Abe’s win at the polls
signals a democracy in disarray and a shift to a neo-nationalist agenda.
Shinzo Abe is back. Last month, the day after Japan slid into a
technical recession, the Prime Minister called snap elections to renew his
claim to rule. The bet could not have been safer. The timing gave opposition
parties only two weeks pull together a campaign, and with the Democratic Party
of Japan, thrown from power in 2012, polling only 11 percent, Abe had little to
worry about.
He billed
the vote as a plebiscite on Abenomics, his neoliberal cocktail of one part
fiscal stimulus, one part monetary easing, and one part structural reform. The
heady blend is supposed to jolt the Japanese economy – still the third largest
in the world – out of the coma it fell into in 1990. The result so far has been
good for classic export giants, which are again posting profits as the yen
falls against the dollar. The stock market, which tracks currency exchange
rates more than productivity, is up too. But as was the case with the program’s
American namesake, none of this is trickling down. Workers have seen their
paychecks shrink by 2.8 percent, while they pay 3 percent more in consumption
tax at the till. Continued labor market deregulation in the country once known
for “lifetime employment” has shifted nearly 40 percent of workers onto
limited-term contracts with poor provisions. The bigger picture is also
grim. GDP is 1.6 percent lower than it was a year ago, and Moody’s recently
downgraded Japan’s credit rating, placing greater pressure on the government to
tame its growing deficit. Still 25 years of stagnant growth have left many
voters ready to accept anything as long as it’s change. Abe laid out the
options for them in his ominous TINA campaign slogan: “There is no other way to
economic recovery.”
The
Liberal Democratic Party is hailing the victory as a landslide. With its
coalition partner, New Komeito, it controls more than the
two-thirds of seats in the House of Representatives. But trumpeting
the supermajority diverts attention from its shaky popularity. Abe’s party not
only fell short of its goal to secure 300 out of 480 positions in the lower
house, it actually lost three seats. Snap elections typically draw voters to
the polls, but this one saw them staying home in record numbers.
Compared to the last general elections, about ten million fewer people thought
their voice would make a difference, and the 52 percent turnout was the lowest
in Japan’s postwar history. The real winner of widespread dissatisfaction with
business as usual was the Japanese Communist Party – the only group to offer an
alternative platform with consistency – which nearly trebled its seats to 21.
Beyond
the JCP, however, the opposition is in disarray. The Democratic Party of Japan,
which controlled the government from 2009 to 2012, picked up a few seats, but
its total win of 72 fell far short of its goal to secure 100, and its own party
leader, Banri Kaieda, failed to win re-election. The result is a blow for those
who hoped that electoral reform would bring about a two-party system. Instead,
we see a return to the default predominance of the LDP in the absence of
alternatives. Even if the party has controlled the government for 55 years out
of the last 59, it’s not terribly well liked, and hasn’t claimed a simple majority
in the popular vote in over half a century.
But this
matters little in a system where seat bonuses are divvied out to the party that
secures the largest number of ballots. The result is a commanding position for
Abe. The LDP, with its coalition sidekick, holds the supermajority in the House
of Representatives needed to pass legislation over the heads of other parties.
The duo also holds a simple majority in the House of Councillors, which will
hamper the veto of legislation passed in the lower house. What will Abe do with this
great power and a renewed mandate? With the election results coming in, he
hinted at the program ahead in a press conference where he told the media that
it is his “ardent desire” to
revise the Constitution.
Like
Denmark, Japan has never amended its founding document, but current LDP
proposals call for a comprehensive overhaul
that would transform nearly all of its 103 Articles, beginning with the
Preamble. In place of its hymns to universal human rights and personal liberty
would come solemn declarations of Japan’s long history and unique culture. The
emperor, relegated to symbolic status following imperial defeat in 1945, would
be upgraded to the position of Head of State. Throughout the document, the
revisions would emphasize the importance of maintaining public order over
protecting individual rights, such as free speech. Eroding the position of the
individual yet further, the family would replace the person as the basic unit
of society. And, crucially, Article 9, which – read according to the letter –
rejects war as a sovereign right, would be rewritten to legalize a full-fledged
army. If the “Peace Article” has been reinterpreted over the years to allow a
National Police Reserve then a National Safety Force, and now a Self Defence
Force, it nonetheless occupies a hallowed position within the national
imaginary, and most Japanese will proudly declaim that their country is the
only one to have given up war. The transformation of Article 9 would mark the
end of an era.
Will Abe
succeed? At the moment, it’s hard to tell as the procedural hurdles for
amending the Constitution are high. The prime minister will need two-thirds
support in both the upper and lower houses to carry his agenda forward, and the
only issue on which his coalition partner doesn’t line up obediently with the
master is constitutional revision. Thus he is likely to begin by changing
Article 96, which specifies the conditions for altering the Constitution, to
require a simple majority in both houses, as well as in a popular referendum.
Once this hurdle is lowered, he can sprint ahead with other reforms. Of course,
none of this is a done deal. But even if Abe’s “ardent wish” to overhaul the
country’s founding charter is not fulfilled, he may proceed to implement his
neo-nationalist agenda with the alternative methods he has employed since he
entered office. Free speech can be circumscribed through other means, and on
December 10, his State Secrets Law took effect. This
anti-whistle blower act threatens journalists with five years in prison, and
their sources with ten, for reporting on a poorly defined range of issues
deemed critical to state security. Rewriting Article 9 to allow a national
defence force would only clarify what has already become practice. In July
Abe’s Cabinet Legislation Bureau decided that the Article’s wording – “the
Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the
treat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes” – doesn’t
actually mean quite what it says, and that the Self Defence Forces could indeed
use force if an international dispute involved Japan. Similar creative
problem-solving could be applied to implement other elements of his
neo-nationalist agenda. Whether by hook or crook it looks as though the red sun
is growing larger in Japan’s future.
Kristin
Surak is a Senior Lecturer in Japanese Politics at SOAS, University of London.
No comments:
Post a Comment