July 2009 to July 2010 - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 192

Futenma outside of Okinawa before the August 2009 election. Yet his promise
of cash hand-outs to families with children and tax-free expressways were
even more attractive despite the media and various groups in Okinawa
making the relocation of Futenma the most important political issue after the
election. Indeed, in the wake of the historic change of power, Prime Minister
Hatoyama spent the next eight months seeking an alternative site for the
controversial base. Having made a rather too hasty promise as a party in
opposition, he returned to the original LDP plan to relocate Futenma to the
coastal area of Nago. Hatoyama now not only incurred the wrath of the
locals in Henoko, but of the whole of Okinawa who now saw him as having
betrayed them (uraginakanji). People in Okinawa who had voted for Min-
shut - in 2009 when Hatoyama made his grand promise to move Futenma
outside the prefecture, felt that no other party had treated them with so much
disrespect (Okinawajin baka ni shite). As a result, Minshut - , which had been
so popular in 2009, gave up even

fielding a candidate in Okinawa in 2010,
and Kokumin Shint - , its coalition partner, failed to win any seats despite its
now well-known politician Shimoji being from Okinawa. When Kan Naoto
became prime minister, he sharply toned down Minshut - s previous, more

assertive stance toward the USA. Some 10 months later, leading up to the
2010 Upper House election, the issue of Futenma was back to square one and
the atmosphere of euphoric hopes for change of the previous year had com-
pletely changed. Where the LDP and Komeito candidates lost in 2009, they
now both won in Okinawa and elsewhere.
Moreover, Minshut -

'

'

s politically astute but economically unsustainable
strategy in 2009 of promising tax cuts and an increase in ts

became painfully obvious through a sudden statement by the new Prime
Minister Kan just before the 2010 election that the consumption tax would
have to increase to 10%. While this had the e

financial bene

ect of shifting media attention
abruptly away from the money scandals embroiling the previous two top
politicians in Minshut - , who had just stepped down from their positions as
prime minister and secretary-general, this greatly back red in the election to

come. Kan was the second prime minister in less than nine months following
Hatoyama who was now visibly embroiled in thinly covered-up illegal poli-
tical donations and a dismal performance as prime minister. During the
election of 2009, when Minshut - was on everyone

' s lips, Ikeda had talked

about the meaning of minsh - - the people, or democracy (minshushugi). At

the July Headquarters leaders meeting broadcast at Soka Gakkai centres

nationwide during an event in which Ikeda also received an honorary doc-
torate from the Federal University of Rondonia, Brazil, primarily as recogni-
tion for Soka Gakkai International (SGI)-Brazil

'

' se orts to help preserve the

rainforest, he talked about minsh - . ' Who are the sovereigns of life who tri-

flourish in every age? The ordinary people (minsh - )

umph and fighting with a

sincere commitment to truth and justice (Ikeda, 16 July 2009). Bringing up

such discussions about the nature of minsh - as

'

fighting for truth and justice, a
central theme in Soka Gakkai and by no means a new topic, must have