There is much commentary in the Japanese media stating that the upcoming Lower House election on Feb. 8 will be difficult to predict. I disagree.
The media drama centers on the performance of a newly “formed-for-this-election” party, Centrist Reform Alliance.
The CRA was created from the imagination — or, more accurately — the desperation of the two elderly leaders of the pacifist Komeito party, Tetsuo Saito, and the oft-rebranded center-left, moderate conservative, and now self-proclaimed “centrist” Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Yoshihiko Noda. The CDP has cooperated with the Japan Communist Party in past elections, suggesting where its true north lies.
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