The 'whatever' election
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday August 29, 2009
Aikawa is a small town on the fringe of the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolis that houses 35 million people. Here the sprawl of factories, apartments and tightly packed housing peters out. Hills covered with thick, green forest and bamboo thickets crowd in, shrilling with cicadas.Its 45,000 people have been voting in the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, or Jinminto, €śforever€ť, a local polyester thread manufacturer, Muneo Ohnoki, says. When their Diet member died several years ago, the secure seat passed to his son, Zentaro Kamei, who is now fighting his second election.But even here in this typical semi-rural stronghold, the conservatives have their backs to the wall, and the candidate of the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan, or Minshuto, Yuichi Goto, is the favourite.Nobuaki Kojima, owner of a factory making lenses for endoscopes, is one of Kamei's diehard supporters. €śI have a personal understanding of what he does and what his policies are,€ť he said. But Kojima adds: €śI think he'll lose.€ť€śThe wind is blowing for the Minshuto,€ť Ohnoki said. €śMaybe their program is a factor, but we think only of a change of government from the Jinminto. We are fed up with them. Many people think change is good for its own sake.€ťThe past two decades have squeezed Aikawa. The population has fallen from its early 1990s peak. Once there were more than 100 thread companies €“ now there are 10, and Ohnoki has shifted most of his production to three factories in China.Where there were 25 children in each high-school class, now there just 10 in total. The latest recession is hitting the population already: migrant workers, recruited from Japanese-descent communities in South America, are going home after being laid off from nearby car and electronic factories.€śMany more are leaving than coming,€ť said Bruno Iida-Souza, 17, at the Brazilian mini-supermarket run by his father.€śThere used to be more work than people, it didn't matter what you did,€ť said Kojima. €śJobs in the town council used to be the last resort, now they are prized. People used to say, 'He can only be a teacher' €“ now you need a lot of grades to be one.€ťOhnoki himself is keeping on his 100 local employees thanks to a 3 million yen ($38,000) a month emergency grant from the government. €śIf this subsidy stops, many companies will go under,€ť Ohnoki said. €śWe would have to fire workers, and then the Japanese economy would get even worse.€ťOther stimulus packages are trying to get the Japanese to buy €śeco-TVs€ť and electric-hybrid cars or take holidays. But most people are trying to save money, Ohnoki says. €śEveryone thinks that in the future, we will not be supported.€ťKojima and his wife, Yukiko, feel change is in the air, but question whether the Minshuto can succeed in subduing Japan's powerful bureaucracy and turning it from export growth to domestic welfare. "€śIf they fight, the population will support them," Kojima said. "But they will have to keep themselves very clean, because the bureaucrats know how to play the information war very well.€ťKojima thinks an election loss €śmight be necessary€ť to reform the LDP. Ohnuki, who has voted for the DPJ before, is still a sceptical supporter. €śWe are not sure that the Minshuto will do a good job, maybe just the same as the Jinminto, but whatever ...€ť
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald