This is part 2 of a five-part series. If you have not yet listened to Rod Serling’s Zero Hour: “Heir Hunters,” part 1, do so now. The story is a serial, part 2 makes little sense if you haven’t heard part 1.

Rest your eyes. Exercise your mind.

(Originally aired on Tuesday, October 16, 1973.)

Part 3 can be found right here.

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 Zero Hour #2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Alberto Fujimori lost. That I saw coming. As for other election results, I’m pleased to be eating crow this morning. The Democratic Party of Japan and other opposition parties combined to win 75 seats in yesterday’s House of Councillors election. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party got 37 seats and its coalition partner, the New Komeito, a mere nine.

The totals in the Upper House are now 137 for the opposition and 105 for the ruling coalition, which still has the Lower House.

Despite the absolute trouncing his ruling coalition took, Abe kept the support of top LDP officials and vowed to stay on as Prime Minister to bravely push for reforms the people seem not to want.

(Read on …)

Over at Japan Economy Watch, Edward Hugh is posting his ongoing commentary of the election results. An excellent read.

The Japan Observer is also posting a live blog of the results as they come in.

I’ve posted my own (slightly irreverent) live blog at Japan Economy News.

If you know of any others, give us a shout.

For our election day special release, Garrett and Ken sat down with Debito Arudou for a quick and dirty discussion (just under 20 minutes) of elections in Japan, what the voting process actually involves, the difference between voting for a party and voting for a candidate, and some speculation on what results we may see from today’s election.

Discussed in this edition of Seijigiri is a recent article by Adam Richards (Upper House Prediction) at the Mutant Frog Travelogue.

Seijigiri will be back soon with a rundown and discussion of the election results, as well as the usual analysis into what we should expect to see in Japan’s political scene for the upcoming months…

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 Seijigiri #29: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

TPR News is proud to welcome its first celebrity guest reader, Mr. Debito Arudou. If you normally read instead of listening, this would be a great time to check out the audio version.

In this edition of TPR News: A rundown of the polls prior to Sunday’s Upper House election, news from Japan’s business and economy sectors, TEPCo’s struggle for credibility in the wake of problems at the Kashiwazaki nuclear power plant following the earthquake in that region, and the return of our “Last Word” commentary…

Politics

The once-delayed House of Councillors election is nigh. On Sunday, those voters who have not been among the record number to take advantage of early voting opportunities will go to the polls to decide what some observers are calling one of Japan’s most important Upper House elections in the post-War era.

In the Asahi Shimbun’s final pre-election poll, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan increased it’s lead over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, with 32% of respondents in proportional representation districts saying they’d vote for the DPJ and only 20% expressing an intention to vote for the LDP. In prefectural districts, the DPJ’s lead was slightly smaller - it led the LDP 34% to 24%.

The Cabinet’s approval rating held steady at 30%, but disapproval inched up to 56%.

While the press and some political analysts have said the DPJ was popular among women for many election cycles now, the Asahi’s poll, like previous election returns, shows this to be not entirely true. The DPJ led the LDP 22% to 19% among women, but had a much larger lead - 43% to 22% among men.

Among hotly courted unaffiliated voters, 24% leaned toward the DPJ, while a mere 7% thought the LDP was swell.

(Read on …)

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 TPR News: 7/27/07: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Over the past 24 hours, a few interesting stories have popped up in the Nikkei concerning Sunday’s election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and his Liberal Democratic Party. First, we have Abe repeating his desire to not step down after the election, no matter how bad the results may be for his party. This is nothing new; we’ve been hearing such comments in the media over the past ten days or so. However, given that just a month ago, Abe’s Cabinet members were saying that such a situation shouldn’t even be discussed prior to the election, perhaps it’s a good sign that Shinzo Abe is, perhaps for the first time, talking about political reality.

In his email newsletter, Abe wrote, “I want to achieve my duties by promoting reforms, whatever the circumstances…I will inevitably face huge protests in promoting reforms, but it would not be forgivable” to quit the top job. Forgivable by whom? I think many voters wouldn’t even ask you to apologize, Mr Abe, so there’s no need to worry about forgiveness. They would just be glad at the chance to have a real leader running their country.

Then again, who’s waiting in the wings?

Moving backwards chronologically, last night the Nikkei published an article entitled Abe’s Character No Longer Top Reason For Approval.

Is that not fascinating? In other words: until now, for those who have supported Mr Abe, the main reason to do so was because of his character. However, in the Nikkei’s most recent poll, those citing Abe’s character as their primary reason for support fell from 55% to 43%. According to the paper, “character’ has been replaced as the top reason for supporting Mr Abe by, “Because it’s a Cabinet formed by the Liberal Democratic Party.”

I’m not making that up. I couldn’t make that up. I don’t suffer from the sort of delusions one would need to suffer from in order to make that up. Yes, it’s true: the number one reason given for supporting the Abe Cabinet right now is because the Cabinet is made up of members of the Liberal Democratic Party.

After the scandals and/or gaffes involving Sata, Honma, Ibuki, Yanagisawa, Matsuoka, Kyuma and now Akagi (all LDP Cabinet members), the best thing that supporters can find about the Cabinet is that it’s made up of LDP members. Ouch.

The final article I was looking at was published on Wednesday, and shows the results of the Nikkei’s most recent poll into voter defection amongst the parties. Here are some highlights:

Some 5% of voters who favored the ruling Liberal Democratic Party a week ago have decided to back the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan in the proportional representation portion of Sunday’s upper house election…

Although the pace of defection from the LDP to the DPJ has slowed, 12% of those who backed the LDP in the first online poll a month ago are now leaning toward the DPJ. The percentage of those who switched from the LDP to the DPJ amounted to only 2% over the same period. And the DPJ has secured support from 55% of those who were undecided a month ago, compared with the LDP’s 18%.

Things are looking dire indeed for the LDP. Despite that, you can be sure of two things to still be true at this time next week: 1) Getting rid of Mr Abe, should the LDP suffer heavy losses in the election, will consume quite a bit of the LDP’s energy. 2) The Cabinet will still be an LDP one.

Rest your eyes. Exercise your imagination.

The American radio series died when Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar went off the air in 1962. Rod Serling just kind of disappeared when The Twilight Zone drew to a close in 1964.

(Read on …)

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TPR News is back from a two-week hiatus. We’d like to thank all of our readers for sticking with us and being patient. After releasing a TPR News podcast and post at least once a week, usually twice, since last October, including over the Christmas/New Year’s holidays, we figured few would fault us for taking a brief break.

We didn’t pick the worst time for such a break, but a lot happened.

In this edition of TPR News: The elections are coming! The elections are coming! (Can we say, “Three if by Internet”?) Also, Japan joins the ICC, PlayStation 3 sells a million units, Murakami is convicted, the world’s largest nuclear power complex is damaged, yen for oil, and much more.

Politics

The big news, of course, is the upcoming House of Councillors election on July 29th.

Things are looking up for the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. The results of the Yomiuri Shimbun’s latest survey show the DPJ leading the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in both the prefectural single-seat races and the proportional representation races.

In prefecture-wide constituencies, 28% of respondents said they’d vote for the DPJ, compared with 24% for the LDP. In the proportional representation portion, the DPJ led 28% to 20%. In major cities, the DPJ led 35% to 21%, but the LDP regained the upper hand, ever so slightly, in rural districts, where it led the DPJ 29% to 28%. The DPJ had had the lead in the last Yomiuri poll.

(Read on …)

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 TPR News: 7/21/07: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this edition of Seijigiri, we begin by discussing the background to the upcoming Upper House election, including how many seats are up for grabs and who might win what. We then move on to a discussion of what each party is talking about, and what issues have risen to the forefront of the voters’ minds. Hint: pensions.

We then move to the rural vote and discuss why it’s important and what we could expect from the regions, as well as DPJ chief Ichiro Ozawa’s strategy as a reaction to Koizumi’s previous campaign strategies. After that, there is a brief discussion of the poll numbers that have been recently published and what they might mean; could more voters really be pulling for the DPJ this time around? Or will election day see voters return an LDP/New Komeito majority to the Upper House?

Finally, we look at the political fallout over the recent resignation of former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma. He’s apparently becoming a liability in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where LDP candidates are trying to distance themselves from him.

This leads into a discussion of the woman who took Kyuma’s job, Yuriko Koike. Until Kyuma’s gaffe, Ms Koike had served as a special adviser on national security to the Prime Minister. That job is now open, and an increasing number of voices amongst the senior LDP leadership are questioning the usefulness of Mr Abe’s special advisers, of whom four were brought on when he assumed the LDP presidency. We will be visiting this issue, as well as the unfolding run up to the election, in the next edition of Seijigiri, due out by the 26th of this month.

As always, thank you for listening.

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 Seijigiri #28: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This month’s edition of TPR-related news and reports is a tad later than usual, but at least it’s here. June was a busy month for TPR, and you may have noticed that TPR News has been on a bit of a break. Due to work and other time commitments, we decided to give the show two weeks off at the beginning of July. The next edition of TPR news will be out towards the end of this week.

The next Seijigiri is set to be recorded about an hour from now, and should be released tomorrow. That said, it’s time to look at the numbers, and follow that with this month’s news:

The Numbers

10 audio releases in June - 7 original and 3 Old-Time Radio. The top five original releases by listens in June:

1. Seijigiri #26 - June 5
2. BizCast Japan #4 - June 14
3. TPR News for June 17
4. TPR News for June 12
5. BizCast Japan #5 - June 21

(Read on …)