The White Peril 白禍

The LDP has women candidates at the top of its lists for 7 of Japan's 11 proportional representation zones:

In the Tokyo Bloc, the top candidate is Sophia University professor Kuniko Inoguchi. In the Tokai Bloc, Satsuki Katayama, a former Ministry of Finance division director, tops the list, with culinary researcher Makiko Fujino, and private economist Yukari Sato second and third in line, respectively. In the Kinki Bloc, journalist Mitue Kondo, and in the Kyushu Bloc sitting Diet member Kyoko Nishikawa, are at the top.

There are 57 candidates registered only for proportional representation seats and 180 registered for both proportional representation seats and regular district seats. One gets th e feeling--I've been waiting for someone from the LDP to come out and say this, but surprisingly, I haven't heard it yet--that the Koizumi candidate wants its anticipated victory over its enemies to be that much more decisive psychologically if it can be played as a bunch of women beating the old boys' network.

Prime Minister Koizumi is taking a modest view of the significance of his efforts to privatize Japan Post:

Prime Minister Koizumi has christened his recent dissolution of the House of Representatives the "Japan Post-Galileo Dissolution," borrowing the name of Galileo Galilei, the Italian physicist who advanced the idea that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

In response, Shizuka Kamei, a member of the group of Representatives who banded together to vote against the Japan Post privatization bill, shot back, "That guy? He's the Ptolemaic!" What do Galileo scholars think about all of this?

"As a researcher, I wouldn't trot out Galileo comparisons too lightly--that's my unvarnished opinion," said Professor Ichiro Tanaka, a science and technology historian at in the graduate department of natural science research at Kanazawa University and author of Galileo.

The Japanese words here, incidentally, are 地動説 (chidousetsu: "Earth" + "moves" + "argument" --> "heliocentric theory") and 天動説 (tendousetu: "sky" + "moves" + "argument" --> "geocentric theory").

So--is Koizumi about to be excommunicated? Whatever outcome you want from the election, you can, of course, find a poll that supports it. The Yomiuri has this summary of where things stand at this point, which should cheer supporters of the Koizumi cabinet:

"If the LDP continues to do well, we might well end up with fewer than 150 seats out of a total 480," a senior DPJ member said.

"The LDP's divisions over postal reform, led us to believe we were on the eve of grabbing power. But if we lose by a big margin this election, it'll be us, not them, that will be split," he admitted.

The DPJ's fate, as in previous elections, is believed to lie with floating voters. Since the party has long depended on them, DPJ members know that such voters are fickle at best.

Koizumi and the LDP have insisted postal reform is the dominant campaign issue. "We'd like to get pensions back into the limelight. We'll ask people, 'Which is more important, postal services or pensions?' and then win back their attention and support," a senior DPJ member said.

A Yomiuri Shimbun poll Friday found the DPJ had an edge of nearly three percentage points over the LDP among floating voters.

Asked which party they would vote in the election, 11.5 percent of those with no party affiliation said they would vote for the DPJ while 9.2 percent said they would vote for the LDP.

In a Yomiuri survey conducted on Aug. 9, the DPJ was ahead of the LDP by 10.9 percent to 5.6 percent. But the most recent poll, released on Aug. 19, found the LDP ahead of DPJ, 12.5 percent to 11.2 percent.

Of course, there are still two weeks until the election, so there will be plenty more blustering and polling between now and then.

It's interesting that that DPJ guy was talking about potential rifts in his own party. Just today there was this exchange:

LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe said that, assuming the ruling coalition maintained its majority in the House of Representatives, "there will inevitably be a major shift in the political landscape, given that there are many in the DPJ who also support Japan Post privatization." He indicated that his perception was that such developments could cause the DPJ to split. Responding, DPJ leader Katsuya Okada countered, "That's an extremely rude thing to say. Impossible!"

The DPJ also pointed out, naturally, that the LDP also has members who didn't go along party lines.

Much is being made of the fact that the LDP is focusing obsessively on Japan Post privatization, with the opposition parties figuring they can use it to their advantage and win voters over by shifting the discussion to other issues. Perhaps. Not all of Koizumi's policies have been popular, and the communists and social democrats, for example, are trying to capitalize on the possibility that Article 9 of the constitution could be amended to allow for collective self-defense and on the increasing number of workers without positions as regular company employees.

The LDP has some potential tricks up its sleeve, though. It's use of "assassin" candidates is described by the Mainichi here:

The LDP is reportedly planning to place its high profile candidates, referred to in Japanese as "shikaku," or "assassins," high on the party's proportional representation list, basically ensuring them victory in the election.

But candidates standing for re-election to the Lower House, who are likely to face a tough battle in the election, are complaining that the preferential treatment of such candidates is unfair.

The LDP has pitted the high-profile candidates against rival candidates opposed to the postal privatization bills promoted by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

The party's proportional representation list will be released on Aug. 29. If the "assassins" are placed high on the list as expected, the party's leadership is likely to come under fire from party members seeking re-election.

There have been plenty of complaints that the LDP's funkier high-profile candidates are inexperienced politically; pushing them to the top of the proportional representation roster (the list of districts is here in Japanese, BTW) is seen as a kick in the teeth to party loyalists who supported Japan Post privatization but may not win seats in their individual districts. The proportional representation list is to be released tomorrow, so we'll see what it looks like.

BTW, proportional representation, for those who find the Mainichi explanation confusing, involves setting aside 180 lower house seats and 98 upper house seats to be divided among 11 zones (large regions of Japan such as Hokkaido, Tohoku, and Tokyo) rather than little individual districts. Voters select a party to get the proportional representation seats for their zones; each party gets the same proportion of seats as it got votes. The idea is to keep parties that have significant support but didn't win any seats with individual candidates from being shut out of the Diet entirely.

This editorial from the Nikkei raises good, albeit depressing, questions about the plans the two major parties have for Japan Post:

The DPJ plan would maintain Japan Post as a semi-public corporation but lower the cap on savings account balances for a single depositor from the current 10 million yen to 7 million yen by next year, and from there down to 5 million yen over several years, so that the approximate 220 trillion yen now held in postal savings would shrink by half. There would also be some sort of method used to decrease the number of new policyholders for insurance. The party touts its plan as a way of realizing a more definite transfer of capital from the post offices to private banks and insurance companies than the LDP plan would: "A change in the flow of capital from public to private."

That's one way of thinking, but it leaves more than one question open. If the amount of capital contracts greatly, not all of the 26000 regular employees of Japan Post will be needed, but the DPJ plan doesn't say anything clear about personnel reductions. The party says, "Personnel levels will, of course, be adjusted as more workers reach mandatory retirement age," but to the extent that the Japan Post unions and other organizations, which are antipathetic to personnel reductions, are expected to form a layer of support for the party, the plan lacks persuasiveness without concrete proposals for personnel management.

The DPJ plan maintains Japan Post as a semi-governmental corporation but says that it will investigate the full spectrum of options, including integration with federal financial institutions. Privatization is also included among the options. However, if the option of not privatizing Japan Post outright is not selected for now, then there will be no choice but to use money from the profitable deposit and insurance divisions to make up for losses by the postal services division if it once again becomes unprofitable as trends such as e-mail cut into its business. In extreme cases, it's possible that tax money will need to be used to rescue postal services.

Of course, it's not a sure thing that the LDP's privatization plan is going to bring us salvation, either:

On the other hand, the privatization bill to be resubmitted by the LDP would split postal services, savings, and insurance into three separate corporations, then establish a fourth for counter services that would absorb the majority of current post office employees. A holding company would manage these four organizations. Government guarantees on postal savings and insurance would be abolished.

This is privatization in outline, but as a result of compromises with the former Mori faction, added provisions mean that in substance, the three divisions will continue to function as a single monolithic body, and furthermore, and significant government interests will remain.

For example, the holding company is a public entity for which the government will provide more than a third of its capital. On top of that, the holding company will be able to continue to hold shares in the savings and insurance corporations even after March 2017, when the transition to privatization is to be completed. That means there is a real worry the flow of capital from public to private hands will not be effected: government interests in the organizations' financial operations, including where capital is allocated, will remain all along.

This isn't new--I've discussed everything in the above paragraphs in scattered posts from time to time, but it's a good summary.

My.

sainted.

aunt.

Muneo Suzuki, a former Lower House member of the ruling party who is appealing a bribery conviction, on Thursday launched a new political party that he hopes will win him a seat in the Sept 11 election.

Suzuki, 57, said his Sapporo-based Shinto daichi (New party, big land) was planning to win at least two Hokkaido seats in the election.

He said the party, which was named by popular singer Chiharu Matsuyama-a long-time friend of Suzuki's-to symbolize Hokkaido's vast area, would stand for the socially disadvantaged.

"I want the party to be one for the weak and those with no power," Suzuki said. "Politics should work for those who are disadvantaged or regions that are underdeveloped."

The party is planning to come out guns blazing against bureaucratic intervention in politics. It will also campaign to secure Ainu rights as well as the construction of a pipeline to directly import natural gas and petroleum from Russia to the northern island.

Muneo Suzuki was sentenced to two years in prison and millions of yen in fines for...well, I don't think he was charged with breaking and entering, but just about everything else was in there: bribery, bid-rigging, perjury, and fraud among them. His idea of having politics work for "regions that are underdeveloped," naturally, is funneling money into boondoggles that have no potential users. The best that can be said of him is that he was considered a scourge of bureaucrats, but you have to be scraping big old splinters from the bottom of the barrel to come up with that one.

This is 180 degrees opposite from what was being said last week, though rapid changes in strategy are themselves hardly surprising at this juncture:

On 16 August, LDP legislators who opposed the Japan Post privatization bill--including Tamisuke Watanuki, Shizuka Kamei, and Hisaoki Kamei--met in a Tokyo hotel and agreed on the broad outlines for the formation of a new party centered on current members of the lower house who were part of the opposition. After hammering out the party's name and fundamental policy platform, they plan to announce [its formation] on 17 August. Most such members have already firmed up plans to run [in the snap election] unaffiliated, so the new party is likely to have a small-scale start.

For its part, the DPJ released its lower house manifesto yesterday:

On 16 July, the Democratic Party of Japan released its lower house election manifesto (campaign promises). On the subject of Japan Post reform, pitched as the party's major point of contention with Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi, it states that postal savings and insurance "will be reduced to a reasonable scale." Limits on the amount that could be deposited in postal savings would be reduced in stages starting in 2006. Reform to centralize all pensions would be executed by 2008. The battle [of campaign platforms], starting with that over Japan Post and pension reforms, will be beginning in earnest as the parties gear up for the 11 September election.

...

The reduction of limits on postal savings deposits is designed to effect a "reduction of public financing." Among the provisions: capitalization through postal savings accounts (which now hold a total of ¥330 trillion) will be halved within 8 years by reducing the per-depositor limit from ¥10 million to ¥7 million, then over the subsequent several years to ¥50 million.

"Public financing" refers, of course, to the investment of citizens' savings in pet government projects, many of which are of questionable public utility. There's no word on whether the DPJ plans to address organizational inefficiency at Japan Post, but then, even the LDP caved when it came to reductions in the number of outlets and personnel.

The LDP may pursue an aggressive strategy regarding Japan Post privatization:

The Liberal Democratic Party hopes to pass the postal privatization bills during a special Diet session to be convened after the House of Representatives election if the ruling coalition retains its majority, sources close to the party said Sunday.

The party plans to resubmit the bills, which were rejected by the House of Councillors, to a special Diet session for an extended debate on the bills, the sources said.

It is unusual for bills to be debated at a special Diet session.

With Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi having touted the postal privatization bills as the key election issue, the LDP felt it was necessary to make clear its determination to pass the bills as soon as possible, the sources said.

A special Diet session, which elects the prime minster, speaker and vice speaker, does not usually deliberate on bills.

In related news, the Nikkei reports tersely that Shizuka Kamei has resigned as head of his faction. Kamei was one of Koizumi's rivals for selection as Prime Minister four years ago; he was also one of Koizumi's most visible opponents in the debate over Japan Post privatization. Kamei had removed the faction's secretaries general from their positions last month when the pair voted in favor of the bill. The Kamei faction accounted for the largest number of opposing LDP votes in the House of Councillors.

Added a few minutes later: I don't have the news on, so I haven't seen Kamei's press conference; as always, the Nikkei's on-line story is being added to:

After his announcement, Kamei stated to the press corps that the reason for his resignation was that "my faction members have been put in a painful position" because the LDP has decided not to back current members of the Diet in the lower house election if they voted against the Japan Post privatization bill. He also explained, "We were unable to stop the reign of terror conducted by Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi."

It's hard to fault legislators who vote against laws they don't think are a good idea. On the other hand, Koizumi is attempting reforms that hit so many powerful beneficiaries where they hurt that you can't blame him for feeling the need to play hardball politics, either. It will be interesting to see what happens. The Mainichi has conducted another poll and says that public support of the cabinet is still rising. Those who didn't support it most frequently cited the slowness of economic recovery as their reason. Koizumi and his strategists have failed to give the public clear, easily digestible reasons that Japan Post privatization would be a real help in that regard. Whether they're going to change their approach now is anyone's guess.

Interesting, this:

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi upped the ante in his war against party rebels by instructing that priority be given to fielding female candidates in the Lower House election next month.

The strategy started to take shape with a decision by ruling Liberal Democratic Party executives on Thursday to field Satsuki Katayama as its candidate in the Shizuoka No. 7 constituency. The seat is held by Minoru Kiuchi, 40, one of the party's 37 rebel lawmakers who voted against Koizumi's postal reform bills.

What's the reasoning, I wonder? Are LDP strategists trying to get out the housewife/single woman vote? Do they just feel that female talent hasn't been sufficiently tapped and that this is a good opportunity to make a statement about the party's values? Koizumi's stated reason is this:

Regarding the backing of female candidates, The Prime Minister told the press corps, "[The move is] because there are very few women members of the Diet. I want those who rise to be the most competent people possible."

Fair enough. I'm sure he means it. It seems likely that the strategy is also part of an effort to change the party's image. Koizumi sees himself--and has pitched himself--as a revolutionary. More visible women in positions of power would help dispel the impression that the failure of the Japan Post privatization bill to pass means that the LDP is still under the control of well-connected old men who are tied to the old patronage system.

*******

Speaking of women politicians--the Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade 2005 was held here in Tokyo yesterday. I didn't watch and, of course, it got next to zero news coverage as always. The Mainichi did report on it tangentially, though:

The Mainichi has learned that Osaka Prefectural Assemblywoman Kanako Otsuji (30) plans to participate in the Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade on 13 August, coming out in public as a homosexual herself. Her autobiography is also to be published soon. It is extremely rare for sitting elected officials to come out in public as homosexual. Assemblywoman Otsuji stated, "Because of discrimination and prejudice, gays frequently haven't made themselves known. I hope that, by making myself visible as gay, I can throw the issue into relief and put and end to the vicious cycle of discrimination and prejudice."

I assume Otsuji made the announcement yesterday; no one was talking about the parade when I went out last night, but as I say, it isn't really an attention getter. More power to her. The image of gays in the Japanese media is very much on the freakishly-funny end of the spectrum. If Otsuji is able to be charmingly ordinary and gets a reasonable amount of coverage for her book, she could do a lot of good.

The Mainichi has done a poll that indicates the electorate is turned on by Prime Minister Koizumi's implacability in the face of the opponents who defeated his Japan Post privatization bill:

The Mainichi conducted a rapid nationwide opinion survey (by telephone) on 8 and 9 July, [to gauge reaction to] the news that Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi had gone ahead with his threat to dissolve the lower house of the Diet. Support for the Koizumi cabinet was at 46%, up 9 points from last month's poll, in which the figure (37%) had been the lowest ever. In contrast, non-support was at 37%, 3 points down. Additionally, the 54% of respondents who said they "agreed" with the dissolution of the lower house far outnumbered the 36% who said they "opposed" it. And with respect to the results of the 11 September lower house snap election, 50% said they "hoped for an administration with the LDP as ruling party," outnumbering the 35% who said they "hoped for an administration with the DPJ as ruling party."

Interestingly for a cabinet with a carefully cultivated young-upstart image, the Koizumi administration got its highest level of support, when broken down by respondents' ages, among those in their 60s. Jun-kun also isn't just for housewives to swoon over anymore: 52% of men and 43% of women support the cabinet according to the Mainichi survey.

We can't take polls at face value, of course; but allowing for give in the figures, is the Mainichi tracking something significant? I think it may be. Koizumi was elected as a reformer--he was the broom that was going to sweep away corruption and waste. The bank clean-up worked better than expected. The Yasukuni Shrine visits in and of themselves don't sit well with voters, but I suspect that to many people they represent a real, if impolitic, devotion to his country. Privatization of the postal service was one of his key reforms. He did not, as members of his own cabinet have pointed out, bring a lucid explanation to the average voter of why it was necessary to move from the existing semi-governmental Japan Post corporation to a fully-privatized set of institutions, but the public has at least been able to recognize the move as part of his effort to uproot the fat-cat LDP old guard.

Simply put, the Japanese people seem to like Koizumi when he's being a stubborn pain in the ass. They don't like when he caves to pressure and does the politically expedient thing, such as cutting off Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka (who, remember, was more popular than Koizumi with the public before his 2001 selection as PM). Koizumi said last month that the LDP would not support the reelection of any Representative who voted against Japan Post privatization, and he seems to mean it.

It's only fair to note that the Yomiuri's poll, also conducted this week, showed less support for Koizumi than the Mainichi's:

Fifty-two percent of the respondents thought it was inevitable that Koizumi should dissolve the lower house after the postal bills were voted down Monday, while 35 percent said they did not think it was inevitable.

Asked who should be blamed for the dissolution, however, the number of those who said Koizumi should be blamed, at 39 percent, was close to that of those who said the responsibility lay with LDP members who rebelled against Koizumi, at 41 percent.

Among LDP supporters, 57 percent criticized the LDP rebels. But among independent voters, who are seen as the key to the election, those who said Koizumi was to be blamed recorded the highest percentage, at 43 percent.

The respondents' opinions were close again when asked if they wanted Koizumi to keep his post if the LDP was voted back in power--46 percent said they wanted Koizumi to remain as prime minister, while 43 percent said they did not. Among independent voters, 53 percent opposed Koizumi's retaining his post.

This result is another sign of the fall in Koizumi's popularity because in an interview-style Yomiuri Shimbun survey conducted before the previous lower house election, 55 percent of respondents said they wanted Koizumi to continue as prime minister.

Those who wanted the LDP to retain power after the dissolution, at 43 percent, surpassed those who preferred the Democratic Party of Japan to take power, at 33 percent.

Who's right? As I say, I think the Mainichi is likely to prove closer to the mark, and largely because of a phenomenon (let's cite all the dailies today, shall we?) that the Asahi notes: Koizumi is great at confounding his opponents, and they suck royally at banding together to push back at him because there's too much else they disagree on. The talk of a new party--against the entrenched LDP old timers but not as extreme in reformism as Koizumi's cabinet--hasn't come to anything. Even if Koizumi doesn't get, as he wants, new LDP candidates to run against every LDP Representative who voted against Japan Post privatization, he may still have leverage he can use to bring some of the dissenters back into line.

BTW, Koizumi's latest gambit is still causing his mentor, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, grief. Whether Koizumi or his more cautious friends are in touch with reality, it's too early to judge. The next month should make for some lively NHK news broadcasts, though!

Added on 11 August: The Nikkei's poll shows, naturally, yet different results:

In a rapid nationwide opinion survey conducted by the Nikkei on 9 and 10 August, support for the Koizumi cabinet was at 47%, up 4 points from the previous survey in July. Non-support was 6 points down, to 37% percent. Regarding the non-passage of the Japan Post privatization bill by the upper house, 47% of respondents said they "support Prime Minister Koizumi['s position]," outnumbering the 36% who said they "supported the LDP opposition['s position]." About the make-up of the administration that results from the upcoming lower house election, 47% of respondents expressed hope that the administration would be led by the LDP in some configuration, with just 31% hoping for leadership from the DPJ.

Added on 13 August: Japundit has posted in more detail about which cabinet members are proposed to go up against which privatization foes.

The Japan Post privatization bill has been voted down by the upper house of the Diet; Koizumi pledges to dissolve the lower house and call new elections on 11 September. There were 22 LDP votes against the bill, 4 more than the 18 required for it not to pass. The final total was 108 for, 125 against. It's the only thing NHK is talking about right now, naturally, but there's nothing really enlightening being said. The main noise in the House of Councillors' chamber after the tally was announced sounded like cheering, naturally.

Given the pressure the party leadership had put on LDP legislators to vote in favor, I'm sure some of those who weren't cheering were still feeling inward relief. There had not been much effort to get voters behind the bill, and those constituents that did voice opinions--such as, you know, the postal workers' unions--didn't support it. Ditto, of course, for the unelected officials in the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which oversee the current semi-governmental Japan Post corporation. Japan Post privatization has been presented in public all along as an example of the rifts in the LDP; it fulfilled that role to the end. The next month or so promises to be interesting.

Added at 16:00: As Atsushi just remarked to me while NHK's camera panned the assembled cabinet, the Prime Minister decided against cool biz today (though Heizo Takenaka and another minister or two are tie-less), and man, were they wearing some sour expressions.

Added at 11:59: Much hot air emitted since this afternoon. Few surprises. Koizumi has vowed that the lower house members who voted against the Japan Post privatization bill will not be supported by the LDP in the upcoming snap election. Otherwise, mostly a reaffirmation of positions by those whose talking heads have appeared for months.

BTW, it's worth noting in all the brouhaha that the point to which Japan had progressed before todays set of documents was formulated represented no small feat. The 2001 reorganization of the federal ministries involved the dissolution of the Trust Fund Agency of the Ministry of Finance, to which all Postal Savings deposits had theretofore been required to be routed. Granted, the creation of the Japan Post semi-governmental corporation didn't solve the spending problems, either on pork-barrel public works projects or on government bonds, but at least it let some light and air into the shadow budget. These things take time.

The Japan Post privatization bill has made it through committee in the House of Councillors and will go to the floor at the Monday plenary meeting. Every legislator and his grandmother has been interviewed on NHK today; no one said anything enlightening or new.

It's helpful to remember, BTW, that the bill that the upper house is getting is different in a lot of significant ways from the original proposal--and from what you'd normally think of as privatization. There will be a semi-governmental holding company (essentially the existing Japan Post central organization) and four individual companies for counter services, actual mail transport and delivery, savings accounts, and insurance.

The government will not be required to sell its shares in the provider companies by 2017 as had originally been proposed, which allows plenty of time for chummy relationships between officials and top managers to form. In fact, they'll be there from the get-go. Additionally, the ability for companies to engage in mutual shareholding has not been precluded.

There's also a government fund of ¥2 trillion that's to be used to insulate the service providers against losses from the providing of deliveries and financial services to rural areas. The official line is that it can only be used to bail out local providers that are going under, and that probably is the intention; but critics say it could be used to allow Japan Post spinoff companies to undercut private providers. (Is it time for a reference to the California energy fiasco? I think it is.)

Furthermore, the idea that Ministry of Finance officials who have depended on the money in postal savings--all ¥250 trillion of it--as part of the shadow budget are just going to sit back and watch while it disappears is hard to swallow; and then there's the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which more directly controls the post-ier part of Japan Post.

Of course, the privatization bill has meaning as a symbolic gesture as well as a concrete move to reform a given set of public services. We'll have to wait and see whether it ends up being more symbolic than concrete. Well, we'll have to wait and see whether the bill passes at all.

You know you're in Japan when a news report contains this passage:

Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Yoji Nagaoka was found hanged at his home in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, on Monday, police said.

Nagaoka's wife found the 54-year-old House of Representatives member just after 10 a.m. He was taken to a hospital in Mitaka, Tokyo, but was pronounced dead at 12:16 p.m., the Metropolitan Police Department said.

The MPD suspects Nagaoka committed suicide, and is investigating whether he left a suicide note.

...

As Nagaoka is only the sixth Diet member to have committed suicide since the end of World War II, there has been considerable speculation about why he chose to take his own life, with some suspecting the split inside the LDP over the postal privatization vote was a factor.

Wow. Only the sixth Diet member to commit suicide since WWII, huh? Those Diet members really deserve a commendation for their spectacular suicide-avoidance program!

Why is it that the Japan Post privatization may have pushed Nagaoka over the edge? Several reasons. Koizumi and his cabinet have staked a lot of political capital on Japan Post privatization, and they've been leaning on legislators any way they can. In the opposite direction, unelected officials have a lot of pull, and rural postal workers are very important to the LDP in elections. (That's something that's rarely commented on at length, even in discussions of this particular bill, but one of the major dailies had a very good article about it the other day. Wouldn't you know it, I can't find the link, but when I do, I'll post it.) NHK reported last week that postal workers have been lobbying legislators so forcefully that the head of the union had to tell them to lay off before they started spooking people too much. In rural areas, the post offices help to mobilize voters for LDP candidates; many Diet members feel directly beholden to Japan Post workers in their districts. Most Diet members from the ruling coalition say they plan to vote in line with the party, but there are, at least according to the Asahi, 12 who firmly oppose the bill. (That's up from 8 a few weeks ago.) Given that just about everyone else basically plans to vote against, and that 18 LDP votes against is the magic number that will deep six the bill, the 6 who say they're undecided are having a rough time of it. Koizumi is still aiming to have the bill voted on in the House of Councillors plenary session the day after tomorrow.