Japan Votes For Change

Image by abuckingham via Flickr

I have been reading a lot about the recent Japanese elections where ruling party for the last 50 YEARS lost their majority. The people saw where their country was heading and decided they didn’t like it. They decided the leaders they had in place were lacking the foresight to get them out of their current situation. They decided the current recession and record high joblessness were enough to make a change. Good idea. If someone isn’t getting the job done, you replace them.

I wonder if the new ruling party The Democratic Party of Japan will waste a lot of time and political momentum by reaching out to the defeated party in the spirit of “bipartisanship”. I wonder if they will take this opportunity to make a few cosmetic changes, but in the long run waste time by letting the party that got the country into its mess drag down any attempts at forward progress. I just have to wonder if the party that has been handed the reigns of the future will show a utter lack of conviction and political bravery in the face of economic and social disaster.

If they worry too much about their own individual re-elections, then nothing of any import will get done and they will find themselves as the minority party again. If they don’t worry enough about the people who voted for them, who handed them a mandate to get the country fixed, who obviously doesn’t want the policies of the now defeated party to continue, then they will lose again. Instead of just losing a bunch of elections, they will lose the opportunity to be taken seriously again. People will look at them and say “Those guys can’t get the job done so why bother giving them the chance?” They can’t count on another charismatic leader like Obama or Clinton to come along and save them again.

Wait a minute, who was I talking about again?