July 2009 to July 2010 - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 171

against the controversial, then Minshut - leader, Ozawa Ichiro, 1 famous for
his masterly skills in political manoeuvring and electoral strategy, but also a

figure largely distrusted by the public. By May 2009 Ozawa was scandal-ridden,
his secretary arrested for the illegal handling of political funds, and he had
been replaced by Hatoyama Yukio who proved to be more popular although
closely associated with Ozawa. Change of leadership was the one factor that
gave Minshut - momentum in the Tokyo Assembly election on 11 July, where
the party gained a majority. The media and the voters apparently were fed-up
with the old bureaucracy-led system of politics that had characterised the
long LDP rule of which Komeito had been so prominent in the last 10 years
as coalition partner. While barely a year earlier Minshut - had looked un

tto
rule, with incoherent domestic polices and foreign policies that were anti-
American, it now looked set to change Japan, stressing its aim to fundamentally
restructure the way politics were conducted by a bureaucracy-led way of pol-
itics (kanry - shud - ). While Minshut - may have remained a coalition of socia-
lists and exiles from the LDP, its more unfocused and less well-thought-through
policies had shaped up by the time of the August 2009 general election.
Against this background, the chapter starts with an ethnography of an
election rally the night before the Tokyo Assembly election, some two and a
half months prior to the decisive Lower House election of August 2009.
Although this was a local election, the overall result was a prelude to an his-
toric shift of power from the LDP to Minshut - . Before the election, Prime
Minster As - denied that the result of local elections would have an e ect on

national elections, but the gains of Minshut - and the losses of the LDP in the
Tokyo Assembly election clearly gave momentum to a drive for seiken k - tai

-
change of government. Just as Koizumi had won the 2005 election on the one
issue of postal privatisation, the call for a change of government now became the
symbol of reform and progress. Just as many voters reacted favourably to
Koizumi

s decisive and charismatic character, many likely voting for him
rather than necessarily because they understood and agreed with the details of
postal privatisation, in 2009 people seemed to vote for the change that Minshut -
had come to represent. This election solidi

'

ed the new two-party system,

finally resulting in the possibility of regular change of power. What would be
Komeito flagging LDP?

This chapter focuses moreover on young Soka Gakkai members in Okinawa
who canvassed for Komeito in 2009 and 2010. Having looked primarily at
Soka University (SU) students in Hachioji and other young people in North
Tokyo in previous chapters, I move to another area of Japan, unique in many
ways, but also the place where Komeito receives the highest percentage of
votes. This is despite the fact that the Soka Gakkai membership is relatively
low, at around 2% compared to the rest of Japan at 8%

' s role within this, by then a 10-year partner to the

9% of the population.
I shall also discuss the decisive shift between these two elections most clearly
represented in Okinawa as the Futenma relocation issue took central stage
after the election of Minshut -

-

in 2009 and for which Minshut - and Kokumin

Shint - (The People ' s New Party, PNP) lost in Okinawa in 2010.