The DPJ suffers defeat at the polls

Before the earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11th there was considerable speculation that the prime minister, Naoto Kan of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), might call a snap election for the House of Representatives (the lower house of parliament), in the hope of gaining an electoral mandate that would enable him to act more decisively in terms of policymaking. The odds of the electorate rejecting his leadership were of course high, so he probably would only have gone to the polls as a last resort-if, for example, the senior leaders of the ruling DPJ demanded that he do so. Yet even as the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear debacle forced the parliamentary parties to put aside their differences and work together, so too have they precluded the holding of an early poll. Conducting a fair national contest, after all, requires that people everywhere are able to prove their identity, register and go to polling stations to cast their votes. These preconditions cannot be met when around 500,000 refugees are living in high school gymnasiums, civic centers and other makeshift residential facilities. Local elections, however, are another matter. The first round of previously scheduled prefectural and municipal polls was thus staged on April 10th, and their results revealed considerable dissatisfaction with Mr Kan's recent performance. Candidates backed by the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party-itself a relatively unpopular political movement-defeated those preferred by the DPJ in all three gubernatorial contests in which the two parties competed directly, and the ruling party additionally lost some 70 seats in various municipal assemblies. Exit polls reported that the reasons for this electoral repudiation were continuing concern about the government's competence and a general dissatisfaction with the prime minister's failure to bring the nuclear saga to a conclusion. Although it is difficult to see how any other leader could have mastered the events that have unfolded in Tohoku, the outcome of the election has given more ammunition to those who dislike Mr Kan and who are seeking his ouster. No major changes are likely to occur until the nuclear situation in Japan has stabilised somewhat, but the auspices do not appear favorable in terms of a lengthy continuation of the prime minister's tenure in office.