politics

Calls already coming in for fast action after DPJ sweeps LDP out of power

26 Comments

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

26 Comments
Login to comment

I give Hatoyama less then one year. He promised populist things he knows he can't fulfill, and trying to fund those promises will just crumple the economy. Let's just hope I'm wrong

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Hurry up and fix the economy! You've been in power 8 hours already!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This change in government is all well and good but the bureaucrats run everything here. I predict little change.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I hope this cabinet will be out as least as quickly as the coalition in 93. Bunch of expensive promises to the population while your deficit is 196% of the GDP is not going to fix the country.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It's a victory for democracy at least. The people have spoken. Now they will have to live with the consequences.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It is just a start of real democracy in Japan. Power should be changed sometime to avoid corruptions and inability.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Good luck getting anything done quickly. If at all.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The LDP implosion looks so much like the downfall of John Major's Tory party in the UK.

Scandals, plummeting rating....the only real difference was that Japan's LDP had 50 more years to wreck the country.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

If they are successful in cutting government waste, stopping the contracts for my buddies schemes and then offer job training to the unemployed, things may work out. But as in all Government, there are puppet masters behind the scenes, so who knows. I wish them luck, and hope they are successful, for my Childrens sake!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Part of the problem, as mentioned before, is the bureaucrats. The problem is called the iron triangle, the bureucrats who want to keep their jobs, the people who are served and want the service and the politicians who put the bureaucrats in power.

Each is dependent on the other and perpetuate the whole system.

Nothing will change except more taxes and more deficits. Oh, and maybe some more papers to fill out.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

seems like more big government around the corner... :(

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What Japan eeds is a real good long look in the mirror. The country is falling to pieces on a deficit that it cannot mamage and run. There will inevitably be a long sustained period of pain, where it needs to shrink back the economy and waste. It will may mean a period of high unemployment as people need to be retrained to create new skills. Are the public prepared to accept that? The bureacrats known as the civil service that will have to execute such a plan...whoever thinks that they will execute the plan that will cut them off has to be smoking somthing that makes eveything that foreigners are supposedly distributing look mild!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I give Hatoyama less then one year. He promised populist things he knows he can't fulfill, and trying to fund those promises will just crumple the economy. Let's just hope I'm wrong

Sounds another recently elected world leader that promised sweeping change, only to later realize it would only come at record deficit spending and record debt levels.

You can only live off deficit spending for so long.

Anyhow, good luck PM.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

old wine in a new bottle

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Here comes the new boss ... same as the old boss?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It was a good election though, very hard for some candidates and over rather quickly for others. Best election the Japanese have ever had.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

First real election Japan ever had, kind of. Can't hope for change if you try to cut the new-comers down without giving them a chance. I really wish them the best and hope they can fulfill what they promise. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of thier efforts. After all, it couldn't have got much worse, a different approach is what is needed.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The DPJ will indeed need to move fast. The House of Councillors election is coming up next year, and if the voters don't feel some positive changes by then the LDP could make a recovery and regain the majority they lost in 2007. Then Japan would be stuck with the same divided Diet mess it's been in for the past two years.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What says it all is that the most persuasive argument that the LDP could make against the DPJ was a lack of experience...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Not sure how Hatoyama & co. will do and can only hope the best, but one thing I CAN say about the election is that it keeps people's name kanji up to speed. My wife voted yesterday and was kinda ticked off after she got home because for the party choice she ended up writing a nobody name... one character from the main party in her mind, and the other character from the different party of a candidate in her mind. So she ended up writing a name that sounded sort of like both parties, but neither in the end exactly. A voided vote, in other words. She didn't realize her mistake until right after dropping the paper into the box. I'm sure she wasn't the only one making this kind of error.

Being able to simply circle or otherwise choose from a list of parties and candidates would have been a lot easier (though would be terribly expensive each election for the local and other govts). On the other hand, being forced, even in little ways like this, might help keep the mind young. Who knows?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Good point escape artist! My wife is Japanese too, and many of my Japanese friends are complaining about the same thing. This can also be made easier as in Brazil, yes Brazil, where they have done away with any kind of paper ballots. The entire country has gone to the computer age, you just touch the name of the person, party you want to vote for, bingo! No writing, no making silly mistakes, of course they have a correct and cancel, just in case you change your mind.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

“The results are very severe,” Aso said. “There has been a deep dissatisfaction with our party.”

Talk about not getting it! Taro-sama, it is not necessarily the party that the Japanese people detest; it is you! Just in case it still hasn't sunk in, you lost because of your arrogance, blindness, stupidity and complete lack of humanity.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

viking, part of the problem is the bureaucracy, but the main problem are the politicians. The DPJ's plan to increase spending by 17 trillion yen is an example of this. It's not properly funded.

Until Japanese politicians balance the budget (as Fukuda was trying to do but sadly didn't have the chance long-term to do so) problems won't go away.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Talk about not getting it! Taro-sama, it is not necessarily the party that the Japanese people detest; it is you! Just in case it still hasn't sunk in, you lost because of your arrogance, blindness, stupidity and complete lack of humanity.

Well, Aso was quite popular until he became Prime Minister and then he suffered the same monumental drop in support as Abe and Fukuda. Obviously he did himself no favours at all, but I think a lot of people were just as sick of the LDP as they were of him, as some comments from LDP leaders themselves indicate:

"It wasn't whether Aso was good or not (as prime minister), it was a matter of the LDP itself. Voters' disappointment at the LDP-led politics triggered (the party's defeat), and that's it." (Former Agriculture Minister Shigeru Ishiba)

I agree with this reflection, personally. After all, it was the LDP Diet members who picked Aso for the job.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Congratulations to the Japanese people for joining the rest of the Free World at last and changing it government! I am completely elated at the demise of Soka Gakkai Alliance of scoundrels frpm political power at last. They vertainly got the comuppance they so richly deserved. Now lets get behind the new government and support them in their efforts to change japan for the better. I hope they start with a Bill of Human Rights, and make discrimination punishable by imprisonment and heavy fines. RThey would rake in plenty of dosh that way.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

All of those who are against massive deficit spending: Do you have an alternative that doesn't imply radical reduction of people's living standard?

For those of you suggesting that unemployed should be retrained: retrained for what? There are not enough new jobs to soak up the unemployment, without government creating new ones.

Without deficit spending, the economy would collapse, as the purchasing power of the consumer class is not enough to buy the production of the factories. Still, deficit spending is not a long-term solution, as eventually it will lead to hyperinflation, when foreign countries are no longer interested in buying the debt.

Money, mankind's oldest and most revered tool, have reached its limit. It's time to try something new.

realist: The LDP, for better or worse, have kept Japan rather free actually, at least up until 1999 and the terrorism hysteria. I hope the DPJ will continue with these liberal policies. Otherwise we will get moralist hell as in Sweden.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites