Word: ldp
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...When Ozawa's Liberal Party joined forces with the DPJ in 2003, many believed that Japan's opposition had finally gained the critical mass it needed to challenge the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has had a chokehold on power for nearly half a century. Commentators boldly predicted that true two-party politics had finally arrived in Japan. They were wrong. The DPJ has not yet proven to be a political equal of the LDP. It has consistently missed opportunities, failed to define a coherent message, staked its reputation on trivial issues and repeatedly imploded amid avoidable public embarrassments. Seiji...
...Seeking revenge like so many warlords of Japanese myth and history, Koizumi reserved particular wrath for the 37 lawmakers from his own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who had opposed the postal-system bill. He ordered LDP headquarters to withdraw support from those rebels running in the election and personally dispatched a coterie of handpicked, telegenic lieutenants?many of them women, and collectively nicknamed "the assassins" by the media?to take on the rebels. The Japanese media may have derisively coined such stunts Koizumi gekijo (Koizumi theater), but the electorate, usually apathetic, was enthralled. By casting the whole election...
...vote substantially altered the party composition. Only 17 of the postal rebels (forced to run as either independents or as part of a new party) managed to return to office. Eighty-three of the LDP winners, meanwhile, are first-time Diet members, now routinely referred to in the Japanese press as "Koizumi's Kids." While it would be an overstatement to say the LDP is now Koizumi's machine, its famously fractious factions have been dealt a mortal blow, and it is more aligned behind a single, strong leader than ever before. "We destroyed the old LDP," said a beaming...
...relative obscurity in the Diet until he unexpectedly vaulted to power in 2001 on a platform that promised sweeping economic reforms. Unfortunately, Koizumi's record has fallen far short of his grand promises, but that's largely due to the stiff opposition he has encountered from old-guard LDP members, whose constituencies have long benefited from exactly the kind of pork-barrel programs Koizumi has been trying to do away with. But now, with many of his staunchest opponents finally ousted, Koizumi is trying to make up for lost time, reintroducing a flurry of previously postponed initiatives designed to produce...
...would have been unfathomable even five years ago. After a postelection cabinet reshuffle in November, Koizumi's newly appointed Foreign Affairs Minister, Taro Aso, said "Japan should first continue to build strong relations with America and, based on this, deepen relations with other Asian nations." That same month, the LDP drafted a plan to alter Article 9, the constitutional clause that famously renounces war, while Tokyo announced a sweeping realignment of the Japan-U.S. alliance, one that emphasized greater Japanese involvement in its own defense...