The Snooze Police

The Visitors' Box in the House of Representatives is a strange place. Merely entering the section reserved for observers, high above the main house, has a bizarre soporific effect. Diplomats karalled-off on the far right seem engaged, Japanese assistants slithering a stream of translation into their ears. The press box below is always alive; reporters and paparazzi rush around snapping and flashing their cameras with frenetic activity. Yet, the Visitors' Box is asleep. A group of aged trade union officials snore gently to one side; and a ladies'-day-out in the corner let the words of honorific Japanese float them off to sleep. And amidst it all are the Sleep-Nazis - a special detachment of police - who mercilessly shake visitor after visitor from their dreams. They love it.

However, the real question is not why these people fall asleep, but why the main floor of the House of Representatives is so tediously dull. In the House, 'debate' seems to be a distinctly foreign word.

Every day I try to tune into a programme by BBC Radio 4, called Today in Parliament, which can be listened to for free on the Internet. Broadcast on weekday evenings, it briefly runs through the day's debates in the British Houses of Parliament, taking especial pleasure in covering the numerous vicious debates that crop-up on a daily basis. The Government directly faces the Opposition across the floor of the House of Commons, and there is often genuine hate as Labour attacks the Conservatives, or a Scottish Nationalist Party MP insults the Prime Minister. It is exciting, theatrical and adversarial; a far cry from the parliamentary proceedings of the Japanese Diet.

Japan may have a parliamentary-style democracy, but it is a long way from the British adversarial model. Take, for example, the recent daihyo shitsumon - Leaders' Questions - put to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo by the top-dogs in the opposition at the end of January. Until the Government Minister for Health Welfare and Labour put his foot in it and declared women were "baby-making machines" ("kodomo o umu kikai"), events took their normal course: it was monologue after unrelated monologue. The two solidly left-wing parties, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) are the only parties that attempt to make their speeches clear, to the point and assertive. The questions put by Kiyomi Tsujimoto on behalf of the SDP directly attacked the Government and communicated with her audience. They were not merely scripted and read in a monotone. Why, I often ask myself, do the more legitimate mainstream parties not go for a bit more charisma?

"The Japanese do not like confrontation." Always comes the reply. It is true that the vast majority of Japanese Prime Ministers have had fairly faceless tenures at the top. Most Western students who first come to the subject of Japanese politics struggle to name more than a handful. However, to argue that Japanese politics has been confrontation-free is frankly wrong. Think back to the massive clashes over the Anpo treaty in 1960, or later on, the marches against the construction of Narita Airport in Tokyo. And a contemporary example of showmanship, charisma and conflict in politics? Koizumi Junichiro. Confrontation won him an election.

Let's have more Lionhearts in the chamber.

R J F Villar

Motohisa Furukawa and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)

I am currently working on the staff of young, up-and-coming Dietmember, Motohisa Furukawa (see picture left). Mr. Furukawa holds the support of well over 50% of the population of his Aichi Prefecture constituency, a rare feat in an electoral district which works on the First Past the Post (FPTP) system. In the coming months I will be highlighting some of the most interesting aspects of Japanese politics on both national and local levels, based around Mr. Furukawa's offices in Aichi and Tokyo.

Motohisa Furukawa's party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), is Japan’s second largest party and main opposition party. It is generally viewed as social liberal in orientation. Formed on April 27th 1998, the DPJ grew from a merger of four small anti-LDP parties to become a major player in Japanese politics, gaining significant support in the 2000 and 2001 Diet elections. In 2001 the DPJ supported Japan’s first foreign-born Dietmember, Marutei Tsurunen (originally Martti Turunen of Finland).

In 2003 the DPJ merged with the small, centre-right Liberal Party led by Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the DPJ from April 2006 following the resignation of Seiji Maehara. In the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party of Japan sits with the Independents’ Club (Mushozoku kurabu), a group of democrats with a largely liberal centrist agenda. In the House of Councillors, the DPJ sits with a group known as ‘New Breeze’ (Shin-Ryokufukai).

R J F Villar

Welcome to 'politics on the other side'

Japanese politics and the amorphous Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are largely synonymous: When you think of one, you think of the other. A passing nod is given to opposition parties, but no-one really expects there to be a long-term change of Government. For all but a brief slip in the 1990s, the LDP have reigned supreme for the lifetime of the average student of Japanese politics, and, the argument usually goes, they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

However, to focus on the party-in-power is to miss the excitement, potential and future of Japanese politics. While LDP scandal and backhanders may be the same old story of vested-interests politics, in the background the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is working hard and picking up momentum. While Prime Minister Abe Shinzo flails around searching for headline-grabbing big-picture policies to build what he has touted as his ideal "Beautiful Country" ("utsukushii kuni"), Ozawa Ichiro is focusing the DPJ on working for the needs of the Japanese people.

In the run-up to the Upper House elections this summer, support for the LDP is rapidly declining, and the DPJ is going from strength to strength. Never has there been such a solid credible opposition to the LDP. Over the next few months, I will be recording the rise of the DPJ, testing the political waters in the March local elections and commenting on opposition politics in Japan.

These are my views, based on my observations of elections and the day-today strategies of the Democratic Party of Japan. They are not the official views of any party or politician.

R J F Villar