Looks like we’ll have Shinzo Abe to kick around again:
Japan’s main conservative party is on course for a resounding victory in Sunday’s election, with exit polls indicating it could take control of two-thirds of the lower house, consigning the centre-left government to a crushing defeat.
The Liberal Democratic party (LDP), ousted from office just three years ago, has staged a dramatic comeback under its leader, Shinzo Abe, who as head of the largest party is assured of becoming prime minister.
Exit polls showed the LDP would win 296 seats in the 480-seat lower house, while its longtime ally, New Komeito, was on course to win 32 seats. Combined, the tally would give the parties the “super-majority” they need to take total control of both houses of parliament and end years of policy deadlock and instability
The news gets better—Shintaro “The Ish” Ishihara’s Japan Restoration Party looks like Japan’s third biggest party.
I hope the LDP sends a fruit basket to Beijing for services rendered. I wonder how this will impact this week’s presidential election in Korea, too.
Anyway, I look forward to reading the analysis at Mutant Frog.
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I don’t think Beijing helped much in LDP’s coming back. The ruling Democratic Party of Japan simply shot itself in the foot.
BTW, I was away quite a while and am not familiar with Disque. Mickster2 is the same as old mickster, though I could not register with mickster since it was already taken.
I guess Abe’s halkish stance is probably a boon to Park than Moon. What do fellow Koreans think?
“I hope the LDP sends a fruit basket to Beijing for services rendered.” And one to Seoul, because LMB surely helped, too
good post
Let the Great NE Asian Arms Race begin!
Oh, I misspelled again…
We are potentially looking at four fascist-style leaders in NE Asia — Abe, Park, Putin and Xi. Lovely.
In retrospect, I think that’s probably a fair observation.
Yeah, things might get interesting.
The great thing about Disqus is that it allows you to edit your comments. Just letting you know.
Did you just drop an F (fascist) bomb?
I feel that it is an underused term to describe deserving parties. (And simultaneously overused to describe undeserving parties.)
the game of chicken…then WW3
Park Geun-hye is a fascist? As opposed to Moon Jae-in, the guy who wants to hand the entire country over to the North Koreans?
Not that I’m a huge PGH fanboy, but she doesn’t exactly strike me a Mussolini material, either.
See what you did, TK?
Both are very weak candidates.
If you’re not responsible for the knuckleheads who post here, neither am I…
Strike Park (daughter not father) and Abe and add Kim Jung-un and then this list is at least arguable.
Will accept the friendly amendment to add Kim Jeong-eun as a fascist leader in NE Asia. Reject the amendment regarding Park and Abe.
The only guy coming close to being of a Fascist mind is Moon of the ugly ambition, even before the election.
He might have singlehandedly destroyed the chance to bring South Korea one step away from the extreme bipartisan mire it’s steeped in, and even be responsible for crowning the dictator’s daughter himself.
Disgusting.
Nobody I know who was rooting for Ahn is going to vote for him. WE ALL KNEW IT.
Ugh, wtf Japan? I got a little taste of this guy’s economic policy and it’s just a standard Keynesian approach by priming the pump into more construction projects, just like Japan tried to do in the 90′s! Just what Japan needs. More bridges to nowhere!
Good point.
Good for Lockheed and Boeing.
Japan is broken and being sucked down into the vortex of deflation, which is much worse than inflation. Something’s gotta be done. As Uncle Miltie (Friedman, that is) said and I saw happen in the U.S. in 2009, “we’re all Keynesians now.”
I don’t mind Keynesian economic policy as long as it is intelligently done in longer timer projects that will create real and lasting aggregate demand.
Perhaps this will change your mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDt9CB92K1k
Thanks for the effort.
I already started to go off Prof. Cho a bit, when he tried to lighten his own share of the blame-to-come here after the ship’d sailed.
Anyway I knew (and predicted on the blog) that somehow being a Seoul National academic of around the same age would make him not appreciative of Ahn (this town not big enough for the two of us kind of reasoning).
Cho’s speech is very ideological, and he paints Moon also as a man who deserves respect from his life laden with heavy political ideology and struggle.
The thing is Moon failed heavily by not putting his money where his mouth is when he could have “really” made a difference by playing second fiddle to Ahn’s sure victory. He absolutely jeopardized the chance to take the government from Saenuri/Park by not relenting. People judge by action, less by support.
If you mean “fascist!” the way we in my high school in the late 1970s used to call Asst Principal Hughes when he cracked down on long hair, then you can throw the word around as freely as you like. But under any reasonable definition of the term, Kim Jong Un absolutely qualifies and Putin and Xi arguably do. But not this generation of the PGH or Abe families.
a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
Moon seems to have learned little of practical value about dealing with North Korea — if his reported pledge to turn back on the unconditional aid spigots are accurate — but that’s not fascism. The pro-North lady who just quit the presidential race displayed many of the ingredients of fascism.
My Italian friends once said there were these young pro-Berlusconi kids in the streets of Italy protesting/shouting “Fascists” to anti-Berlusconi faction. They said they wanted to ask the meaning.
I’m afraid it’s become an urban dictionary definition exactly framed by the example involving assistant principal Hughes.
Japan is getting closer and closer to Banana Republic status, the yen is the short of the decade (against a basket of Asian currencies)
Yuna most of Italian youth political vagaries can be explained in terms of what brands of jackets are popular at the moment and how many days of school can be safely skipped by barking at the moon like dumbasses in some cobbled street
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