Elections in Japan in 1999

Abstract

Attention properly focuses on 'first-order elections', those elections that select the national government. Second-order elections, however, are also of interest for several reasons (Reif and Schmitt 1980). First, politicians and political commentators interpret the results of second-order elections, searching for clues to what will happen in the next general election. These interpretations are often misguided and mistaken, but they affect public perceptions and party strategy even when erroneous. One can thus learn a lot about politics by asking what politicians learned from the second-order elections that occurred between two general elections. In this review, I shall briefly report on the gubernatorial and by-elections held in the calendar year of 1999. 1 lack the space to cover mayoral or local assembly elections. I will, however, report on the leadership elections held by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP; fiminto) and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ; Minshuto). These reports are based almost exclusively on the mass media, specifically newspapers (including the Internet home pages of local newspapers) and television. They present a 'voter's eye view' of recent politics.