LDP leader election: back together again...?

Time for renovation : A picture of the 3 LDP candidates taken

at FCCJ on Friday 25th. LDP leadership election will be only the

second presidential election to be held while the party is

out of power, following the 1993 leadership race, in which

Kono's father, former lower house Speaker Yohei Kono, was

chosen. I emceed this FCCJ event with the 3 top LDP, impressed

by the strong attention from the party elders like Takeshi Noda,

13 times re-elected and 1 of the top chiefs of the election

campaign.

Emceeing the event with a 130 passionate audience I felt that

the LDP kept a lot of supporters, and again came to my mind

the idea that LDP lost the last election not because of its

inner factions conflicting views but because it kept too long

time the control over the country's policy making with an

delusive inner vision while ignoring the political reality

that the world was changing and moving on. In this regard, a

page was turned August 30. More inter action between present

Japan, its neighbor and world challenges is required now.

Regarding the agenda and "the forces in presence":

The Liberal Democratic Party will choose its new party leader

on Monday to revitalize itself in the wake of its severe

defeat in the August 30th election. 3 candidates : the

former Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, 64, and two

younger LDP members, former Senior Vice Justice Minister Taro

Kono and former Parliamentary Vice Foreign Minister Yasutoshi

Nishimura, both 46 years old.

Tanigaki, a party heavyweight whose past portfolio includes

minister of finance and chairman of the LDP Policy Research

Council, is ahead in the race and likely to capture about

half of the 199 ballots allotted to party Diet members

,according to LDP quoted by the Kyodo agency : "I’ve been

surprised by how many people say they want to see the LDP

back in the sumo ring grappling with the DPJ," Tanigaki told

at FCCJ conference.

Tanigaki, a distinguished and mild-mannered policy expert,

appears to be increasing his support among local party

members and maintains an overall lead, Kono, quoted as being

a maverick and fiery critic of the LDP old guard and their

faction-based politics, appears to be gaining more favors

with party members as a new generation type, outspoken,

clear, with a message and a reflection of why LDP got lost at

last month election. Nishimura appears to be rivaling Kono

with regard to Diet members' votes but lags behind the other

two among local party members due partly to his low name

recognition.

Kono and Nishimura tried to paint the race as a choice

between the younger and older generations, calling for a

clean break with faction-based politics, which has defined

the LDP for decades. Tanigaki, in contrast, calls for LDOP

fiefdom and generation's gap conflicts reconciliation and

unity within a party often prone to internal strife, calling

on all party members, both young and old, to come together to

forge a path toward a new LDP party.

Whoever wins the leadership race, the LDP faces the task of

reviving a party that has lost almost two-thirds of its

members in the 480-seat House of Representatives. The

crucial test for the new LDP leader will be the House of

Councillors election next summer 2010.

In the 242-seat upper house, the DPJ retains a majority with

the help of its two junior coalition partners -- the Social

Democratic Party and the People's New Party. If the LDP can

increase its presence in the chamber as the largest

opposition party and force the DPJ-led ruling coalition to

lose its majority there, it will be able to block or delay

the coalition's legislative attempts.

The immediate test for the new leadership will come Oct. 25,

when by- elections for the upper house are to be held in two

constituencies, in Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures.

One comment on LDP with Tobias Harris, an american specialist

of Japan politics who worked for a DPJ member of the upper

house of the Diet 2006-2007.

http://tinyurl.com/yetpphh

"One factor that I find worth exploring is the role played by

the LDP's virtual abandonment of bread-and-butter issues —

pensions especially — to the DPJ. The 2007 upper house

election and the 2009 general election were contested over

issues on which the DPJ's positions were overwhelmingly

favored by the voting public, insofar as the elections can be

said to have been concerned with policy. While voters may

have had their doubts about various DPJ proposals, the DPJ

managed to tell a convincing story of how LDP rule had

faltered and why "regime change" was necessary. Central to

this story is the LDP's yielding livelihood issues in the

years since the end of the bubble economy. In short, the LDP

did not have to lose, at least in the manner in which it lost

this year. A critical factor in explaining the LDP's

collapse is, I believe, a shift in how the LDP presented

itself to the public. Despite having been the party that

presided over the economic miracle and guided Japan — with

the bureaucracy, of course — to a position of global economic

prowess while maintaining social equality, by 2007 the LDP

had abandoned this legacy."

(end of comments, reports and ap, kyodo, harris news)