Tokyo:
Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Sunday that he will not resign, even as vote tallies increasingly indicated that his Democratic Party was heading for a major political setback in a midterm election widely seen as a referendum on the struggling nine-month-old government.
With many districts reporting at least 80 percent of the vote counted in the Upper House election, the Democrats were trailing behind the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, with neither party likely to gain a majority of the 121 seats being contested.
The results, if they hold up with further tallying, would be an embarrassing reversal for the Democrats, which last year ended the Liberal Democrats' long grip on power with a historic election victory, but then got mired in money scandals and a dispute over an American air base.
The Democrats are not in danger of losing control of the government, since they have a comfortable majority in the more powerful Lower House, but analysts said the vote showed growing disappointment with the new governing party's apparent inability to deliver on its promises of change. They credited the Liberal Democrats' apparently strong showing after months of disarray to its still formidable local vote-gathering machines, though the gains also appeared to be a protest vote against the Democrats.
Opinion polls had predicted a tough race for the Democrats, who suffered as the popularity of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plummeted. Mr. Hatoyama, who resigned last month, was widely criticized for indecisiveness and weak leadership. The party then voted in Mr. Kan, who quickly lost popularity after proposing an increase of the national consumption tax and then waffling, raising questions about his and his party's leadership and ability to guide the ailing economic giant out of its long stagnation.
"No one expected it to be as bad as this," said Naoko Taniguchi, a professor of political sociology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. "Kan was trying to be a resolute leader, but mishandled it."
A failure to control the Upper House could result in a split Parliament, possibly making it difficult for the Democrats to advance their agenda of strengthening social welfare and clipping the wings of the nation's powerful bureaucracy.
To win a majority, the Democrats need to secure 60 seats, which seemed almost impossible Sunday night. Japan's national broadcaster, N.H.K., using actual results and its own projections in still contested races, showed the Democrats with 40 of the 121 seats being contested and just 13 seats still up for grabs. The Liberal Democratic Party, or L.D.P., had secured 49 seats, with the rest going to smaller parties.
"Voters are going to the polls asking themselves, 'Should we give them a second chance?' " said Tadaoki Nogami, an independent political analyst. "The Democrats are not doing well, but look at the alternatives."
If the Democrats fail to gain a majority in the Upper House, they may be forced to seek a coalition partner.
One possibility is a grand coalition with the L.D.P., whose election platform was very similar to the Democrats', including the call for a consumption tax increase. Failure to form a coalition could result in renewed political paralysis, and possibly pressure to dissolve parliament and call for new elections, political experts said.
But a Democratic official said Sunday that the party may instead ask opposition parties to cooperate on a policy-by-policy basis, Reuters reported.
Voters casting ballots at a fire station in Yokohama, a city outside Tokyo, agreed that the Democrats had stumbled since taking office. But they were divided on whether to support them.
Mineko Tokumasu, a 79-year-old tobacco shop owner, said the party should be given a reprieve.
"I think it's too early to judge the Democratic Party," she said. "You cannot change something like the bureaucracy in just nine months."
Other voters said they were already fed up with the country's new leaders.
"Hatoyama could not gain the confidence of the people because he just talked about ideals but lacked the skill to put them into reality," said Yoshifumi Shimura, 56, a transportation industry worker. He said he voted for the L.D.P. after supporting the Democrats in the last election.
In fact, many had expected this election to be an easy victory for the Democrats, who had seen a rebound in popularity after Mr. Kan, a plain-spoken former social activist, replaced the unpopular Mr. Hatoyama.
But Mr. Kan saw his approval ratings quickly drop, first by proposing a tax increase ahead of an election -- a political no-no in almost any country -- and then by seeming to waffle when the proposal proved predictably unpopular among Japanese voters.
The apparent flip-flopping appeared to raise broader doubts here about whether the inexperienced Democrats can actually turn themselves into an effective governing party. Winning confidence on this point has been a challenge for a party that until last year had been a seemingly permanent opposition group made up of L.D.P. defectors and former socialists.
Indeed, this election is already history-making in one regard: This is the first time since the mid-1950s that a party other than the L.D.P. has been the incumbent party going into a national election.
During the campaign, Mr. Kan ran on a platform that called for the strengthening of Japan's social safety net while using revenue from the tax hike to invest in job-creating industries like medical care and new energy.
He seemed to avoid foreign policy issues after his predecessor was forced to resign over his mishandling of a dispute with Washington over a U.S. military base on Okinawa.
The focus on pocketbook issues appeared to be part of the party's strategy to regain credibility with voters.
"This election is about whether voters have confidence in the Democratic Party," said Goshi Hosono, the party's deputy secretary general.
With many districts reporting at least 80 percent of the vote counted in the Upper House election, the Democrats were trailing behind the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, with neither party likely to gain a majority of the 121 seats being contested.
The results, if they hold up with further tallying, would be an embarrassing reversal for the Democrats, which last year ended the Liberal Democrats' long grip on power with a historic election victory, but then got mired in money scandals and a dispute over an American air base.
The Democrats are not in danger of losing control of the government, since they have a comfortable majority in the more powerful Lower House, but analysts said the vote showed growing disappointment with the new governing party's apparent inability to deliver on its promises of change. They credited the Liberal Democrats' apparently strong showing after months of disarray to its still formidable local vote-gathering machines, though the gains also appeared to be a protest vote against the Democrats.
Opinion polls had predicted a tough race for the Democrats, who suffered as the popularity of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plummeted. Mr. Hatoyama, who resigned last month, was widely criticized for indecisiveness and weak leadership. The party then voted in Mr. Kan, who quickly lost popularity after proposing an increase of the national consumption tax and then waffling, raising questions about his and his party's leadership and ability to guide the ailing economic giant out of its long stagnation.
"No one expected it to be as bad as this," said Naoko Taniguchi, a professor of political sociology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. "Kan was trying to be a resolute leader, but mishandled it."
A failure to control the Upper House could result in a split Parliament, possibly making it difficult for the Democrats to advance their agenda of strengthening social welfare and clipping the wings of the nation's powerful bureaucracy.
To win a majority, the Democrats need to secure 60 seats, which seemed almost impossible Sunday night. Japan's national broadcaster, N.H.K., using actual results and its own projections in still contested races, showed the Democrats with 40 of the 121 seats being contested and just 13 seats still up for grabs. The Liberal Democratic Party, or L.D.P., had secured 49 seats, with the rest going to smaller parties.
"Voters are going to the polls asking themselves, 'Should we give them a second chance?' " said Tadaoki Nogami, an independent political analyst. "The Democrats are not doing well, but look at the alternatives."
If the Democrats fail to gain a majority in the Upper House, they may be forced to seek a coalition partner.
One possibility is a grand coalition with the L.D.P., whose election platform was very similar to the Democrats', including the call for a consumption tax increase. Failure to form a coalition could result in renewed political paralysis, and possibly pressure to dissolve parliament and call for new elections, political experts said.
But a Democratic official said Sunday that the party may instead ask opposition parties to cooperate on a policy-by-policy basis, Reuters reported.
Voters casting ballots at a fire station in Yokohama, a city outside Tokyo, agreed that the Democrats had stumbled since taking office. But they were divided on whether to support them.
Mineko Tokumasu, a 79-year-old tobacco shop owner, said the party should be given a reprieve.
"I think it's too early to judge the Democratic Party," she said. "You cannot change something like the bureaucracy in just nine months."
Other voters said they were already fed up with the country's new leaders.
"Hatoyama could not gain the confidence of the people because he just talked about ideals but lacked the skill to put them into reality," said Yoshifumi Shimura, 56, a transportation industry worker. He said he voted for the L.D.P. after supporting the Democrats in the last election.
In fact, many had expected this election to be an easy victory for the Democrats, who had seen a rebound in popularity after Mr. Kan, a plain-spoken former social activist, replaced the unpopular Mr. Hatoyama.
But Mr. Kan saw his approval ratings quickly drop, first by proposing a tax increase ahead of an election -- a political no-no in almost any country -- and then by seeming to waffle when the proposal proved predictably unpopular among Japanese voters.
The apparent flip-flopping appeared to raise broader doubts here about whether the inexperienced Democrats can actually turn themselves into an effective governing party. Winning confidence on this point has been a challenge for a party that until last year had been a seemingly permanent opposition group made up of L.D.P. defectors and former socialists.
Indeed, this election is already history-making in one regard: This is the first time since the mid-1950s that a party other than the L.D.P. has been the incumbent party going into a national election.
During the campaign, Mr. Kan ran on a platform that called for the strengthening of Japan's social safety net while using revenue from the tax hike to invest in job-creating industries like medical care and new energy.
He seemed to avoid foreign policy issues after his predecessor was forced to resign over his mishandling of a dispute with Washington over a U.S. military base on Okinawa.
The focus on pocketbook issues appeared to be part of the party's strategy to regain credibility with voters.
"This election is about whether voters have confidence in the Democratic Party," said Goshi Hosono, the party's deputy secretary general.
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