside the LDP, Mr. Fukuda appears to enjoy considerable support among the public. An Asahi poll shows him enjoying a commanding (if irrelevant in terms of the party election) support rating of 53% to Aso's 21%. Those surveyed favor a "conciliator" for the next prime minister, and not surprisingly an overwhelming majority sees Mr. Fukuda as a conciliator.

The Japan that Mr. Fukuda looks set to inherit is an insecure Japan, and not simply or primarily because of Mr. Abe's tenure. Concerns about pensions and economic disparities remain paramount, but there is still a desire to continue Mr. Koizumi's reforms (favored by 54% to 36%). And there's the challenge: continuing reforms and finishing the job of destroying the ancien régime, but ensuring that the transition isn't too painful and that too many Japanese aren't left behind by the changes. (For a discussion on this subject that is a bit more loopy, check out this Gordan Chang post and the accompanying responses.)

The battle for rural Japan

The campaign for the LDP presidency officially opened on Saturday, and its contours are already apparent.

As now widely acknowleged, Fukuda Yasuo enjoys a commanding position thanks to support of every LDP faction but Aso Taro's.

Mr. Aso, therefore, will be campaigning as a rebel. Thanks in part to the rapid commitment of the factions to Mr. Fukuda, Mr. Aso has now started calling attention to the perils of faction rule, borrowing from the Koizumi playbook to campaign as the candidate for a new LDP. It is unclear whether he can succeed by taking this message directly to the party grassroots.

As Asahi found when it asked LDP prefectural chapter officials about the race, it's not exactly clear what they want from the next leader: "There are differing views: On the one hand, there is the view that approves of the factions' simultaneous embrace of Mr. Fukuda as 'resulting in party unity,' but there is on the other hand the objection that 'it's strange before a policy debate.'" For example, Hokkaido's officials mentioned leadership, while Tohoku officials mentioned the kakusa mondai. Outside of Gunma, Mr. Fukuda's home prefecture, Asahi did not find great enthusiasm for Mr. Fukuda's candidacy — and the process by which the factions rushed to his side seems to have raised eyebrows.

What will it take to placate the prefectural chapters? Will vague promises from Tokyo to listen to their concerns be enough to make them fall into line behind the will of the party elders?

Meanwhile, the discussion about what Fukuda administration's agenda will look like continues, and the consensus increasingly seems to be that it will be like Mr. Abe's, but stripped of ideological fantasies and vacuous slogans. Jun Okumura fleshes this out in considerable detail in this post.

This approach — reformist at home, moderate abroad — could be enough to ensure that the LDP remains competitive in urban Japan, putting pressure on the DPJ in the coming months to work with the government on the budget and related legislation, or else risk getting its hoped-for early election in circumstances more favorable to the government. But rural Japan remains the wild card. Was July's desertion a fluke, or will Mr. Ozawa's "back to the future" strategy actually serve to pry rural voters away from the LDP in general elections as well? If the latter, it's wholly unclear to me what Mr. Fukuda will do to regain the trust of rural Japan.

A potentially ominous sign for the government is MAFF's recent decision to begin working with the DPJ on agricultural policy. It is well known that in the past the bureaucracy has declined to work with the DPJ in drafting its own legislation. For MAFF to begin talking of "conciliation" with the ascendant opposition could well signal just how parlous the LDP's situation in rural Japan is. At the very least, it shows that Mr. Ozawa has actually seized the initiative on agricultural policy with the DPJ's plans for introducing an "income compensation" system, earning the support of sympathizers within MAFF, who are more than happy to support a plan criticized by the LDP as baramaki seisaku (i.e., throwing money around).

Mr. Fukuda, should he hold on to win, has his work cut out for him.

"Perhaps not"

Fukuda Yasuo was asked whether he would visit Yasukuni Shrine as prime minister. His answer: "Perhaps not."

It's certainly better than committing to visit, and considering that China was content with Mr. Abe's "neither confirm nor deny" approach to the Yasukuni problem, undoubtedly Beijing is preparing a little party to celebrate if and when Mr. Fukuda is chosen as the next LDP president.

It is still too early to coronate Mr. Fukuda, but there are few obstacles standing in his way. A potential obstacle is the decision by thirty-seven prefectural chapters to hold elections among party members to choose which candidate will receive the chapter's votes (a kind of electoral college system). This means, of course, that Mr. Aso is not guaranteed to receive the support for twelve prefectural chapters. But it also raises the possibility of an awkward scenario. What if Mr. Aso were to somehow win a resounding victory in the vote among the prefectural chapters? While it seems that such a victory would be mathematically insufficient to best Mr. Fukuda, it would create an awkward situation whereby the parliamentary party would be seen as arrogantly dismissing the interests of the regional party members — who already feel slighted and disaffected, as the Upper House election made clear. What would that mean for Mr. Fukuda's efforts to unite a broken party? How would Mr. Aso react?

If Mr. Fukuda talks too frequently and enthusiastically about structural reform — as much as it pleases some of us, myself included — this scenario could become that much more plausible.

Then again, voters could fall into line behind the consensus forged in Tokyo behind Mr. Fukuda's candidacy.

I cannot speak to the probability of these scenarios, but I think it's worthwhile to consider the possibility that the prefectural chapters could throw a spanner into the works.

Who is Fukuda Yasuo?

Another day has passed, and it looks ever clearer that Fukuda Yasuo has cemented enough support to ensure his victory in the Sept. 23rd LDP presidential election. As this Asahi article notes, Mr. Fukuda has apparently gained the support of 298 Diet members, which is well over the necessary 264 votes he needs to win. (The total number of votes in the election is 528, divided between 387 Diet members and 141 prefectural chapter representatives [three from each prefecture].) Mr. Aso is trying to stay in the race by making up lost ground in the regions so to reverse Mr. Fukuda's momentum, but talking about the aged, the sick, and the left-behind, while important, will probably not be enough to reverse the flash flood that has all but drowned Mr. Aso's campaign.

And yet for a man about to become Japan's prime minister, it is unclear exactly what to expect. As Jun Okumura wrote, "It's remarkable how little I know of Mr. Fukuda's views." And if he doesn't know, well, then Mr. Fukuda truly is an enigma. (Jun, you're forgiven for referring to him by his father's name — until he declared his candidacy, I had to remind myself constantly that Yasuo is the son, Takeo the father.)

Mr. Fukuda, now trying to sound prime ministerial, has given some hint as to what his priorities will be. "Mr. Koizumi's way of structural reforms is right. Continuing reform is a major premise." On foreign policy, he noted that a concern for him is "how to strengthen relations with Asia on the foundation of the US-Japan alliance."

One thing that might be worth considering is that Mr. Fukuda is by no means an old-style LDP politician, even though his victory, should it happen, will depend on the vicissitudes of faction politics. In fact, he did not enter the Diet until 1990, when his father retired, although he had worked as his father's secretary during the latter's time as prime minister. This means that Mr. Fukuda entered the Diet only three years and one election before Mr. Abe, who is almost twenty years younger. He too, like Mr. Abe, is set to rise to the premiership without extensive service in the cabinet. Unlike Mr. Abe, however, he is older, wiser, and his record 1259 days as chief cabinet secretary mean that he has a deep knowledge of the workings of the government. He is, as Tomohito Shinoda makes clear in Koizumi Diplomacy, a committed centralizer. Mr. Fukuda coordinated the Koizumi government's response to 9/11 and managed the passage of the anti-terror special measures law. Under Fukuda's watch, Shinoda writes, "...There was a power shift from MOFA to the Kantei in the area of foreign and defense affairs, which is a desirable phenomenon. The emergence of the Kantei...has made it easier for the prime minister to exercise leadership." (85) Mr. Fukuda obviously does not deserve all the credit for this development; indeed, former Foreign Minister Tanaka Makiko might be the most responsible for the shift in foreign policy making power away from MOFA at the start of the Koizumi cabinet. But Mr. Fukuda helped execute a drastic shift in policy making power to the Kantei, and I would be surprised if he would be overly deferential to the input of LDP policy making organs and the bureaucracy as prime minister.

Mr. Fukuda clearly comes to the job with a certain proficiency for foreign policy — in other words, neither Mr. Fukuda nor Mr. Aso is campaigning on the basis of concrete plans for the Japanese economy. But as the above statement suggests, the personal animosity between Mr. Koizumi and Mr. Fukuda clearly does not extend to the realm of (domestic) policy. As for foreign policy, unlike Messrs. Abe and Koizumi, Mr. Fukuda will not only not go to Yasukuni Shrine, but he might even come out and say that he will not go to Yasukuni Shrine. (He's also a vice-chairman of the Diet member's association in support of the Beijing Olympics, an organization headed by Kono Yohei, and featuring a number of reputed LDP "doves" as vice-chairmen. ) He is clearly not one to prioritize ideological gestures over good and proper policy, meaning that from the start he could not possibly be as miserable a prime minister as Mr. Abe. He has also inherited an interest in maintaining sound relations with Asian powers from his father — author of the Fukuda Doctrine.

In some way, a Fukuda cabinet could be like rewinding the clock to the early weeks of the Abe cabinet, when people were hopeful that Mr. Abe would both restore balance to Japanese foreign policy by concentrating on Asian diplomacy and preserve Mr. Koizumi's emphasis on structural reform.

Unfortunately for Mr. Fukuda, it is no longer October 2006: the LDP's fissures have been laid bare, the DPJ has been calling the tune on the policy agenda, and relations with the US are troubled. He will likely be able to calm some of the tension with Washington, even if he will find it difficult, if not impossible, to give the US what it wants on the anti-terror legislation. His moderation may also serve to embarrass the DPJ before the public, making Mr. Ozawa's aggressive campaigning for an early election look inappropriate given the new mood that Mr. Fukuda would likely convey. But I don't expect him to solve the urban-rural dilemma facing the LDP.

Two horse race

Nukaga Fukushiro, finance minister and member of the Tsushima faction, the LDP's second-largest, has reportedly abandoned plans to run in the party presidential election, due to pressure from his own faction. This means, of course, that Mr. Fukuda is the undisputed "anybody-but-Aso" candidate — and now the undisputed front runner, having sewed up the support of the party's elders at the head of the major factions.

The outlook is not brilliant for Mr. Aso. As his ally, Hatoyama Kunio, the justice minister, said, "It's extremely tough. Each faction has one after the other come forward to support Mr. Fukuda. But is the number of factions good enough to decide the matter?" It seems that Mr. Aso will have no choice but to launch an "insurgency" in the regions in the hope of highlighting the division in the party between Tokyo and the prefectures and presenting himself as the man who is best prepared to address the concerns of the prefectural party chapters.

Mr. Aso has already begun to take this tack. Asahi reports that at the press conference scheduled for this afternoon he will "stress the regions."

But even that may not be enough. I don't think the LDP is looking to Mr. Fukuda to win a general election, so even if Mr. Aso can convincingly present himself as someone who can appeal to voters around the country, it may not matter. He is a divisive figure at a time that the party elders are craving stability and unity.

The opposition might be looking for a snap election — the DPJ, SDPJ, and PNP have criticized the rush to support Mr. Fukuda as symbolic of the return of old-style LDP faction rule — but I think the LDP is just trying to get through the campaign and the Diet session in one piece. An interesting question is what Mr. Aso will do if and when he loses this campaign. Will he be resentful, and will he take it out on the LDP?

Mr. Aso and the Fukuda headwind

The official campaign period for the LDP presidential election begins today, and the situation is extremely fluid due to the entrance of Fukuda Yasuo into the race, which Mainichi describes as having attracted an instant majority of Diet members thanks to support of the Machimura faction (80 members total) and some members in the Koga (which totals 46 members), Tanigaki (15), and Yamasaki (39) factions. [NB: he doesn't have the total support of those factions, but I'm including the numbers to give their comparative weights.]

As AC wrote commenting on an earlier post, the fervent opposition to Mr. Aso that in the past served to present a significant obstacle to his succeeding Mr. Abe has coalesced, despite Mr. Aso's best efforts to make himself appear as the inevitable successor. Mr. Aso's machinations since the election, including his role in picking the new cabinet, firing Mr. Endo, and otherwise making it clear — as I argued before — that the second Abe cabinet was a de facto Aso-Yosano cabinet, appear to have backfired. (In retrospect, perhaps Mr. Aso was responsible for including Mr. Endo in the first place as a kind of time bomb — or is that too cynical?) He is being held responsible for the chaos that has beset the LDP, not to mention being judged as insensitive to the hospitalized Mr. Abe.

Mr. Fukuda, as the weightiest of the other LDP candidates to enter the race, naturally is benefiting from pent-up opposition to Mr. Aso; he has even gained the support of Koizumi Junichiro, who has swallowed his resentment for Mr. Fukuda, which stems from a long-standing personal grudge. Now that's a broad foundation for victory: Mr. Fukuda already has Mr. Mori pushing hard for him, and now Mr. Koizumi says he "stands in the vanguard" in supporting his candidacy. Apparently Mr. Fukuda's candidacy has even led Mr. Tanigaki to reconsider his candidacy.

Sankei warns, however, that "there is deep-seated support for Mr. Aso among members in various factions, and he intends to work across factions to build a majority."

Also in Mr. Aso's favor is that twelve prefectural chapters have already pledged their support to him (Ed. - ...And received an official Aso Taro tote bag full of his favorite manga), including his home prefecture of Fukuoka, leaving thirty-five prefectural chapters yet to decide, at least six of which will be holding an election among party members to decide the chapter's vote. A survey of the prefectural chapters that asked about what issue they most want the new party president to tackle provides some clue to how they might vote. Given one choice, twenty-six chapters said that the "regional disparity" problem is the number issue they want the government to tackle, while Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures indicated that "foreign and security policy" ranks highest for them. Will the restive regions bow to the judgment of party central, or will they act independently on the basis of which candidate addresses their concerns?

Given that intraparty turmoil is the major consequence of the LDP's July defeat, I suspect it may be the latter; Fukuda hasn't sewed up the premiership yet. He remains the safe choice, a reassuring presence who seems to be the man who can bring calm to intra- and inter-party relations and relations with the US that were roiled as Mr. Abe came crashing down. But would a Fukuda premiership do anything more than paper over the wounds that have been painfully exposed over the past year?

I think that there are centrifugal forces at work on the LDP that neither Mr. Aso nor Mr. Fukuda will be able to overcome. I think Mr. Aso, however, is that kind of man who will try to leave his stamp on the party one way or the other, leaving others to take it or leave it. Mr. Fukuda, meanwhile, would probably mean a return to the mythical LDP past: "competent" rule and the guiding hand of the factions, until the next series of scandals that finally snaps the public's trust. Mr. Fukuda is, in short, is little more than a temporary solution to the party's problems.

Maybe the only way to read this situation is Amaki Naoto's: "The LDP is finished."

Who's in control here?

Prime Minister Abe has been bizarrely hospitalized, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yosano admits that Mr. Abe did not name someone to serve as the acting prime minister in his absence.

I guess Aso Taro is too busy getting ready to win the job legally to do his best imitation of Alexander Haig.

Mr. Aso, while still probably the front runner, will have to work harder to win the position than it appeared twenty-four hours ago. Fukuda Yasuo, member of the Machimura faction, has decided to throw his hat into the ring, and with the LDP pushing back the voting date until Sept. 23th, Mr. Fukuda now has more time to round up support among the prefectural chapters while consolidating his position in the parliamentary party. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that pushing the date back benefits Mr. Fukuda at Mr. Aso's expense.

The question I have is whether Mr. Fukuda can count on the Machimura faction completely, or whether there might be room for dissension. Mr. Mori, of course, backs Mr. Fukuda completely, and is undoubtedly thrilled at the prospect of having someone who might actually listen to him at the Kantei. Mr. Machimura, however, appeared hesitant to commit too quickly, stating that he wants to listen to the opinions of the members of his faction before making a decision.

I also think that it is important not to overlook the prefectural chapters, which are already in turmoil following the Upper House election. The costs of avoiding their input could be steep, and I suspect that the way the wind blows from the regions will influence the jockeying in Tokyo. Whether the wind will blow in favor of Mr. Fukuda remains to be seen.

In the midst of all this, the Koizumi Children have shown why they are a non-entity in the party. Short of Mr. Koizumi's returning to the fore, they seem to have no ideas and no standard bearers — and thus no chance of influencing the direction of the LDP, especially now that Mr. Koizumi has totally nixed their efforts to draft him. Between Mr. Fukuda and Mr. Aso, they have no one to back. (Perhaps Mr. Koizumi is sitting back watching his plans to destroy the LDP come to fruition.)

The man to beat

From Kishi scion to Yoshida scion: with less than a week until the LDP presidential election, it seems hard to conceive at this point how anyone will be able to stop Aso Taro, professed manga lover and friend of otaku (oh, and longtime foreign minister and current LDP secretary-general).

With Mr. Koizumi declaring that he will not cave to the "Draft Koizumi" movement that his "children" (including Koike Yuriko) have formed, Mr. Aso is the only henjin in sight, and after the bland pleasantries of Abe "beautiful country" Shinzo, a henjin just might be what the party is looking for. Sure, he has a history of inappropriate remarks — documented here — but it's all part of his henjin charm.

With less than a week, he seems well placed to rally factions to his side and stifle a dark-horse candidacy before it emerges. He probably has nothing to worry about from prospective challengers at this point, including Tanigaki Sadakazu, who has been campaigning since day he lost the last LDP president election, and Fukuda Yasuo, the longest-serving chief cabinet secretary ever. It is still unclear whether Mr. Fukuda actually wants to run, and Mr. Tanigaki, now described as being in the LDP's "anti-mainstream," has little or no chance of garnering the kind of support needed to overcome Mr. Aso, who is likely to receive the support of the Machimura faction (the LDP's largest, and Mr. Abe's own).

In the midst of all the maneuvering in Tokyo, it might be the LDP's beleaguered prefectural chapters that call the shots, seeing as how they absorbed July's blow as much as the national party. According to Asahi, they have reacted to Mr. Abe's resignation with "surprise and anger," and in the aftermath of the resignation, fifteen prefectural chapters from across the country have apparently begun considering throwing their support to Mr. Aso, just shy of a third of the total forty-seven.

With one day before campaigning officially begins, it may be Mr. Aso's race to lose. Not that he'll be winning a desirable prize. While stepping into the shoes of a prime minister who will leave office with a 74% unfavorable rating means that there is more or less nowhere to go but up, Mr. Aso will have to rebuild the LDP from the regions up, while fending off the DPJ in Tokyo.

(Wall Street Journal subscribers can read me arguing about the Ab