Japanese ‘Expect’ New Government

If I had a dollar for every time an English student has misused the word ‘expect’… Just the other day I heard it again – ‘I expect the new government very much’. ‘Expect them to do what?’ was my inner gut reaction. But I knew what they meant, and corrected them. They expect a lot of their new government, and hope for its success with a number of different issues.

The approval ratings for the new Hatoyama government and cabinet are high. Higher than anyone else except when Koizumi swept to power vowing to ‘destroy the LDP’ (what a fun statement it was from a newly elected Prime Minister to say that he wants to destroy his own party…..but I digress…). According to all the polls from Yomiuri, Asahi, Nikkei and Mainichi, the cabinet was given strong public support of around 75%. Hatoyama himself has the high expectations of about 70% of the public, according to the Mainichi poll.

Of course, starting with such high numbers does mean that there is only really one way to go…. as Obama has found out in his own 6 month slide through the expectations numbers… But at least the new government can get to work knowing that they have a window (small as it may be) in which they can get their policies going. I wonder though just how long the public will wait for results. I get the feeling that underneath the 70% numbers are a lot of ‘expectations’ for quick results. This is a public whose default setting has become disappointment with their government, so the Hatoyama administration will need to demonstrate an awaerness of this, and look for some ‘short term wins’ over the next 2-3 months.

Some fear that the new government are not as prepared as they should be, and the newly formed State Strategy Bureau certainly has the potential to get in the way of reforms in various areas, depending on how it is run, and whether or not it insists on developing the ‘strategy’ for everything… Differences within the party will also be key to watch, and it will be interesting also to see just how much latitude Prime Minister Hatoyama allows to the individual Ministers in his Cabinet. Some of them have some pretty outlandish ideas (Kamei, Fukushima and others), which may work contrary to the government’s first order of business – the revival of the economy. Hatoyama needs to take a tight reign, and pull in any heads that try to overshadow the big picture. Of course, he needs to have a plan himself as well, or else the competing ideologies within the DPJ could have the party, and worse, the cabinet themselves, pulling in different directions…