This morning the Asahi Shimbun published a pretty good article summing up a lot of the political events of the last couple days, most important (or at least headline-grabbing) being that of Ishikawa Tomohiro’s secession from the Democratic Party of Japan, which he submitted yesterday (Feb. 11).
There are voices of criticism and support coming and going in and from both directions, as to whether this is the appropriate choice or not, and how to move forward. I’m not going to get all mixed up in that debate, however. What’s also drawing a lot of heat, however, is his choice to remain in his position in the House of Representatives. Ozawa Ichiro was not charged due to a lack of evidence directly connecting him to illegal money-handling. Ishikawa (though not alone) is going down for, what is essentially some fraudulent bookkeeping. Perhaps it is just me having read story after story about politicians doing dastardly things since, well, the beginning of time, however I don’t feel that of all people in this affair, Ozawa’s secretary, the one handling the bookkeeping, should have to go through the whole sturm and drag of this public process, leave the party, and on top of that drop out of his elected position. According to the article linked above, supporters from Ishikawa’s constituency of Obihiro (Hokkaido) voiced their wish for him to remain both in the party and in his elected position.
I can understand the sentiment! I really feel this whole campaign funding affair is far more complex than just the couple people in the spotlight, but also less heinous a crime than it is being made out to be. I can understand the voters’ sentiments, in not seeing this issue as a fatal blow worthy of forsaking their candidate of choice. Forcing him out of office just creates another hullabaloo and more costs for those who had nothing to do with any of this.
The DPJ is trying, it seems, to wrap this up cleanly. Ishikawa insists his party departure is entirely his decision, since in remaining there, criticism sent his way could always be linked to Ozawa, a burden he seems to not want to force upon the party. Understandable, but a recent quote from Ozawa himself sure doesn’t sound like he’s opposed to it!「（議員）バッジは外させないが、党籍は党内情勢を見て判断する」”He will not be forced to give up his badge (as a House of Reps member), but the matter of his party membership will have to be addressed internally before any judgments are made.”
Naturally, a clean break from this mess would be a good thing for the DPJ, whose support has been tumbling at a truly unreal rate recently. I am in no way convinced that it will wrap up so nicely. There are a lot of positive, forward-looking comments from other party members, which normally I think I would be critical of as merely attempts to avoid negative press, which they may likely be, but I can’t help but hope the party does start moving forward to actually, well, making some changes, instead of having to focus on dodging criticism over illegal bookkeeping left, right and center. I hope that is how things will move forward, but I can’t help but feel this whole affair will be dragging on for quite some time to come.