Japan held parliamentary elections yesterday, and the results have been interesting. According to Asahi newspaper, the main Liberal Democratic Party (自民党, jimintō) lost big time for the first time in over 50 years to its rival the Japan Democratic Party (民主党, minshutō).
Normally I don’t talk about politics here much, but let me give you an idea as to its significance in my opinion:
- The obvious big change is the fact that the LDP party lost it’s dominance for the first time in 50 or more years. In truth, they lost briefly in the 1990s to the JDP for less than a year under prime minister Murayama,1 but this time around the loss is more decisive. For us Americans, imagine one party dominating the Presidency and Congress since the 1950′s.
- To me a more significant change is stated here:
Amid growing criticism over the practice, only 75 of the 133 “hereditary candidates” from both the LDP and the DPJ won seats.
Japanese politics, like some other countries, is often dominated by political families who win generation after generation. So, it’s nice to see this practice become increasingly unpopular with merit being more important than heritage.
- The increase in fresh new candidates, especially women, shows that the political landscape is diversifying too.
While I may sound optimistic, I do hope this brings some much needed change to Japanese politics. Experts feel that the JDP will probably not be able to affect much because key bureaucracies are not sympathetic, but I still hope this will shake things up. 
Good luck to Japan after the election!
P.S. I asked my wife about it, and she wasn’t overly concerned. She’s watching daily TV feeds about Noriko Sakai and the ongoing drama there.
1 This was also the first time Japan made a real effort at apologizing for the war atrocities they committed, but Murayama’s leadership was not effective, and opposition watered the apology down quite a bit.
Hello, this blog is about my life as a father, Buddhist and Japanophile / Koreaphile. Any useful information I can pass along will hopefully make the 
We will see if they can last longer then they did in 1990. I hope they can turn around some of the really serious Japan faces in regards to their economy, the low birth rate and taking care of the aging society.
Heh heh heh, yeah I was thinking the same thing. :-p
Yeah, this is pretty big news. I hope they can get around the ailing economy. It seems at least some people was pretty much robbed of their pensions etc.
The PM’s wife is a rather colourful character! That will make for distracting press coverage.
It’ll be interesting to see how they engage with China. Hopefully there will no longer be the Yasukuni nonsense.
American relations will be interesting as well. Could they really renegotiate the force reduction treaty? (I never understood why paying billions to move US marines to Guam was a good deal.)
What I’d love to see is a revision of the nationality laws to allow for dual citizenship. Always a problem in international marriages, both for spouses and their children. As most of these people can’t vote it’s unlikely that anything will change…
Hi guys,
Yeah, I have to admit I am both hopefully and skeptical. My wife’s in-laws in Japan seem to be the same way. As for the PM’s wife, yeah, I don’t know whether to laugh, shake my head, or welcome a couple who’s not stodgy and dull like most Japanese politicians. :-p