NHK News May Have Tipped the DPJ Leader Election With Wrong Report on Vote Prospect

wrong, as in "180-degree wrong".



From what I've gathered in twitters and blogs of people who actually watched live both the election proceedings and NHK's reporting on the election (I watched only the election, live on the net), NHK repeatedly reported the totally wrong information about the number of votes that might go to Noda between the first round of voting and the second (final) round of voting.



There were close to 90,000 people watching the netcast of the election, with many of them also watching NHK.



The sequence is something like this:

1. 1st vote ended. The result: Kaieda 143, Noda 102, Maehara 74, Kano 52, Mabuchi 24.

2. 2nd round of voting started. Then about 15 minutes into the voting that took about 30 minutes, NHK reported: "Mr. Mabuchi instructed his supporters this morning to vote for anyone other than Kaieda [if Mabuchi loses in the 1st round]."

3. NHK also said "Kano instructed his supporters to vote for Noda, so did Maehara." NHK was practically predicting the landslide victory of Noda in the 2nd round. They were still voting, and the NHK report was conveyed by the reporters covering the election to the representatives.

4. 2nd round ended. The result: Noda 215, Kaieda 177. Difference was 38 votes.

5. 4PM: Special NHK News - "What we reported earlier about Mr. Mabuchi was wrong. He did not instruct his supporters to vote for anyone other than Kaieda; he told his supporters to do vote FOR Kaieda because Kaieda's policy on tax was close to his (they are both against increasing tax)."

Well, that admission was about 2 hours too late.



Despite the report, Mabuchi supporters are said to have voted for Kaieda after all. But the NHK's erroneous reporting may have swayed enough undecided voters in each faction, as all it took was to sway 16 votes in favor of Noda.



So, NHK may have ended up playing the "kingmaker" in deciding the next prime minister of Japan. Inadvertently or not, I do not know.



I do remember, after the election, PM Kan was all big smiles on the stage with 5 candidates. He must have been so happy to see the candidate backed by Ichiro Ozawa defeated.

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Finance Minister Will Be the New Leader of DPJ

Yoshihiko Noda to be the leader of the party, and will be the new prime minister. He got 215 votes.



Ozawa lost.



Hello increased tax, hello TPP, which Noda is all for joining. Therefore, hello Monsanto. Maybe Monsanto has the genetically modified seeds that are radiation-resistant.

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Democratic Party of Japan Leader Election Update

Kaieda and Noda in the 2nd round. The difference is only 40 votes.



Noda may have made a good prime minister in the peace time (i.e. no Fukushima nuke crisis). Kaieda is not fit for any position, as far as I'm concerned.

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Democratic Party of Japan New Leader Election Today

(Update: The last one, Minister of Agriculture Kano, just finished his speech. Well-rehearsed, totally irrelevant in today's Japan, IMHO. Mabuchi made the most sense, and so he won't get the vote. The worst two were Kaieda and Maehara; if either of them ends up getting the majority vote to become the next Prime Minister, oh boy, it's bleak.)



(Update: Kaieda spoke in an agitated manner, incoherent speech. So that's what Ozawa backs - someone who's hapless. Makes sense, just look at the former PM Hatohama, dubbed "space alien". Now Minister of Finance Noda is speaking. Much calmer, focused.)



(Update: The meeting is live on the net. Right now, Kaieda is speaking. Nothing worthy of mentioning. Sumio Mabuchi, who has the least number of supporters, seems to have impressed many net viewers for his forthright message of the first thing first - tackle the Fukushima nuke plant and recover from the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuke accident.)



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The members of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will elect the new leader for the party (who will then become the prime minister) in the early afternoon on August 29, JST.



The meeting of 398 DPJ members of the Diet has just started in Tokyo. The candidates are to give 15-minute speech to the audience before the voting.



The majority vote is necessary to determine the winner. If there is no majority winner in the first round of voting, then they vote on the top two in the first round.



The first round of voting will start around 12:20PM, and the tally will be in by 1PM. If the second round is necessary, it will start about 1:20PM after the top two in the first round tries to convince more voters to vote for them. By 2PM, we will know who will be the new DPJ leader and the next prime minister.



Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Banri Kaieda is the front-runner to succeed the outgoing PM Kan. Minister of Finance Noda is considered second, followed by ex-Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara. None of them seems to have secured the majority vote (200).



If it is a popularity contest among the Japanese, ex-Foreign Minister Maehara would win, according to the Yomiuri poll, because he is not backed by the kingmaker Ichiro Ozawa and he is young (he's 49).



"It doesn't matter who's at the top, they're all the same" has been the attitude of most Japanese from the time immemorial. At the same time, they trust the government authority (yes, even today) and clamor for a strong leader to guide them.

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Democratic Party of Japan to Select New Leader, Ozawa Backs Kaieda

Prime Minister Kan finally steps down now that the renewable energy legislation has passed, the ruling party Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is going to hold an election to select the next party leader who will be the new prime minister of Japan.



The election is to be formally announced on August 27, and the voting will be on August 29, according to Jiji Tsushin (8/26/2011).



Jiji reports that there will be 5 candidates for the job. But it seems to boil down to two leading candidates backed by two warring factions within the DPJ.



On one side is Seiji Maeda, 49 years old former Minister of Foreign Affairs, backed by PM Kan and his faction. On the other, Banri Kaieda, 62 years old Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, backed by the faction led by Ichiro Ozawa and ex-PM Yukio Hatoyama, both of whom like to be the "king maker".



Banri Kaieda has been an unabashed proponent of nuclear power as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry that oversees the nuclear industry in Japan.



5 candidates are:

• Seiji Maehara, age 49, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs

• Yoshihiko Noda, age 54, Minister of Finance

• Michihiko Kano, age 69, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

• Sumio Mabuchi, age 51, ex-Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism

• Banri Kaieda, age 62, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry

Take your pick.

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Japan's PM Kan Survives Vote of No Confidence and Stays On

Thanks to the last-minute maneuver by the ex-Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (aka "space alien") who says he has persuaded Kan to step down once the recovery and reconstruction from the March 11 earthquake is well on its way.

Bummer. The vote of no confidence was set to pass, until Hatoyama decided he wanted to be a king-maker. Ichiro Ozawa, who an increasing number of Japanese feel should be the PM to deal with the current crisis, was betrayed by Hatoyama, who had promised Ozawa that his faction would vote for no confidence.

I don't know why anyone still listens to Hatoyama, who was one of the most ineffectual PMs that Japan had, in my opinion, until Kan came along. Good pedigree and tons of money count, I suppose.

Many people in Japan have said it is no time to fool around with politics when the country is in crisis. So? This particular government hasn't done much anyway, other than giving press conferences. People are still living in shelters, without enough running water or food. The government doesn't do anything about Fukushima I Nuke Plant; TEPCO does. Besides, this was the country that went on to hold nationwide local elections soon after the quake/tsunami and Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident when people were still very much shaken and not in the right frame of mind.

Getting rid of this Prime Minister and his cronies in his office and in the administration would have been a fresh start.

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