Sep 14th 2010, 11:21 by H.T. | TOKYO
SO MUCH for Ichiro Ozawa’s famed electoral genius. After a nail-biting ballot, in which Naoto Kan, the prime minister, and Mr Ozawa, his brooding challenger, sat just feet away from each other, eyes shut, meditating intensely, Mr Kan won handsomely.
The three pillars of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) who voted—parliamentarians, local assembly members and rank-and-file supporters—all gave Mr Kan more votes to continue as party leader, and by extension as prime minister, a post he has only held since June. Among the DPJ’s 406 MPS, Mr Kan won 206 votes; among the assembly members, he achieved a support rate of 60%; and among the rank-and-file, he won almost five times as much support as Mr Ozawa. It was a good result for Japan. If Mr Ozawa had pulled off a surprise victory, it would have been a slap in the face to the public, which loathes him, just when the Japanese are tentatively learning the power of their own voice in politics. It may well have undermined faith in the political transition the DPJ unleashed when it beat the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) last year. But whether or not Mr Kan has the leadership ability to fulfil something of the voters’ aspirations, as he promised in his victory speech, is a different matter.
In Japan’s murky politics, this result should at least make two things clear: Mr Ozawa is not the force he and his supporters thought he was; nor should he be able any longer to pull the strings of the DPJ from behind the scenes. He may have helped orchestrate the party’s historic victory last September, and set in train political reforms that helped end Japan’s long-history of one-party rule. But personally, he is to most voters like a mouthful of dirty dishwater—soiled by financial scandal, lacking in transparency and accountability: in short, a throwback to the type of LDP politics they hoped to get rid of last year.
The size of Mr Kan’s victory makes it harder, too, for Mr Ozawa to try splitting the DPJ out of pique. His supporters insisted before the vote that he would remain loyal to the party, whatever the outcome. Students of his mercurial ways may find that unlikely, but even if he were to abandon the DPJ, only the most politically suicidal of his comrades would now be likely to follow him. An uneasy compromise with Mr Kan may be marginally more likely. Now, at least, Mr Kan can claim to have the upper hand.
Some, of course, will lament the result, including those desperados in the stockmarket who yearn for any sort of shock—however cynically orchestrated—to jolt Japan out of its economic and financial lethargy. There are many reasons to doubt that Mr Kan has the charisma and skill to re-energise the country. He has failed to use the election campaign to spell out the need for vigorous economic reform. He has not yet reached out to rival parties to overcome the parliamentary gridlock he will face for having lost the DPJ’s upper-house majority in July.
But Mr Kan’s victory represents a vote in favour of democratic accountability, and against the discredited special-interest politics favoured by Mr Ozawa. The prime minister has personally reaffirmed a strand of the DPJ that stands in support of the interests of individuals, against the tribal politics so characteristic of Japan under the LDP. The country needs its individuals. It needs their energy and their creativity, and not the deadening groupthink that has kept Japan in economic stagnation for the past 20 years. Mr Kan may not be the best man to articulate that, and it may take years before Japan is galvanized by such thinking. But Tuesday’s election was a meaningful step in the right direction.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário