Calls already coming in for fast action after DPJ sweeps LDP out of power

Monday 31st August, 08:54 AM JST

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magpie at 11:36 AM JST - 31st August

What Japan eeds is a real good long look in the mirror. The country is falling to pieces on a deficit that it cannot mamage and run. There will inevitably be a long sustained period of pain, where it needs to shrink back the economy and waste. It will may mean a period of high unemployment as people need to be retrained to create new skills. Are the public prepared to accept that? The bureacrats known as the civil service that will have to execute such a plan...whoever thinks that they will execute the plan that will cut them off has to be smoking somthing that makes eveything that foreigners are supposedly distributing look mild!
bamboohat at 11:38 AM JST - 31st August

I give Hatoyama less then one year. He promised populist things he knows he can't fulfill, and trying to fund those promises will just crumple the economy. Let's just hope I'm wrong

Sounds another recently elected world leader that promised sweeping change, only to later realize it would only come at record deficit spending and record debt levels.

You can only live off deficit spending for so long.

Anyhow, good luck PM.
stirfry at 11:39 AM JST - 31st August

old wine in a new bottle
Bootsy at 11:41 AM JST - 31st August

Here comes the new boss ... same as the old boss?
bgaudry at 11:43 AM JST - 31st August

It was a good election though, very hard for some candidates and over rather quickly for others. Best election the Japanese have ever had.
notimpressed at 12:18 PM JST - 31st August

First real election Japan ever had, kind of. Can't hope for change if you try to cut the new-comers down without giving them a chance. I really wish them the best and hope they can fulfill what they promise. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of thier efforts. After all, it couldn't have got much worse, a different approach is what is needed.
Simon_Foston at 12:26 PM JST - 31st August

The DPJ will indeed need to move fast. The House of Councillors election is coming up next year, and if the voters don't feel some positive changes by then the LDP could make a recovery and regain the majority they lost in 2007. Then Japan would be stuck with the same divided Diet mess it's been in for the past two years.
frontandcentre at 01:03 PM JST - 31st August

What says it all is that the most persuasive argument that the LDP could make against the DPJ was a lack of experience...
escape_artist at 01:03 PM JST - 31st August

Not sure how Hatoyama & co. will do and can only hope the best, but one thing I CAN say about the election is that it keeps people's name kanji up to speed. My wife voted yesterday and was kinda ticked off after she got home because for the party choice she ended up writing a nobody name... one character from the main party in her mind, and the other character from the different party of a candidate in her mind. So she ended up writing a name that sounded sort of like both parties, but neither in the end exactly. A voided vote, in other words. She didn't realize her mistake until right after dropping the paper into the box. I'm sure she wasn't the only one making this kind of error.

Being able to simply circle or otherwise choose from a list of parties and candidates would have been a lot easier (though would be terribly expensive each election for the local and other govts). On the other hand, being forced, even in little ways like this, might help keep the mind young. Who knows?
elbudamexicano at 04:20 PM JST - 31st August

Good point escape artist! My wife is Japanese too, and many of my Japanese friends are complaining about the same thing. This can also be made easier as in Brazil, yes Brazil, where they have done away with any kind of paper ballots. The entire country has gone to the computer age, you just touch the name of the person, party you want to vote for, bingo! No writing, no making silly mistakes, of course they have a correct and cancel, just in case you change your mind.
Curmudgeon at 04:21 PM JST - 31st August

“The results are very severe,” Aso said. “There has been a deep dissatisfaction with our party.”

Talk about not getting it! Taro-sama, it is not necessarily the party that the Japanese people detest; it is you! Just in case it still hasn't sunk in, you lost because of your arrogance, blindness, stupidity and complete lack of humanity.
Shumatsu_Samurai at 06:08 PM JST - 31st August

viking, part of the problem is the bureaucracy, but the main problem are the politicians. The DPJ's plan to increase spending by 17 trillion yen is an example of this. It's not properly funded.

Until Japanese politicians balance the budget (as Fukuda was trying to do but sadly didn't have the chance long-term to do so) problems won't go away.
Simon_Foston at 11:24 PM JST - 31st August

Talk about not getting it! Taro-sama, it is not necessarily the party that the Japanese people detest; it is you! Just in case it still hasn't sunk in, you lost because of your arrogance, blindness, stupidity and complete lack of humanity.

Well, Aso was quite popular until he became Prime Minister and then he suffered the same monumental drop in support as Abe and Fukuda. Obviously he did himself no favours at all, but I think a lot of people were just as sick of the LDP as they were of him, as some comments from LDP leaders themselves indicate:

"It wasn't whether Aso was good or not (as prime minister), it was a matter of the LDP itself. Voters' disappointment at the LDP-led politics triggered (the party's defeat), and that's it." (Former Agriculture Minister Shigeru Ishiba)

I agree with this reflection, personally. After all, it was the LDP Diet members who picked Aso for the job.
realist at 12:17 AM JST - 1st September

Congratulations to the Japanese people for joining the rest of the Free World at last and changing it government! I am completely elated at the demise of Soka Gakkai Alliance of scoundrels frpm political power at last. They vertainly got the comuppance they so richly deserved. Now lets get behind the new government and support them in their efforts to change japan for the better. I hope they start with a Bill of Human Rights, and make discrimination punishable by imprisonment and heavy fines. RThey would rake in plenty of dosh that way.
adm_kenshin at 06:52 PM JST - 2nd September

All of those who are against massive deficit spending: Do you have an alternative that doesn't imply radical reduction of people's living standard?

For those of you suggesting that unemployed should be retrained: retrained for what? There are not enough new jobs to soak up the unemployment, without government creating new ones.

Without deficit spending, the economy would collapse, as the purchasing power of the consumer class is not enough to buy the production of the factories. Still, deficit spending is not a long-term solution, as eventually it will lead to hyperinflation, when foreign countries are no longer interested in buying the debt.

Money, mankind's oldest and most revered tool, have reached its limit. It's time to try something new.

realist: The LDP, for better or worse, have kept Japan rather free actually, at least up until 1999 and the terrorism hysteria. I hope the DPJ will continue with these liberal policies. Otherwise we will get moralist hell as in Sweden.