IP: Japan's Election Uses Web--Ruling Party Returns to Power

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 17:34:08 +0900
To: Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
From: sja () glocom ac jp (Stephen J. Anderson)
Subject: Japan's Election Uses Web--Ruling Party Returns to Power


Elections under a new system resulted in only 59.6% voter turn-out, 
but the Liberal Democrats won 239 seats of the 500 at stake.  In
the next few days, defectors and independents may give the ruling
coalition an outright majority under Liberal Democrat Party control.


The stage is now set in Japan for debate about administrative reform
including telecommunications.  The LDP won a commanding lead in the
parliament, and will be able to assemble a majority coalition of its 
own choice to pursue the pressing issues in Japan's economy.


Still, few people seem satisfied with a system that allows candidates to 
lose a single-member district but win in proportional representation 
districts, or in the low rate of voting.  Media coverage focused on such
problems and the complex outcomes.


On balance, I also thought that the private TV stations lost their past 
edge in polling and public-TV NHK redeemed itself in making predictions.  
On the World Wide Web, the Fuji TV effort at a nascent FNN page was little 
more than a wire service with total seat guesses that lagged behind 
television.


However, the Asahi newspaper web pages did make a major contribution,
especially to update individual candidate races every fifteen minutes.
Every single member district had a graph, and each candidate had a bar to
represent their vote total.  


In English, today's news gives a round-up:


http://www.asahi.com/english/enews/enews.html


The overall results are found at:


http://www.asahi.com/senkyo/english/english.html


As for details on every district, this is only in Japanese at:


http://www.asahi.com/senkyo/result/index.html


In Japan, election coverage was quick and detailed--and now the web 
offers an immediate archive.   


There remains much doubt here about the partners for the LDP, and even
talk in the papers about a delay into November of creating the Cabinet.
The look on Prime Minister Hashimoto's face, with glare and sweat visible 
to the TV cameras, revealed great uncertainty about this entire new system.  


Since the definitive pollsters at Keizai Koho Sentaa (leading publisher of 
electoral data and pollster to both leading parties) can run off and talk 
about 300 seats, but only deliver 239, Hashimoto must have felt deep 
mixed feelings about the results.  Nonetheless, through defections and
negotiations, Hashimoto or his fellow party members should be able to
form governments over the next four years and give Japan a degree of 
stability into the next century.


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Stephen J. Anderson
URL http://www.glocom.ac.jp/staff/anderson.e.html
Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM)
International University of Japan
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