Today is Election Day for Japan to choose all 480 seats in the lower house of parliament. The opposition party, Minshutou (民主党) Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) are likely to take office against the incumbent party, Jimintou (自民党) Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Considering that the LDP have been in power for most of the last 50 years, this win will be a historic change for Japan. The leader of the DPJ, Hatoyama-san will almost certainly be named Prime Minister.
I went to Gyotoku Station in Chiba-ken to hear these speeches from the Minshuto local candidates and Kan Naoto, one of the popular senior members of the DPJ. My friend who is a local councilor in Chiba was asked to be the presenter of speeches at the event.
With a large amount of people expected to turn out for voting today and the anticipation of a historical change of power, you can expect to see some TV coverage on overseas networks talking about this topic.
The LDP candidates in Toyama were running on the slogan “We will make sure nothing changes. At all. Ever.” It was pretty horrifying.
That’s pretty funny. I guess they were practicing what to do as the Opposition Party, say the opposite of what the other guys are saying 🙂
RT @Shibuya246: Election, DPJ v LDP, Japan Living | Shibuya246 http://bt.io/9ps So are you ready for the change in power? I thought the present prime minister was popular, guess not. Just like over here. SOS. I thought I reconized your councilor friend from the article you did before. I don’t think I’v ever seen or heard those types of vehicles around here, there’s enough hot air blowin here in Texas without those contributing to it ,HA-HA. 🙂
One of the difficulties the LDP has faced recently is a quick rotation of PrimeMinisters. None of them were very popular, but having them change every 5 minutes gave people and uneasy feeling.
Mullenkedheim have you a picture of that slogan or was it ironic –sorry I’m not good at that–? 😉
I honestly don’t know if the DPJ, or the idea of make politicians stronger and weaken burocrats would be the solution to Japan’s problems, as I read in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/world/asia/26japan.html).
In my gaijin opinion I think what Japan’s system needs, no matter the ruler party, is a more independent Prime Minister, although not so much like a president in presidential system. Nowadays the government can be dissolved by the Diet if it passes a motion of no confidence, and the Cabinet can dissolve the House of Representatives; that creates a “no moving point” when any of the two branches proposal changes that will affect the status-quo.
It does seem like they could do with a slight change of that, and probably some points in the Constitution as well, but getting people to vote for change in those areas is always difficult. It shows you that when you get the chance to write a Constitution for a country you better get it right the first time.
I hope that you will they us who had won tomorrow
DPJ by a long way