Leadership Fail in Japan

Japan’s political world was shocked at the arrest of the top aide to Democratic Party of Japan head Ichiro Ozawa over improper political contributions. At a press conference this morning Ozawa defended his aide, calling the contributions in line with the limits set by campaign law and vowing to beat the allegations. While he talked a good fight, it’s likely the news will affect the DPJ’s chances of winning a majority in both houses in the upcoming election, which will no doubt lead to more deadlock and other problems for the nation. Politically Japan is quite a basket case, currently on its 11th Prime Minister since I came here in 1991, compared with just three in the U.K. in the same span. While I often hear people complain about two-party political systems which lock out smaller groups, I can’t say that Japan’s system of one large disfunctional party and a collection of universally ineffectual smaller parties is any better.

Japan seems to suffer from a chronic leadership problem.