Factbox: Major parties in Japan's parliament after December 16 poll

[Inahime]

Factbox: Major parties in Japan's parliament after December 16 poll

TOKYO | Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:20am EST

(Reuters) - Conservative ex-premier Shinzo Abe will get a second chance to lead Japan after his Liberal Democratic Party surged back to power in Sunday's election, while Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat, securing less than one-fifth of the seats won in 2009.

Below are some key facts about Japan's political parties.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF JAPAN (LDP)

Established: 1955

Website: www.jimin.jp/english/

2012 lower house election result: 294 out of 480 seats

The LDP returned to power after a three-year hiatus. Until the 2009 election, the party, which has nurtured close ties with business and the bureaucracy, had been in power alone or in coalitions almost non-stop since its founding in 1955.

The victory by the LDP will usher in a government pledged to a tough stance in a territorial row with China, a pro-nuclear energy policy despite the 2011 Fukushima disaster and a potentially risky recipe for hyper-easy monetary policy and big fiscal spending to boost growth.

LDP leader Abe, 58, was prime minister from 2006-2007. He has piled pressure on the central bank to ease monetary policy further and adopt a 2 percent inflation target and might delay the sales tax rise if deflation persists. The party favors a central role for nuclear power in Japan's energy mix despite a dramatic shift in public opinion in favor of phasing out atomic energy after the Fukushima crisis.

NEW KOMEITO

Established: 1998

Website: www.komei.or.jp/en/

2012 result: 31 seats

The party, founded by members of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist sect, has been a junior partner in LDP-led governments for 10 years until the ruling camp's rout in a 2009 lower house election. The LDP confirmed the partnership with New Komeito that will give it a two-thirds majority in the lower house.

Some in the LDP would like eventually to end the alliance, given policy differences in some areas, but cutting ties would not be easy since the two parties have cooperated closely in election districts, with the LDP relying on the Komeito's solid vote machine to provide support for many of its own candidates.

The New Komeito focuses on economic policies for the less well off and is more moderate on security issues than the LDP, opposing revision of the pacifist constitution, for example.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF JAPAN (DPJ)

Established: 1998

Website: www.dpj.or.jp/english/

2012 election result: 57

Formed in a merger of several opposition parties, the DPJ swept to power in 2009 to end more than half a century of almost unbroken LDP rule. After three years in power, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's party was crushed and won fewer than a fifth of the seats it took in 2009, when it came to power promising to pay more heed to consumers than companies and pry control of policies from bureaucrats.

The Democrats' support slumped over what voters saw as broken promises, a confused response to last year's Fukushima tsunami and nuclear crisis and Noda's embrace of unpopular causes such as the tax hike and the restart of nuclear reactors.

Noda, 55, has announced he will step down as leader of the party. The former finance minister made raising the sales tax to curb public debt, which is already more than twice the size of the economy, his top goal even though it was not part of the DPJ's 2009 campaign platform.

JAPAN RESTORATION PARTY

Established: 2012

Website: j-ishin.jp/(Japanese only)

2012 election result: 54

Popular Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, 43, launched the right-leaning party in September to woo voters fed up with the two main parties. His core policies include shrinking the role of the central government, more market competition and cuts in corporate and income taxes.

Last month, the party merged with a few conservative lawmakers led by former nationalist Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, 80, in a bid to build an influential "third force".

The party wants to boost defense spending and maritime surveillance in response to a territorial row with China.

It has flip-flopped on nuclear power after merging with Ishihara's pro-atomic group, and confusion persists.

(Compiled by Tokyo Newsroom; Editing by Paul Tait)

 

[Inahime]

Japan next PM Abe says eyes big extra budget to beat deflation

TOKYO | Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:36am EST

(Reuters) - Japan's next Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday an extra budget his government plans to compile will be large in size given the country's output gap, which is behind deflation.

He also told a news conference the government will reinstate the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, a key panel that was in place when his Liberal Democratic Party was previously in power, and will ask the governor of the Bank of Japan to attend its meetings.

He said he will form his cabinet on December 26, and once it is created he will instruct ministers to work with the BOJ in issuing a joint statement setting a 2 percent inflation target.

He also said he wants the central bank to take into account the fact that the public supported his views on monetary policy when it hold a policy meeting on Dec 19-20.

The conservative LDP surged back to power in an election for parliament's lower house on Sunday, just three years after a devastating defeat, giving Abe a chance to push his hawkish security agenda and radical economic recipe.

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Michael Watson)

 

[Inahime]

Japan's next PM Abe must deliver on economy, cope with China

By Linda Sieg and Tomasz Janowski
TOKYO | Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:32am EST

(Reuters) - Conservative ex-premier Shinzo Abe got a second chance to lead Japan after his party surged back to power in Sunday's election and faces pressure to move swiftly to bolster a sagging economy and manage strained ties with China.

The Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) landslide just three years after a crushing defeat appears more a damning verdict on its rivals' brief spell in power than an embrace of Abe's agenda or the party that had ruled Japan for most of the past 50 years.

The vote gave the LDP and its small ally a two-thirds majority in the lower house. It will usher in a government committed to a tough stance in a territorial row with China, a pro-nuclear energy policy despite the 2011 Fukushima disaster and a potentially risky recipe for hyper-easy monetary policy and big spending to boost growth.

NHK public TV said on Monday the LDP had won 294 seats in the 480-member lower house. Its ally the New Komeito party won 31 seats, giving the two enough votes to overrule most matters in the upper house, where no party has a majority.

Executives of both parties discussed on Monday steps to pull the economy out of its fourth recession since 2000. Abe will meet his New Komeito counterpart on Tuesday to cement ties.

The prospect of overcoming the policy gridlock that has dogged successive governments for the past five years cheered investors, with stocks extending their month-long rally and the yen weakening further.

The yen fell to as much as 84.48 against the dollar, a 20-month low, while the benchmark Nikkei rose 1.6 percent. Bond prices eased in anticipation of economic stimulus.

A further increase in the central bank's bond-buying scheme is expected on Thursday, when the BOJ holds this year's last policy meeting, while markets also expect an extra budget worth up to 10 trillion yen ($120 billion).

Abe, 58, said he would revive an economic panel abolished by the outgoing government, which could give him a regular venue to speak with the BOJ chief and pressure the central bank for more aggressive action.

Analysts said Abe did not have much time to make good on his promises.

"If he doesn't deliver a feel-good factor by the July (upper house) election, the LDP will get trounced," said Jesper Koll, head of equity research at JPMorgan Chase in Tokyo.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Democratic Party of Japan, which swept to power with a promise to break up the "iron triangle" linking the powerful bureaucracy, big business and LDP lawmakers, crashed under the weight of dashed hopes.

The party, hit by defections before the vote due to Noda's unpopular plan to raise the sales tax, captured only 57 seats, less than a fifth of its 2009 tally. Noda promptly resigned as party leader.

"In a word, rather than a huge victory for the LDP, this election was a massive defeat for the Democrats," the Nikkei business daily said in an editorial.

CHINA WARNING

Analyst Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington said Abe's win also reflected "an embrace of conservative views" after strained relations with Japan's neighbors in recent years.

"Chinese assertiveness and North Korean provocations nudged the public from its usual post-war complacency toward a new desire to stand up for Japanese sovereignty," he said.

However, that did not mean the Japanese were embracing a return to militarism, added Klingner, a former CIA analyst.

Warnings from state Chinese media that Japan-China relations might suffer if Abe tried to push too hard show that he will have to walk a fine line between appearing soft and risking another damaging flare-up in tensions.

"When Abe takes power, the Chinese should take real action to immediately set him straight," said a commentary in Global Times, a popular tabloid published by the same group that runs the Communist Party's People's Daily. "If he takes excessively hardline action against China, we should resolutely fight back."

Abe, who quit as premier in 2007 citing ill health, has been talking tough in a row with China over uninhabited isles in the East China Sea, although some experts say he may temper his hard line with pragmatism once in office.

The soft-spoken grandson of a prime minister is due to be confirmed as Japan's seventh premier in six years on December 26. He will also have to prove he has learned from the scandals and charges of incompetence that plagued his first administration.

Jiji news agency said previous LDP Prime Minister Taro Aso, 72, could be tapped as finance minister and deputy premier. He launched massive economic stimulus packages to fight the impact of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis but was dogged by policy flipflops and gaffes.

Voter distaste for mainstream parties has spawned a clutch of new parties, including one founded by popular Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, which took 54 seats. Voter turnout hit a post-war low of just above 59 percent, according to media estimates.

Abe wants to loosen the limits of a 1947 pacifist constitution on the military so Japan can play a bigger global security role and strengthen its alliance with the United States, where he plans to go on his first overseas trip.

President Barack Obama congratulated him and underlined U.S. interest in working with the longstanding American ally.

"The U.S-Japan Alliance serves as the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific and I look forward to working closely with the next government and the people of Japan," Obama said in a statement. ($1 = 83.5000 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington, Terril Jones in Beijing, Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo; Editing by)

 

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