This is your local political news update for the day.
You might recall in The Weekly N&C for September 1st, 2008's comments it was mentioned that former souridaijin Y. Mori, political kingmaker of the Machimura parliamentary faction, was quoted as saying "...he will decide everything from whether the faction should back a member or even vote for a specific person as one when all the candidates have announced their bids."
Well, things haven't gone exactly according to plan there, boss.
With a week to go (five days actually) before the LDP holds its Party Presidential election, he has supposedly lined up 61 of 89 members to back T. Asou and the rest are believed to be going for Y. Koike.
That is one heck of a protest vote, if nothing else.
from today's Japan Times on this
On the plus point, immensely popular former souridaijin J. Koizumi is steadfastly supporting Y. Koike and giving her other supporters the political cover they need to make this try.
Noble fellow he is, the "Lion King". Bravo, Koizumi.
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5 comments:
On the voting poll, the latest link you provided, for Japan's next Prime Minister, Koike is ahead- 41%- And I placed a vote!
Here is where I need to do some serious reading-- note to self-- come back later and catch up here!
It is party election day here today. 32 of 47 prefectural chapters have sent in their votes (they get 3 each), and to no surprise, T. Asou is the machine choice so far. Everyone else is supposed to vote (the 386 elected officials, 1 vote each; and the rest of the prefectural chapters) starting at 1400hrs, local time (about 2 hours from now).
In the "GOOD TIMING, @$$ %*!!$" department: The European Union has already sent their congratulatory letter to T. Asou.
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@Susan
Seeing that you commented about the internet poll on The Japan times site... please remember that the very fact that you can vote there should tell you it is of no value other than amusement.
On the plus point, you have a modest chance of needing a new U.S. Senator from Arizona shortly, so perhaps you might mention Y. Koike's likely-soon-to-be availablity to the State Governor's office.
((grin))
Clarification:
The total votes-to-be-counted will be 527:
141 from prefectural chapters + 386 from elected officals. From either source, the total needed to prevent a run-off is 264.
T. Asou getting *at least* 90 from prefectures leaves him looking for *at most* 174...
Well, it is done.
T. Aso carries the day.
*here* is how the FT reports it... they report him getting 351 of 525(sic) votes.
The Yomiuri (in Japanese) gets the numbers right, and reports the count-out as:
T. Aso 351
K. Yosano 66
Y. Koike 46
N. Ishihara 37
S. Ishiba 25
votes not cast 2
A report by the NYT, stunningly blind to the implications and just repeating T. Aso's acceptance lines can be found *here*
After-Action: Ishiba only got what he got as a favorite son candidate of Tottori Prefecture. Yosano did better than expected. Ishihara was a tool running just to get some notice and help split the vote. Koike hit the 'iron ceiling', hard.
General Reaction in the popular polls seems muted; We may see more of a "bounce" tomorrow, but nowhere near enough to give the LDP a prayer of winning a snap election.
oh, bother.
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footnote: I used the direct romanization Asou in two comments, above. My mistake; The media is all using the simplified T. Aso rendering.
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