J Update

Tohoku Electric Power Company restarted operation of the reactor #2 of Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant on October 29 th . The plant suspended its operation after Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) in 2011, which caused severe accident in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. While the power company built a great wall to protect the plant from tsunami, it still has concern about possibility of another great earthquake and evacuation of people around the site in emergency. Resumption of a reactor in Onagawa plant marked thirteenth example of reactors in Japan after GEJE. One significance is that Onagawa is the first one in east Japan among those thirteen restarted reactors, inviting expectation for further stable power supply in the region. Another point is that the reactor #2 in Onagawa is the first boiled water reactor, which is the same type of reactor as in Fukushima Daiichi, to resume its operation.   The power company restarted the reactor by pulling control rod in the morning of ...

The Democratic Party for the People (DPP) appeared to play a key role in post-election politics in Japan. Receiving the result of general election of the House of Representatives, in which the leading coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito lost its majority, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba decided to discuss details about economic policies with DPP. Not willing to join the leading coalition, DPP would like to discuss their agenda with the LDP.   Some LDP leaders revealed reporters that they were willing to include DPP’s economic policies, which they had upheld as campaign platform, in the comprehensive economic policy package in mid-November. The LDP hopes the DPP to vote for supplemental budget, which will include the package, and hopefully for Ishiba in the election for nominating next prime minister.   The DPP increased its seats in the House in the general election, raising from 7 to 28. If LDP-Komeito coalition could add at least 18 seats of DPP to their bloc...

As a result of general election of the House of Representatives, the Liberal Democratic Party faces unprecedented situation of instability. While there are some examples of hung parliaments in the past, the LDP came through by including independent lawmakers or building a coalition. Now, the LDP lost its majority, and still is the biggest in the House. The party does not have any hope to secure majority. After establishment in 1955, the LDP has been keeping its majority in the House for two decades. When it lost its majority in 1976, 1979 and 1983, the LDP could maintain its administration by inviting some independent lawmakers to the party or by forming a coalition with small party. After building a coalition with Komeito in 1999, the LDP has been handling administration, except the period of leadership by Democratic Party of Japan.   The LDP-Komeito coalition now has 215 seats. It needs 18 more seats to reach a majority, which is 233. Among 12 independents, the LDP can expect hel...

Leading coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito lost its majority in general election of the House of Representatives voted on October 27. The coalition needs to add some lawmakers to the framework of cooperation over policies. However, the opposition parties are too fragmented to build a new coalition against the LDP and Komeito. Choice for new administration is open. The House has 465 seats, and the majority needs 233. Compared to the situation before the election, the LDP lost its 56 seats, from 247 to 191. Komeito lost 6 seats, from 32 to 24. The total seats of those two parties are 215, 18 seats short of majority.   The Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) gained 148 seats, adding 50 to the seats before the election. Democratic Party for the People (DPP) quadrupled its seats to 28, as Reiwa Shinsengumi tripled to 9. Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin-no Kai) reduced 6 seats, from 44 to 38. Japan Communist Party (JCP) reduced 2 seats, from 10 to 8.  ...

The 50 th   general election was voted at about 45 thousands of polling stations all over Japan on October 27 th . The turnout of voters for early voting were about 16 million, less than last general election in 2021. The biggest point of this election is whether the leading coalition by the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito can maintain their majority in the House. The leaders of parties fought to the last ditch, appealing their issues to the voters.   The LDP had to deal with its own slush fund scandal, made by some factions in the party, through the campaign. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, LDP president, reiterated his apology to the voters in his speech on the last day of election campaign on October 26 th . “The LDP will make a restart as a party of fairness, justice, modesty and honesty,” said Ishiba in his last speech in Koto city, Tokyo.   While it was supposed that LDP-Komeito coalition would keep their majority in the House at the beginning of the campaign, t...

Former top leader of a regional public prosecutors office was indicted with a charge of semi-forcible sexual intercourse on his subordinate female prosecutor. He   pleaded guilty   in his first hearing at the trial in Osaka District Court on October 25 th . He revealed that he told the woman not to tell about his sexual assault on her, indicating damage on their organization, and tried to tame her by offering treats of dinners until statute of limitations would be invoked. According to the indictment, a lawyer with Osaka Bar Association, former Chief of Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office, Kentaro Kitagawa, raped a woman subordinate to him in his room of official residence for the office members after a drink party for his promotion to the chief in the evening of September 12, 2018. She was intoxicated with alcohol and he ignored her plea to stop assaulting when she regained consciousness.   In the first hearing of the trial, Kitagawa admitted his assault on her, say...

Kanazawa Branch of Nagoya High Court   decided   on October 23 rd   to grant retrial to a man who had been convicted of seven years in prison and served for it in a case of murder of a mid-school student girl in 1986. The court realized possibility that investigation authority had led the witnesses to false testimony for supporting the story about the case. It may make another example of fabricating crimes in the process of law enforcement.   The girl was brutally subbed to death at her house in Fukui city in March 1986. The police arrested Shoji Maekawa through their investigation on the frequent inhalers of paint thinner in March 1987. Maekawa has been denying his commitment to the murder from the beginning of the investigation of police and public prosecutors.   While Fukui District Court sentenced innocent to Maekawa with lacking hard evidence of the murder by him in 1990, Kanazawa Branch of Nagoya High Court found guilty ordering seven years in prison in 19...

Shimbun Akahata, a daily newspaper of Japan Communist Party,   reported   that the Liberal Democratic Party had provided with political fund to some branches in electoral districts, which were represented by candidates who were excluded from LDP slate as penalty for being involved in the slush fund scandal. The candidates can spend the fund for their campaign, in spite of the fact that they do not have official endorsement from the LDP. While pretending to impose heavy penalty on the members in scandal, the LDP has been financially supporting them in backstage. The LDP has its local branch in each single-seat constituency all over Japan, which head is regularly the candidates in election of the House of Representatives. This branch is different from that in each prefecture. Under the leadership of new president, and Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, the party decided not to issue its official endorsement to twelve members just before the beginning of campaign. It was a demonstra...

Violent robberies in private houses have recently been occurring around Kanto area. The police arrested suspects of the cases, and it is common for those crimes that the suspects are part-time employees of hidden crime organizations. They were hired without detailed information about their “jobs” and commited the crime threatened by their bosses. The police promote investigation what kind of organization is in the background of consecutive robberies. A 75-year-old man was found dead in a house in Yokohama city, Kanagawa, on October 16 th . He was supposed to have been hit and his mouth was taped. The robbers stole 200 thousand yen of cash in the house. The police suppose that the man was killed by robbers.   The police  arrested  22-year-old man, who was living in Inzai city, Chiba. He revealed that the robbery was made by three people including him. Having missed paying several hundreds of thousand yen of tax money, the man was looking for a part-time job, and found one ...

Entering the last week of campaign for general election of the House of Representatives, estimation for the Liberal Democratic Party to achieve a victory is shrinking as voters show low expectation on measures to regulate political funds, or on economic policy of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. It became unpredictable whether the leading coalition of LDP and Komeito can maintain their administration with majority in the House.   Asahi Shimbun   reported  on October 21 st  that it would be unclear whether the coalition can reach 233 seats of the simple majority in the election. It predicted that the LDP would reduce its seats by 50 seats from 247 at the time of proclamation of the election on October 15 th , unable to maintain its stand-alone majority. It will be the first time, if any, for LDP to lose stand-alone majority since 2009, when the party gave its administration over to the Democratic Party of Japan.   The Constitutional Democratic Party is predicted to...

Violence against politics during election campaign occurred again. A man hurled Molotov cocktails to the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party and broke into the fence in front of the Official Residence of Prime Minister with his car in early morning of Saturday October 19 th . The case occurred during campaign for general election of the House of Representatives, reminding of assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Nara two years ago. Security status for politically important places can be questioned again.   According to  news reports,  a man arrived in front of LDP headquarters in Nagatacho in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, riding a small van, and got off the van and threw five Molotov cocktails into the site at 5:43 on Saturday morning. Nine minutes later, he drove his van to Prime Minister’s Official Residence, about 500 meters away from LDP headquarters, and crushed his van into the guard fence in front of entrance gate of the residence.   The man burnt...

The national reviw for judges of the Supreme Court will be held on October 27 th . It will be voted on the same polling place of general election of the House of Representatives. Six out of fifteen judges will face this referendum. Although there is no judge who was fired by this referendum in the past, the system represents uniqueness of Japan’s judicial system stipulated in   the Constitution of Japan . Article 6 of the Constitution states that the Chief Judge of Supreme Court is appointed by the Emperor as designated by the Cabinet, and other judges of the court are appointed by the Cabinet as Article 79 determines. The appointment of those judges is “reviewed by the people at the first general election of members of the House of Representatives following their appointment,” as Paragraph 2 of Article 79 says.   All the six judges subjected to the referendum this month were appointed in 2022 or later, after the last general election of the house in 2021. Three judges have be...

Polls indicate that the coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito is going to secure simple majority, 233 seats, in the general election of the House of Representatives on October 27 th . However, it is possible that the LDP will lose its majority by itself, caused by public criticisms on the candidates involved in the slush fund scandal. The administration led by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will be unable to achieve a momentum for strongly pushing its policies forward after the election. The  poll  conducted by  Yomiuri Shimbun  on October 15 th  and 16 th  predicted that the coalition would obtain more than 233 seats, but both the LDP and Komeito would reduce its seats from what they had at the proclamation of the election on October 15 th .   The LDP fielded 266 candidates in 289 single-seat constituencies. About 100 out of those 266 are leading other candidates of opposition parties, while 40 are left behind. About 120 candidates are ...

Economy is the top issue in the general election of House of Representatives this month. In a  poll  conducted by TV Asahi in early October, 63 percent, with two choices out of nine allowed, answered that economy would be the most important issue in their voting 、 leaving pension system with 44 percent or education with 37 percent behind. The parties compete how they would support households suffering from steep price hike of goods and services which are indispensable for their life. In his first campaign speech in Iwaki city, Fukushima, on October 15, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba revealed his plan to submit supplementary budget to the Diet this fall, which total amount would exceed 13 trillion yen of the one last fall. It will be spent for allowances to the low-income families, support for agriculture or fisheries, and subsidy for chip industries. Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party, Hiroshi Moriyama, stressed that his party would focus on building infrastructu...

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba upheld his personal policies in the presidential election of the Liberal Democratic Party in September. While the LDP included one of them, revision of Japan-U.S. State of Forces Agreement, in the campaign policies in the campaign policies, as saying “We seek Japan-U.S. SOFA as it should be,” it dropped creating Asian version of NATO that received skepticism from U.S. and Asian countries.   Ishiba basically succeeds security policies from his predecessor, Fumio Kishida. The LDP campaign policy package includes commitment on the Three Security Documents – National Security Strategy of Japan, National Defense Strategy and Defense Buildup Program – which were approved by Kishida administration in December, 2022.   Kishida started building up defense budget, adding 43 trillion yen through 2023 to 2027. While some LDP presidential candidates argued that the budget could be raised without additional taxation, Ishiba does not deny Kishida’s policy with r...

Campaign for general election of the House of Representatives started on October 15 th . What kind of policies are the parties advocating? I am looking into them for three days. The first is on political reform.   The general election 2024 is mainly about whether voters approve the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which revealed its inappropriate managing of political funds in some factions. It found 85 lawmakers or designated candidates for next election. Some of them left the party, and others declined to run for next election. But 45 out of 85 still sought to run for the election.   The LDP dropped 11 members from its slate. While it approved other 34 as official candidates in single-seat constituencies, the party newly led by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba removed them from the list of proportional representatives, which would be working for resurrection of losers in single-seat constituency. The opposition parties accused the LDP of fielding as much as 34 members who had b...