To Aurelia George Mulgan and Ellis Krauss comments:

What I understand as political leadership has nothing to do with dictatorship. European countries like UK, Germany or the Scandinavian countries have mostly long time serving prime minister or chancellors. Their own party or their coalition and the opposition camp accepts the government and the prime minister most until the next general election. Then the public decides about the next prime minister. But the political discussion is at first about political content not about replacing the prime minister. Last week LDP-MP Shigeru Ishiba held a speech at the FCCJ.
But more than 50%percent of his speech was about Kans resignation the LDP wants. This totally inadequate. This is talking only about people not about political content. Of course this has also to do with a party who until today doesn't accept to be a opposition party after 50 years government.

But this not only a problem of the LDP. Even the majority of the leading MPs of the DPJ wants prime minister Kan to resign, because they don't like the single minded Kan and they hope a new prime minister can build a coalition with the LDP. But it means only a new round of the game, because there is no a political figure with a political strategy and the strong will to follow this strategy. So the next prime minister will resign again, if someone calls for his resignation if there are difficulties in a LDP/DPJ coalition or if Mr. Ozawa doesn't like him. The problem is not only that everyone thinks political problems can be solved by changing the prime minister. The point also ministers and prime ministers accept the call for resignation to fast, because they know if they do so they will be still player of the political game and will have the opportunity to come in office a short time later again. And in this way Koizumi and Kan like before Nakasone are different. Perhaps this has to do with a different meaning of resignation in Japan and other countries. In Europe I believe resignation is a more serious act. Perhaps it affects the personality of a politician more than here.

I think Greg Noble is right when he writes, the results of the Kan government is not so bad as it looks. But prime minister Kan is not like Koizumi a good communicator of his policy and he didn't show himself als the man who could manage the catastrophe of 3/11. This was and is bad in a time, in which the public wants a strong leader. Kan and Hatoyama had very good results in the first polls. But then the disappointment came very fast. This had nothing to do with political reality, but much with the media, who supports a kind of political hysteria.

Best

Siegfried Knittel
contact@siegfriedknittel.de