The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) seems set for a landslide victory: Exit polls
The DPJ appears to have won 300 seats in Japan’s 480-seat Diet (lower house,) pulling the curtain on the Liberal Democratic Party [political “mafia
Mr Yukio Hatoyama. Will he last more than 8 months as PM of Japan? (Photo: AFP, may be subject to copyright).
“The opposition Democratic Party of Japan appears to have trounced Prime Minister Taro Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party in Sunday’s lower house election, knocking it out of power for only the second time in the LDP’s 54-year history.” Nikkei said.
DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama is about to become prime minister of only the second ever non-LDP government (first since 1993) during the almost unbroken 55-year LDP record.
But what could he possibly change?
Hatoyama, or better still Hatoy-ob-ama, will probably stir the same level of change in Japan’s political scene as did Obama in the US: A Big, Fat Zero!
The DPJ has promised to ”shift the focus of government from supporting corporations to helping consumers and workers.” BBC said.
But how could that happen, especially at a time when the corporations need all the support they can get. The survival of Japan economy seems to be directly proportional to the number of cars sold overseas. Japan is suffering record unemployment and its economy will probably never fully recover from recession.
Who is this Hatoyama, any way? How will he be different from his predecessors?
Here’s how different the two are from one another, according to a BBC report:
Both he and Prime Minister Taro Aso come from the political and industrial elite.
Both had a prime minister for a grandfather.
Mr Hatoyama’s family founded tyre giant Bridgestone, Mr Aso’s owned a leading mining company.
Both men graduated from an elite university and spent time studying in the US, before joining the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
But there their paths diverged. While Mr Aso climbed the LDP ranks, Mr Hatoyama left to form a new party.
What was it a political commentator once said about the differences between the Republicans and Democrats in the US?
He compared them to the Gambinos and Genovese crime families, who shared the same common interests, despite shooting at each other, once in a while.
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