LDP WINS CHIBA ELECTION IN LATEST BLOW TO DPJ;

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TOKYO 000708 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/29/2019 TAGS: PGOV JA SUBJECT: LDP WINS CHIBA ELECTION IN LATEST BLOW TO DPJ; IMPACT ON OZAWA UNCERTAIN REF: TOKYO 0675 Classified By: CDA Ron Post, reasons 1.4(b),(d). ¶1. (C) Summary: The DPJ, on the defensive and sliding downward in the polls after the arrest of party leader Ozawa's aide for illegal fund raising, suffered a fresh blow on March 29, with the landslide win by independent Kensaku Morita. Morita, an ex-LDP Diet member and telegenic actor had informal LDP backing. He overwhelmed Taira Yoshida, the candidate supported by the DPJ, Ozawa and the DPJ leadership. Morita, who had lost to a DPJ-backed incumbent in 2005, got over a million votes to Yoshida's 637,000. Exit polls showed Morita got 32% of voters who said they supported the DPJ taking over the national government, 45% of independents, and 62% of LDP supporters. Commentators and embassy contacts agree that the Ozawa scandal moved many DPJ supporters and unaffiliated voters into the LDP column. All agree that Morita, who never stopped campaigning after his 2005 defeat, was better known than any of his challengers and set to win in any case. However, no one predicted the size of his margin of victory. DPJ Secretary General Hatoyama has apologized for the DPJ's failure and suggested that Ozawa might reconsider his decision to stay in office before the next Lower House election. DPJ Diet Affairs Chief Yamaoka meeting with Embassy Tokyo's political minister tried to minimize the significance of the loss, noting DPJ never expected to win in the first place, but allowed that Japanese voters -- particularly independents -- are unpredictable and easily influenced by the media and breaking stories. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Independent Kensaku Morita, backed informally by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),overwhelmed a candidate supported by the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the Chiba gubernatorial race on March 29. Running on his own strong name recognition and a platform calling for a "cool Chiba that can talk straight to the central government," Morita, a 59-year-old actor and former LDP Lower House Diet member, won easily over the DPJ-sponsored Taira Yoshida and three other candidates, receiving over one million of the prefecture's approximately 2.2 million votes. Yoshida, a former railway company executive and relative unknown, received just over 636,000 votes, while the other three candidates, including one backed by the Japan Communist Party, split the remaining 577,000 votes. ¶3. (C) More telling is that 45 percent of the unaffiliated vote went for Morita, along with 28 percent of the DPJ vote. Most experts have assumed, until now, that a large percentage of the nearly 50 percent of unaffiliated voters nationwide will vote for DPJ candidates in the next Lower House election. Morita received informal support during the race from approximately half of the LDP members in the Chiba Prefectural Assembly, although no LDP officials campaigned publicly on his behalf. He received no formal support from either the prefectural chapter or national party headquarters. Ruling coalition junior partner Komeito backed one of the other LDP candidates. In addition to the DPJ, Yoshida received backing from the Social Democratic Party of Japan and the People's New Party, and was supported by the outgoing incumbent, who defeated Morita by just 6,000 votes in 2005. ¶4. (C) Initial press reports have uniformly described Morita's victory, coming just five days after the indictment of one of Ozawa's secretaries for campaign finance violations (reftel),as a blow to the DPJ, highlighting its possible impact on the next Lower House election. Some have gone further, labeling the Chiba vote a referendum on whether DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa should remain in his leadership post in light of his possible connections to scandal-tainted Nishimatsu Construction. DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama himself once referred to the Chiba election as TOKYO 00000708 002 OF 002 "second only to a national election" in calling for the judgment of the voters between the two major parties. Other DPJ contacts, including Lower House member Tamura Kenji, mentioned to the Embassy just before the election their concerns that the party really needed a win in Chiba to regain its momentum. DPJ Diet Affairs Chief Kenji Yamaoka was more sanguine, telling the Embassy March 30 that DPJ members were already expecting a loss, "even before the campaign started." Morita had lost to the incumbent by only a slight margin in the last election, he added, and had been campaigning ever since, while Yoshida was virtually unknown. ¶5. (C) The public continues to take a dim view of Ozawa's failure to step down, with nearly two-thirds of respondents continuing to call for his resignation in Asahi and Nikkei polls conducted March 27-28. Support for Prime Minister Taro Aso, meanwhile, has continued to rise since the allegations against Ozawa's office emerged on March 3, rising six points in the Asahi and 10 points in the Nikkei most recently. Some media reports predict that the loss in Chiba will encourage anti-Ozawa forces in the DPJ to re-emerge and work more strenuously for his ouster as party leader. Shortly after the results were announced, DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama apologized publicly for not being "powerful enough as a party" in recommending Yoshida, and said Ozawa had indicated to him that he would revisit his decision not to resign immediately before the next Lower House election. ¶6. (C) One Embassy media contact remarked that Ozawa's image is worse than the DPJ leadership thinks, and that he will only harm his party by staying in place. The next test, he said, is the Akita gubernatorial race on April 12. If the DPJ loses again, Ozawa will need to seriously reconsider stepping down. He attributed some of the unaffiliated and DPJ vote for Morita to the negative impact of Ozawa's visit to Yoshida's campaign office the day before the election. Other DPJ leaders, including Hatoyama, had also campaigned heavily on Yoshida's behalf. Shortly after the arrest of Ozawa's secretary on March 3, local campaign workers removed 150 posters featuring a photo of Yoshida with Ozawa, and Yoshida had been careful to avoid mention of his party affiliation in recent campaign speeches. ¶7. (C) The ruling coalition camp has been careful not to crow too loudly over the victory in Chiba, attributing Morita's win to his own personal popularity. Initial press reporting has taken the same line, quoting LDP Secretary General Hiroyuki Hosoda's comment that Morita was able to take a significant proportion of the unaffiliated vote because he is well known. Morita had held the lead in the campaign from the beginning, but LDP contacts, including Chiba 2 Lower House member Akiko Yamanaka, had expressed concern to the Embassy that the three unofficial LDP candidates could dilute the vote and hand the election to the DPJ. Some media analysis has noted the similarity of Morita's high-profile campaign to those of two other well-known personalities, Miyazaki Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru and Osaka Governor Toru Hashimoto, noting that his appeal lay in his perceived ability to gain attention for his constituents and their concerns at the national level. National politics was not a major factor in the Chiba campaign, but the livelihood issues on the minds of Chiba voters - employment, health care, and prefectural finances -- are identical to those that voters are likely to consider most important in the next Lower House election. POST