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