July 2009 to July 2010 - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 194

consumption tax to 10% once the economy recovered. If Kan s announcement

was an attempt to move on from the money scandals and poor handling of
the Futenma issue that plagued Minshut - , it was certainly e

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ective, as the
media completely dropped these issues. Did they agree, as Kan stressed, that
such issues had been resolved with the resignations of Hatoyama and Ozawa?
The public was less forgiving about the consumption tax than he must have
anticipated. The newly rising star, Minna no T - , bene

tted the greatest from
this in its pledge to not raise the consumption tax; it gained 10 seats (from
zero) in the Upper House election. All the opposition parties, of course, made
much of the fact that Minshut - had pledged less than a year ago that they
would not raise the consumption tax within the next four years. Moreover,
Kan stated that while he would increase the consumption tax, he would lower
the corporate tax. This seemed to be moving the money that people would be
paying extra into the pockets of corporations. In the days leading up to the
election, Kan began to tone down the idea of increasing the consumption tax,
saying that he now promised to not raise it before the next Lower House
election, some three or four years from now. However, the damage was done
and Minshut - experienced a great setback, coming short of a majority.
Another way of looking at this is that by the 2010 Upper House election,
the debates had matured compared to the 2009 election; the question

finally
began to turn towards asking where the money would come from to not only
cover increasing social security costs, but also to simply sustain the current
system, while decreasing the national de cit. Minshut -

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s 2009 populist mani-

festo re ected the disparate political persuasions that existed within the party.

The media did not comment on this until after the election and the political
manoeuvring for the Minshut - leadership election began (see Asahi Shinbun
editorial, 23/08/2010), but it did make arguments used by Komeito supporters
to demonstrate the strength of Komeito policies easy. Minshut - faced the
challenge of pulling these diverse causes together, to establish what kind of
party it was. Moreover, barely a year later the merits of the two-party system,
which had so captured the imagination in the 2009 election, was in tatters.
Not only had new parties formed primarily from splinter groups leaving the
LDP, but it was clear that a more diverse system of political representation to
re ect the diversity of voters was needed.

Young Komeito supporters in the Okinawa 2010 Upper House election

Returning to Okinawa in 2010, I met with the youth division leader, Kubota.
' is ideal is for each person to become happy and for k - sen-rufu.

This makes irresponsible or destructive action taken by people in power
unforgivable

Soka Gakkai '

, reiterated Kubota as he referred to why Soka Gakkai got
involved with politics (interview with Kubota, 8 July 2010). President Toda
had urged the youth division, established in 1954, to have an interest in poli-
tics. Komeito did not exist then, and neither had Toda talked about estab-
lishing a party, but, as Kubota explained, as the members of Soka Gakkai

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