FT somehow misses the DPJ triumvirate

According to the FT today, new Japanese premier Hatoyama's position was "weakened" due to his nomination of Ozawa to the post of DPJ secretary (not too dissimilar to the vice-presidential post in the US). Unfortunately for the FT, Japanese politics does not work in blacks and whites, and is a dense forest of greys, where one grey seeks pole position over other greys. And the Ozawa nomination was the best thing Hatoyama could do.

The new ruling party of Japan, the DPJ, is run by a triumvirate of 3 men, none exactly what the electorate want, but that between them pull together the opposition to the Japan-one-party-system of the LDP. Hatoyama, Ozawa and Kan are the triumvirate and no-one can convince me otherwise. Kan wrested power from Hatoyama a couple of years ago, then got embroiled in a scandal and had to step down, but the wounds of Kan's backstabbing were too fresh at the time for Hatoyama to take over and Okada, a midweight party leader took the interim job. It is possible Hatoyama engineered the merger with the Liberal Party chief Ozawa that led to the current enlarged DPJ. In hindsight, this was a smart move, but wasn't seen as such at the time.

After the merger, Ozawa became top-dog at the DPJ but subsequently got embroiled in a scandal and had to step down. Only guy left of the triumvirate was Hatoyama who had licked his wounds and waited in the wings patiently as gen-secretary. He was thrust into the position of leader, and as ex-PM Aso took the rap for the worst economic recession since the war, Hatoyama's squeaky clean position made him the new PM of Japan, even though he is not charismatic, displays no particular affection for showbiz politics, and can't really connect with the average Japanese. But by default he has been chosen as the guy to lead Japan out of the recession.

Back in the day, Ozawa was a LDP new-kid-on-the-block whose meteoritic rise led to resentment within the ruling party, and all his various political machinations eventually led him to be shut out of the party and his new and depleted Liberal Party a minor party kowtowing to the LDP with no real gain. Having managed to create unhealable rifts within the LDP that led to its demise in the general elections this week, he is a great political mover and shaker in Japanese politics, but has never created a lasting legacy. You could say he is one of the pillars of the new DPJ, but it is difficult to brand him as a "heavyweight", either in the ascendant or the descendant... he is there full stop and until he gives away his sphere of influence to the open-source community under GPL license, he's going to be around. At the end of the day, Hatoyama created the DPJ in 1998 with his family funds, and seems determined to get even well-known opportunists with large spheres of anti-LDP influence to consolidate his party's still-tenuous hold on power.

Thinking about it for a moment, it is almost the opposite gameplan to the Obama campaign: build up the grassroots, win the election, leverage the new grassroots infrastructure to lead the people. The Hatoyama campaign has been: leverage the LDP's infrastructure that the electorate has handed to them on a plate, win the election, and build up grassroots support for the future.

To say that Hatoyama's position is weakened by Ozawa's nomination is superficial and the best thing Hatoyama could do. By cementing a Machiavelli squarely behind him in a kingmaker position, Hatoyama can work on upgrading the LDP's grassroots political infrastructure to serve his party and turn his party's historic win into lasting action.