Just about ten minutes ago, various news sources began reporting that Prime Minister Aso Taro has decided to dissolve the Lower House of the Diet on July 21 in order to hold a general election on August 30.

As expected, Aso is not going to cave in to intraparty pressure and resign. Instead, he will stubbornly insist to be at the helm of the LDP as it crashes down to an historic election defeat.

The LDP enters this election as a fractured mess. Its leader is not only unable to hold the group together, but remains deeply unpopular with many members of his own party, who had hoped to see a new party president lead them into the election.

Contrasting this year’s election to the previous Koizumi-led Lower House election in 2005 is going to be interesting, to say the least.

While the counting is far from over, returns for the Tokyo Metrpolitan elections are coming in and it looks like a landslide for the DPJ.

Polls closed at 8:00 p.m. As of 10:00 p.m., according to NHK:
- The DPJ has won 41 seats and an unaffiliated candidate won, giving the opposition camp 42 seats so far
- The LDP is on pace to do much worse than the 48 seats it held, having won only 7 so far. It’s coalition partner New Komeito has 4.
- No other party has won a seat.
- The opposition leads 42 - 11 with 74 districts not yet reporting.

- The bizarre Happiness Realization Party (幸福実現党) got zero votes (so far) in Suginami, which is only slightly more than I would have predicted.
- Here in Nakano, DPJ first-timers swept, with former secretary to Lower House member Akira Nagatsuma, Nishizawa finishing first and Yoshida finishing second. An LDP candidate finished last here.
- An energetic 26 year-old, Kurishita, beat LDP oldie and local Secretary General Uchida in an apparently close one, despite Kunio Hatoyama speaking on behalf of Uchida.
- Former gravure model Mai Goto lost in Shinjuku.
- Ishihara (Nobuteru, not the Gov.) speaking for LDP. I don’t know why, but he reminds me of a reject from a Monty Python revival. LDP is the only party that does not have its logo and slogan behind its speaker, instead having the old school candidate list - they might not want people to see that tonight.

- Apparently 44% of the vote has gone to the DPJ as of 10:00. (Read on …)

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Avid Seijigiri fans will notice that this release is out of order - the previous release was #56 and this one is #58. What’s the deal? Seijigiri #57 is the live show done at the Pink Cow in Shibuya. Due to hard drive failures, PC crashes and a host of other reasons, that release has been delayed, though hopefully it will be out within a few days.

At any rate, Seijigiri #58 is out just in time for the Tokyo Municipal Assembly elections. While Prime Minister Taro Aso and other LDP leaders continue to claim that the Tokyo elections have no bearing on national politics, co-hosts Garrett DeOrio and Ken Worsley consider this stance to be indicative of a state of denial that the LDP continues to be in. The show begins with a look at the Tokyo Municipal Elections and moves on to a discussion of its potential impact on national politics.

Some posters for candidates in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward follow. (Read on …)

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 Seijigiri #58: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Following our highly successful nomikai in January of this year, some of us politics bloggers have decided to hold another party to give our readers an opportunity to ply us with drinks to put faces to blogs.

Once again we will be gathering at The Pink Cow in Shibuya, at 7pm on Saturday July 25th.

If you are interested in attending, please send an email — the sooner the better — to Tobias Harris (observingjapan@gmail.com) and Ken Worsley (japaneconomynews@gmail.com) so that we can get a rough sense of how many people to expect.