"Japan’s prime minister hoping for gains in Sunday’s election" by ELAINE KURTENBACH, Associated Press December 14, 2014
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is counting on a landslide victory Sunday in parliamentary elections expected to return his ruling coalition to power with an even bigger majority, empowering him to pursue an agenda of political and economic reforms.
‘‘This is the only way!’’ is the slogan Abe is driving home in his campaign speeches.
The economy is back in recession, the government’s popularity ratings have slid, and messy campaign finance scandals have roiled Abe’s Cabinet. Normally, that would be bad news for the incumbent. Yet Abe is virtually the only game in town thanks to Japan’s tendency toward a one-party political system, voter apathy, and a lack of viable alternatives.
Yeah, strange how normally that would be bad, and how it in fact is -- or so I was told.
Nice spin, AP.
Campaigning wrapped up Saturday evening, with Abe, fist raised in the air, making a final appeal for support in Tokyo’s gaudy Akihabara district.
‘‘If we create a country where everyone is given a chance, Japan will grow much bigger,’’ Abe said, accusing the opposition Democratic Party of being too pessimistic over the country’s declining population, which is one factor behind Japan’s slowing economy. ‘‘We are finished if we give up!’’
Surveys showed many voters planned to stay away from polling stations, fed up with or indifferent to the choices. A large share support no party in particular, so Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party may win by default.
That there is also a vote no matter where it is held.
‘‘The problem of this election is there is actually no choice for voters,’’ said Yu Uchiyama, a professor of political science at Tokyo University. ‘‘Many people will choose Abe as a kind of negative choice. There are no alternatives.’’
I know how they feel.
The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan was in power from 2009 to 2012, but lost voters’ confidence amid perceptions of ineptitude, failing to deliver on campaign pledges, and struggling to deal with the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters.
Oh, yeah, Fukushima and 300 tons (maybe even more, who knows? Authority has not a clue) of radioactive water fouling the Pacific each and every day.
It is fielding candidates in only about one-fifth of the 295 single seat districts. Polls show it taking fewer than 100 seats in Sunday’s elections.
Many voters have swung back to the Liberal Democratic Party, a conservative party (despite its name) that guided Japan through its high-growth years in the 1960s and ’70s, and has ruled the country for all but about four years since 1955.
Oh, you guys over there getting the yo-yo treatment like us to show how the people have a choice and you voted for change and nothing changes except for the worse ($ave a $elect few), but you know.... democrapy.
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So what were the rigged results?
WaPo will tell you:
"Japan gives prime minister more time to fix the economy" by Anna Fifield, Washington Post December 15, 2014
TOKYO — With a new electoral mandate and the real prospect of four more years in power, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday laid out an ambitious agenda for his government, encompassing economic revival and a more active role on the global stage.
Although turnout was at a record low, Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito, won a “super-majority” in the lower house in a snap parliamentary election held Sunday.
Wow.
Abe’s political calculation that it would be better to call an election now, before the economy deteriorates further, appears to have paid off, analysts said.
“The top priority is economy,” Abe, asked about his plans, told the state broadcaster NHK as the results were still rolling in Sunday night. “We will proceed with our strategic diplomacy, taking a bird’s-eye view of the globe, increase Japan’s status in the world, and protect our national interest.”
The 60-year-old prime minister had called the election as a referendum on his “Abenomics” strategy to revive the economy, mainly by pumping in huge amounts of money.
That's what the Federal Reserve has done here.
This approach appeared to have failed when the economy last quarter tipped into recession, but Abe went to the electorate with the campaign slogan: “This road is the only road.”
Yeah, same result.
Even if it does not entirely believe it, the electorate appears to have conceded Abe’s point.
They bowed in resignation, huh?
The ruling party has also proposed changing labor laws to help the economy, increasing foreign trade, restarting nuclear plants, and expanding the country’s military role.
Abe and many of his fellow conservatives in Japan believe the country has been too weak in its dealings with its neighbors, South Korea and China.
The prime minister has taken a more assertive approach but this is highly controversial in Japan, with many people in the country saying such changes create conflict and are unnecessary.
It's the tight alliance with the U.S. that does it; they are talking peace with North Korea, China, and all the rest. The Asians do not want war brought to them by the U.S.!
His effort to secure a trans-Pacific trade agreement faces stiff opposition from the farm lobby and others concerned about foreign competition.
Well, the people and even government office holders have never been keen on those globalist-enriching $chemes.
His resounding victory Sunday could propel Abe through a Liberal Democratic Party leadership contest next year and upper house elections in 2016, and into the ranks of the very few Japanese prime ministers in the last quarter-century who have survived more than two years in office.
Abe has set a goal of making Japan a “beautiful country” again. He views reviving the economy after two “lost decades” and burnishing a reputation tarnished by World War II as the key to that beauty.
That's where the Web Globe threw out the rest of the ballots, and I guess the Japanese can never live that down.
A procession of Japanese prime ministers has tried to revive the economy after two “lost decades” of falling prices and sluggish growth. After taking power two years ago, Abe appeared to be having some success with his three-pronged strategy of easy money supply, huge government spending projects and starting painful structural reforms.
Now I'm seeing why this was cut. The source of the failures are as always: private central bank money creation (at interest); government waste; and austerity for the people. No wonder the Japanese voter has checked out.
But an increase in the consumption tax in April, the first in 17 years, stopped the economy in its tracks. Japanese people, not used to price rises, simply gave up shopping, tipping the economy back into recession.
Wait until the retail Xmas numbers come in, Americans.
You would think pinhead politicians over here would learn the le$$on, but I suppose greed gets in the way.
Abe has postponed a second planned increase in the consumption tax — which would have caused the tax to double to 10 percent in less than two years — to stabilize the economy.
While many voters expressed doubt about Abenomics, they saw little alternative to voting for his party.
“The LDP is not the best, but it’s a better choice than other parties,” said Hiroaki Kawana, a 52-year-old civil servant who voted in a quiet school building in central Tokyo.
I'm tired of those kinds of choices that serve the $ame intere$ts.
Others, such as Yoshiko Hatano, a 67-year-old cleaner, said she voted for the LDP to give the prime minister a chance. “I think Abenomics isn’t going smoothly yet but I’m interested in where it might go. I want to give them some more time,” she said.
Although he won a landslide, the record-low turnout — at 52 percent, it was the lowest in Japan’s postwar history — did not exactly give Abe the full-throated mandate he sought.
I can see why this got cut. Kind of destroys the credibility of the whole lead-in and all.
Tobias Harris, a Japan expert at Teneo Intelligence, a consulting firm, said this would not prevent Abe from doing what he wanted. “A parliamentary majority is a parliamentary majority,” he said.
Japan has an emperor again?
However, it could act as a drag on reforms as time passed. “Low turnout may limit the momentum Abe gets from the election because — as falling support for the Abe cabinet during the campaign suggests — plenty of voters just don’t support Abe or his main policy priorities,” he said.
And yet he won a landsli.... never mind.
Abe said that the low turnout rate was “a shame” and said it was up to all Japanese to create the “Japan of tomorrow.”
“I want to continue operating the Diet humbly and carefully, implementing policies sincerely based on what we hear from Japanese people, and executing our responsibilities,” he told NHK.
Print ends and this was added by the web:
Getting the economy moving again has been critical for generating support for his government to shake off the postwar shackles.
Completely scrubbed:
In Washington, the White House congratulated Abe on his election victory, calling the US-japan alliance "the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific." The White House statement expressed appreciation for Abe's "strong leadership" on a wide range issues.
I wrote "RIGGED!" in my printed copy.
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