On Jan 23, 2013, Nobuhiro Hiwatari wrote:

> this image of the Japanese voter is quite odd,
particularly in light
> of the fact that it is debatable whether the Ishinn
no Kai won because
> of Ishihara or in spite of Ishihara.

I am not talking about Ishinnokai.

I am talking about Ishihara as the Tokyo politician who managed to force the Minshuto government to enter into open conflict with China, and that, right before the Jiminto had its internal elections where eventually not Tanigaki, who had reasonably well managed the party until then, but Abe's clique took the power.

As for "economic voting having (any) relevance", I'd like to see what was not clear about the political lockout for the Japanese voters. They knew Abe and Aso had done nothing in the past, they knew that the political lockout was caused by the Jiminto refusing to collaborate with the Minshuto in the Upper House and they blame the Minshuto for that and then put Abe/Aso in power because of "economic" promises (including reverting the no-nukes policy that a considerable amount of people supported) ?

Japanese voters did not choose Abe because they thought his economic proposals were better, they voted for him because he looked tough on the Chinese issue (conveniently staged by his pal's father just a few weeks before so that it could remain in the voter's short term media memory) and because they could not convince themselves that voting for the Minshuto en masse would make any difference regarding the issues that matter to them, without even noticing that at the exact same time the economy was being savagely hurt by the reactionaries who were provoking China.

Japanese voters may be concerned about their daily life, just like any other voter in the world. But pretending that their vote was in any way an
intelligent choice between two (or more) rational
positions on economic policies is seeing way too much into last election. The 15% or so who made the balance tip in favor of the Jiminto are people who have little understanding of economics beyond the fact that they need money to pay the bills.

As for the Ishinnokai, I would not be surprised if Ishihara had proposed to work with Hashimoto fully knowing that such an alliance would deter some voters from voting for the Osaka leader.

Jean-Christophe Helary=