世論 What Japan Thinks

Well, we’ve had the ultimate test of public opinion (more analysis of the numbers later) and Koizumi led the LDP and New Komeito alliance to win over two-thirds of the seats in the new lower house, knocking out half of the people kicked out of the party for opposing the Post Office privatisation, the very issue that brought on the election in the first place.

The Japan-based foreigner (and ex-foreigner!) communities are buzzing right now, much of it filled with humbug about how could the Japanese be so stupid as to vote for the LDP, with the implied “…but we, of course, know better”. I’m looking right now for exit polls on why people chose to vote, but the implications that people have of it being a single-issue (PO privatisation) election does not mesh with previous polls which indicated that voters were getting less interested in the PO issues.

According to the exit polls, the 20.2% who described themselves as unaffiliated voters voted by a small majority (42% versus 35% averaged over the two votes) for the main DPJ opposition party but with the high numbers of affiliated voters, this was not enough to alter the results.

Koizumi’s main slogan was “Don’t stop the reforms!” We’ll see how he sticks to these through the life of the parliament. However, he is, according to LDP rules, going to reach the end of his term as leader next year, and will not be eligible to stand again, so will his reforms live on with a new leader?