JAPAN: The same party, except for a short period, have ruled for nearly half-a-century, writes David McNeill, in Tokyo
Voters in Japan are preparing to go to the polls again on November 9th in the first general election in 2½ years.
This is a nation where the same political party, the Liberal Democrats (LDP) have ruled, except for a short period in 1993-1994, for nearly half-a-century, where the average age of a cabinet-level politician is 66, and where only about 7 per cent of sitting lawmakers are women.
Two of Japan's oldest political warhorses, ex-prime ministers Mr Yasuhiro Nakasone (85), and Mr Kiichi Miyazawa (84), have hobbled to the stumps one more time instead of tending to their roses.
Yet, like all good election battles, there is a credible, charismatic opponent who reckons he can deliver a much-needed impetus to this country's stagnant politics.
Enter Mr Naoto Kan, the popular leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).
At 56, Mr Kan is a political novice here and he has stressed the relative youth of his party, which recently absorbed the Liberal Party.
So desperate is Mr Kan to knock the LDP off its plinth that he has fielded the DJP's largest-ever roster of candidates and has hinted at a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and even the Communists (JCP).
On the face of it, beating the LDP should not be that difficult.
The party of business, while still dominant, is no longer the invincible force it once was and has only managed to govern since the mid-1990s in coalition with others, including current partners New Komeito and the New Conservative Party.
The LDP has failed to win an overall majority in the last three polls, in 1993, 1996 and 2000.
The party has been caught up in corruption scandals and has presided over more than a decade of economic slump and record unemployment.
Many expected the LDP to be punished at the polls for this dire performance at the last election.
However, the popularity of its president and Prime Minister, Mr Junichiro Koizumi, who promised painful reforms and threatened to destroy the LDP from within if the party blocked him, paradoxically helped save them from a drubbing.
Twenty-eight months later, however, the shine has worn off Mr Koizumi.
He has backtracked on a number of political pledges, including a promise to cap the issuing of public bonds at 30 trillion yen, a key element of his attempt to curb Japan's massive public debt. And he has been slow to tackle the corruption and cronyism endemic in the Japanese system.
His pet project, the privatisation of the country's post office - effectively the world's largest bank with a staggering 350 trillion yen worth of individual assets - has been put on the long finger. The ruling coalition had a total of 286 seats (out of 480) against the DPJ's 137 when Mr Koizumi dissolved the Lower House on October 10th, (the JCP had 20 and the SDP 18), a difficult but not impossible target for Mr Kan's party.
However, a Kyodo News poll earlier this month found support for the DPJ, while growing, was still at 18 per cent, well behind the nearly 38 per cent of Japanese voters who say they will vote for the Liberal Democratic Party.
Just 10.4 percent predicted the opposition parties would take over.
Part of the reason may be the lack of clear policy differences. Mr Kan wants to abolish nationwide expressway tolls and he smells blood over the LDP's failure to reform the country's shattered public pensions system.
The DPJ has proposed a complicated alternative financed by tax revenues rather than pension premiums.
However, these are hardly huge vote-winners.
Both parties now agree on the need to revise the constitution,which prevents Japan from maintaining an offensive military, once the great taboo of Japanese politics.
And both take a hard line toward unpredictable neighbour North Korea, the key foreign policy issue here. One of the few places where clear blue sky exists between the parties is over support for the US-led war in Iraq.
Sensing its unpopularity with the public, Mr Kan criticised the US for going to war without UN support and opposes sending Japanese forces to help now.
If the ruling coalition comes out on top, Japanese troops may well be in Iraq by the end of the year.
This will convince many voters that the DJP is a party of government but probably not enough to wrest control from the LDP, which is taking credit for the recent economic upturn.
Mr Koizumi claims this year's rising stock market and glowing trade figures are the fruit of his structural reforms, although they are more likely the rebound from years of pent-up demand.
Still, Japan's conservative voters often side with the LDP when the economy is performing well.
A more fundamental reason why voters don't put the LDP out of power, however, has less to do with short-term policy or economic issues and more with the party's structural relationship to the levers of power.
Japan's lopsided electoral system favours voters in conservative rural areas, where the LDP is wedded to the agriculture and construction industries.
As long as the party continues to protect farmers and dole out wasteful public works projects, its hold on power here is solid.
As part of the unbreakable chain that connects the bureaucrats who exercise real policymaking power in Japan with the corporations that run the economy, the LDP has time and again bought off potential electoral dissent by managing to convince voters that only it can manage the economy.
November 9th is unlikely to be any different.
So look for the LDP to return to power, probably in coalition again.
The government will continue with its privatisation plans for the post office, highways and airports in spite of fierce opposition from within and outside the LDP.
It will hike consumption tax from the current 5 per cent to as high as it can get away with.
The country's top business federation, the Keidanren, supports a rise of between 12 to 20 per cent.
The government will also certainly make a very controversial stab at constitutional revision to give the current Self-Defence Forces the status of a conventional army.
LDP party deputy, Mr Shinzo Abe, and hawkish defence secretary, Mr Shigeru Ishiba, will continue to push for a more aggressive and independent foreign policy, particularly in relation to North Korea.
And Mr Koizumi? If the LDP wins, he will be well on his way to becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister in 30 years.
The reward he expects for breaking up the faction system that dominated the LDP, and which would have once pulled down an ambitious upstart like him.
Opponents say his success has more to do with the dearth of real political talent here.
Either way, Mr Koizumi will probably laugh all the way to the polls.