JAPANESE PRIME minister Taro Aso dissolved Japan’s parliament yesterday, effectively signalling the start of campaigning for the nation’s most closely watched election in decades.
With Japan’s economy in deep recession and the government helmed by one of its most unpopular postwar leaders, most observers expect the ruling Liberal Democrats (LDP) to suffer a historic defeat on August 30th.
The dissolution of the lower house follows days of bitter LDP infighting as the prime minister’s colleagues sought revenge for a crushing loss in Tokyo local elections last week.
A last-ditch attempt to remove Mr Aso (68) from office failed, leaving behind a damaging image among the electorate of a party that appears to be disintegrating.
Mr Aso came out fighting last night, promising a government “revolution”, including a drastic reduction of bureaucratic waste and a huge boost in social security spending – while also apologising for his poor leadership skills.
“My lack of leadership has invited a loss of faith in the party,” he said, referring to 10 months of damaging verbal misfires and scandals that have brought the LDP to its lowest ebb since the mid-1950s.
Barring a major upset, the LDP-led coalition government is almost certain to lose power. Opinion polls this week put the opposition Democrats (DPJ) 33 points ahead of the government.
The liberal Asahiclaims support for the LDP, which has ruled Japan almost continuously for half a century, is at a record low of 20 per cent. Mr Aso's predecessor, Shinzo Abe, lost control of the less powerful upper house to the Democrats last year.
Mr Aso last night blamed the economy for most of his troubles and pledged to stay at his post “until a firm recovery is in place,” which he predicted will take three years. “My highest priority is protecting the peoples’ livelihood.”
Observers say his pledges are an attempt to steal the Democrats’ thunder – they have also promised to tame Japan’s powerful bureaucracy and shift resources away from pork-barrel projects toward education and welfare.
But the prime minister attempted to put clear blue water between his government and the Democrats, who he said are peddling “pipe dreams” and could not be trusted to rule. “Not a single concrete policy has been laid out by the DPJ. They have only opposed what we have done.”
Mr Aso also played the defence card, saying Democrat attempts to form a looser military alliance with the US and oppose tougher anti-terrorist measures have “made North Korea happy”. LDP hawks have bitterly criticised Democrat opposition to a Bill last week that would have legalised inspections of North Korean cargo ships.
Rhetoric like that is unlikely to save the prime minister’s political career. A poll last week by the Mainichi newspaper found his personal support among the electorate at just 11 per cent, an all-time low.
The poll offered little comfort to DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama, however. Electoral support for him as future prime minister is running at over double Mr Aso’s, but a crushing 57 per cent of respondents said “neither was adequate”.