Many thanks to Peter Cave for his timely and incisive post and questions. If I may chime in on his second question regarding why the opposition has not been able to capitalize on the Suga administration´s low support level, I would disagree with the premise. 17% support for the CDP is, or close to, a historically high support rate for them, especially outside of an election campaign. This is roughly the same or better level of support as the DPJ enjoyed several months before they effectively took control of the Upper House in 2007, not that I am predicting the same result this year, I am not. My rule of thumb is that well outside of an election it´s a good day for the main opposition party when they are polling in double digits, and the CDP is easily exceeding that right now.

One thing Peter Cave did not mention was the segment of the electorate supporting no party, which has been hovering around 40%. At election time this segment falls significantly and tends to break in favor of the opposition. The main question is whether these voters, and opposition party supporters more generally, will back diverse parties, or congregate in support of the CDP. If the non-LDP majority of the electorate congregates around the CDP, as they did around the DPJ in 2009, the LDP will be in trouble, although I don´t think the CDP has enough momentum to unite these voters in this election and deprive the LDP-Komeito coalition of a majority However, the CDP and opposition parties do appear on track now to deprive the coalition of their two-thirds majority in the Lower House, perhaps by a wide margin.

Paul Midford

Professor of International Relations
Department of Global and Transcultural Studies
Meiji Gakuin University
1518 Kamikurata-cho
Totsuka-ku Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken 244-8539
Japan

Email:paulmid@k.meijigakuin.ac.jp

?On 26/05/2021, 11:05,"ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp on behalf of SSJ-Forum Moderator" <ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp on behalf of ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> wrote:

From: Peter Cave<Peter.Cave@manchester.ac.uk>

Date: 2021/05/24

Today, Jochi political scientist Koichi Nakano published an opinion
piece in the Guardian about the Japanese government's approach to the
Tokyo Olympics (In Japan most people want to cancel the Olympics, but
the government won't listen | Koichi Nakano | The Guardian
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/24/japan-cancel-olympics-coronavirus>).
The article is very critical of the Suga government (with reason, in my
view), and notes the high level of public dissatisfaction. It does
strike me as very strange, however, that Professor Nakano makes no
mention whatsoever of opposition parties - what they might be saying, or
what the level of support for them is. It is even stranger, given that a
general election is scheduled to be held in Japan later this year. I
find it hard to think of any other major democratic country where
analysis would not touch on this subject.

The last opinion poll that I actually saw reported (by the Asahi on May
17) showed that alongside the record low approval rate of 33% for the
Suga cabinet, 35% of voters said they would vote for the LDP in the PR
section if a national election were held now, against 17% who would vote
for the CDP. In other words, double the support for the LDP than for its
main rival, despite record-low disapproval for the government. (And this
is the PR section, where votes are purely for party. The LDP would
probably do better in the SMD section.) See: Survey: Suga Cabinet
approval rating ties record low of 33% : The Asahi Shimbun
<http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14351623>

This makes me wonder two things. (1) What have opposition parties been
saying about what changes need to be made, regarding the Olympics or
more widely regarding the shortcomings in Japan's systems that have been
revealed by the pandemic? (2) Why have opposition parties apparently
been able to capitalise so little on the Suga government's pretty woeful
performance?

Thoughts and analysis are welcome.

Peter Cave
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies
Research Postgraduate Director, Modern Languages and Cultures
SALC, University of Manchester
Samuel Alexander Building
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 3195
www.manchester.ac.uk/research/peter.cave/ <http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/peter.cave/>