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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 1d

(Normally when politicians go nuts for internal score settling it's due to being stuck in a bubble where that stuff plays very well and failing to see how badly it sits with the broader public... But Aso, I think, just does it for the love of the game.)

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 1d

That's really the only kind of politics Aso has ever known, so it's pretty unsurprising. The closer to the levers of power he is, the more likely that the party descends into in-fighting and score-settling - all while being totally mystified that this somehow isn't delighting the electorate.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 3d

(I mean that literally - it sounds like local party meetings have been absolutely miserable for a lot of lawmakers in recent years, to the point where even more of them than usual are trying to make excuses to stay in Tokyo and skip constituency events.)

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 3d

I'm not sure they were spooked by Takaichi last year, so much as by how mad their base was about the Abe Faction scandals; hence being willing to vote for the only guy in the room who clearly had scrupulously clean hands. Trying to stop their base from yelling at them is the common denominator.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

Given the climate the LDP faces Koizumi may come to see this as a bullet dodged, but I bet this evening there’s a lot of anger at Hayashi in that camp - if he hadn’t split the first-round vote so much the vibes in the run-off would have been very different.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

It strikes me that the instant second vote - no time for analysis, negotiation, or calming jangling nerves - favours knee-jerk responses. Lawmakers who'd spent weeks thinking about their first round choices saw Takaichi outperform polling in local chapter votes and had to make snap decisions.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

VVD another perfect example of why watching this with any knowledge of European politics has been so tooth-grindingly frustrating - we've seen this exact scenario play out between centre-right parties and far-right challengers in a dozen countries and it never turns out any differently.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

They'd definitely prefer not to, but it really depends what kind of agenda Takaichi decides to pursue. The coalition has been rocky for a while, and if she freezes them out over key issues in favour of trying to find votes from Ishin and Kokumin, it'll be hard to justify sticking with it.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

A meme format from Arrested Development. Two characters are speaking; one asks the other, "how about we try to win back votes from a populist right-wing party by publicly legitimising and agreeing with their agenda?" The other responds, "well, did it work for those people?" The first character replies, "No, it never does, I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but... but it might work for us."

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

I’ve spent too much time down in the weeds with the conspiracists, because I do wonder a little if some lawmakers saw this as a chance to take an awkward, divisive figure off the board by handing her a thoroughly poisoned chalice.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

I’m not sure how exactly but I’m pretty sure Taylor Swift’s new album is to blame for this.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

At a guess the next election is going to deliver an absolute mess of a Diet. No opposition party seems to have the capacity to look like a competent government-in-waiting, but the LDP is very likely to lose even more ground nonetheless. It’s a recipe for serious instability.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

(The party that does actually lose their raison d'etre from this is Hoshuto, but they're already mid-collapse anyway so it probably doesn't make much difference.)

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

I agree, though I wouldn't underestimate just how bad some of these people are at the kind of strategic thinking required for minority government. I do think they'll try to maintain a cordon around Sanseito, at least at first, but wouldn't be too surprised if they break it quite often.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

I don't think she'll try to work with Sanseito - Ishin is more likely. She's a boon to Sanseito though, even if she and her supporters seem to believe, naively, that her being in charge somehow negates Sanseito's raison d'etre.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

Unless Takaichi as LDP leader can show a side of herself that's never been apparent in her career to date, this is going to be a disaster. Lots of very glum faces among the senior LDP faces up on stage right now; they no doubt suspect that the turkeys just voted for Christmas.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

Takaichi wins, with Koizumi falling surprisingly short in the lawmaker votes - he didn't even win all of Hayashi's votes.

Probably in part down to lawmakers not wanting to ignore the constituency votes, but also a pretty clear sign of a party running scared of populist challenges from its right.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

The expectation now would be that most of Hayashi's votes will transfer to Koizumi, while most of Motegi and Kobayashi's votes will transfer to Takaichi, which would give Koizumi a narrow win. It won't be quite so tidy - lots of personality factors and loyalties of various kinds are also in play.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

Takaichi and Koizumi go into a runoff, as expected. Her popularity with the rank and file was key - she won over 40% of membership votes (Koizumi got 28%).

Weird upsets do happen in the runoffs, but note that Takaichi didn't even come second in her colleagues' votes - she was third behind Hayashi.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

FWIW, I don't think it's a consistent pattern in every local party - some of them have leadership that's kept a much more firm grip on the culture of the organisation. I do wonder if that will be reflected to some degree in skewed leadership election results between districts.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

Party membership votes don't count for much in the run-off, and it's hard to see lawmakers opting for her: even if they're nervous about the threat of Sanseito, she's by far the most likely candidate to collapse the fragile minority government arrangement and force a disastrous early election.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

I've seen suggestions that declining membership is bad for Takaichi because it implies defections to Sanseito etc.; I'm not convinced. Anecdotally, I've heard of insiders bemoaning older, more moderate members abandoning party meetings increasingly dominated by Twitter-brained conspiracy theorists.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

Takaichi is almost certain to make it to a run-off round, though, as she remains popular with local party members (who have skewed hard right since the pandemic). One striking figure is that there are ~140,000 less party members voting this time than a year ago - membership is in freefall.

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Rob Fahey @robfahey.net · 4d

The campaigning for today's LDP leadership election has largely been very dull, enlivened only by Takaichi speed-running the Kemi Badenoch "politics is when you see stuff on Twitter and then make a speech insisting it's true" path to insanity. Most predictions seem to think it's Koizumi's moment.

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Reposted by Rob Fahey

Tobias Harris @tobiasharris.bsky.social · 4d

We're less than two hours from the start of voting for the next LDP leader. I made a little cheat sheet.

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