Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010

Phil Couzens

When the Democratic Party of Japan was elected to power last August, it promised sweeping and ambitious reforms to the country’s political system. The resignation of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama less than nine months later, however, may have seemed to indicate the opposite: that it would take more than a change in the ruling party to solve the crisis in Japanese politics.

Yet the facts tell a different story. Over the course of the last ten months, there have been as many positive changes as there have been setbacks. The July 11 Upper House election ought to be a referendum on whether the DPJ’s reforms have gone far enough, and whether they should continue. The worry is that media criticism and the actions of Japan’s public prosecutors will turn it into something different.

Since coming to power, the DPJ has often struggled to get its version of the truth across. When members of the Cabinet have contradicted each other—most recently Financial Services Minister Shizuka Kamei, who resigned after the government refused to extend parliament in order to pass his postal reform package—it is often seen as in-house bickering. But could it be something else? In a country that has spent decades under the control of a bureaucrat-led government that makes decisions behind closed doors, public debate marks a significant change.

Take the work of Renho and the Government Revitalization Unit. Under the DPJ, something previously unimaginable happened: the public was able to observe the decision-making process behind government spending cuts. Not through news releases, but live on TV.

For the first time in history, open government is becoming a reality in Japan. Indeed, things have now gone sufficiently far that no matter which party comes out on top in the upper house election, any future governments will be judged by the benchmark set during the past year. The public has seen an increase in transparency, and it won’t look kindly on any attempt to roll this back.

To be fair, the media hasn’t ignored these achievements, but its attention has often been elsewhere. Hatoyama’s downfall is generally blamed on the controversy over Futenma Air Base, but the coverage that he and former DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa received after taking power also played an important role in the collapse of the cabinet.

Within days of the DPJ’s election win, a story began to circulate about the new first lady, Miyuki Hatoyama, and her claims to have traveled to Venus in a UFO. The only thing stranger than the story itself—which was picked up by both domestic and international media—was its timing: Miyuki’s comments had been made a year earlier. 

Ozawa also had it rough. Widely considered the mastermind behind the governing party, he was dogged by public prosecutors before the election over illicit funds. Nothing unusual there, perhaps, but this was different from previous political scandals in that the prosecutors informed the media prior to taking any action—meaning that the press were ready and waiting at the scene every time. 

The politician known as the “Shadow Shogun” didn’t help with his contradictory statements and brash manner, of course. His belligerent response to criticisms of a meeting he had arranged between the Emperor and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping last December is a case in point. 

For now, though, Ozawa is out of the picture—something veteran commentator Karel van Wolferen believes has as much to do with the media as any possible wrongdoings. Writing in the literary magazine Chuo Koron earlier this year, the journalist and professor noted “a state of hysteria among some editors, giving the impression that it has become a personal vendetta for them.”

With Prime Minister Naoto Kan riding high in the opinion polls, the Upper House election may not prove as disastrous for the DPJ as some had feared towards the end of Hatoyama’s tenure. But after a grueling year, even if the new prime minister manages to steer the DPJ to control of both houses of the Diet, further challenges from the media and prosecutors may mean he has merely won a battle, rather than the war.