Opinion Silly Politics By SCOTT T. HARDS	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
愚かな政治 ここ数週間の間に、アメリカと日本の両方で大きな選挙が行なわれた。選挙運動についての報道を見ているうち、筆者は、日米の間に大きな違いがあることに気がついた…。

In the past few weeks we've had major elections in both the U.S. and Japan, and that has caused me to do a lot of thinking about politics lately. Watching the news coverage of both campaigns made clear to me some key differences in the way people run for office in the two nations: In the U.S. individuals are running for office, whereas in Japan political parties are trying to attract votes.

American politicians trying to get elected are going to spend their time either boasting about past achievements or about their rich qualifications for the job and what they will do if elected.

Japanese politicians, on the other hand, say virtually nothing about themselves. Nothing about what they did during their past term in office. Almost nothing about their qualifications, except perhaps dropping the name of the university they graduated from. All they do is mouth generalities from their party's platform and criticize other groups.

If one thinks about the Japanese political system, this is not really surprising. Why? The system itself places almost no emphasis on individual politicians and their accomplishments, nor does it permit individual initiative or independent thinking.

A Japanese Diet member is simply expected to vote along party lines. The party bosses decide the policy, and the rank-and-file simply cast their votes. If any members dare to vote against party policy, they are severely reprimanded or thrown out of the party altogether.

This brings up the question of how a "representative" can actually represent his or her home district if they simply have to vote along party lines. Isn't putting a local person in office ― someone uniquely qualified to understand and fight for the needs of the community ― the whole reason for dividing the country up into individual districts in the first place? But since a Japanese Diet member's voting record has nothing to do with what district they come from, what's the point?

This silliness is carried to an extreme with the proportional representation system. Voters just jot down the name of a party. Seats are then doled out based on the total number of votes they capture. The parties then give these seats to "anybody" in the party that they want to. That's right! People are voting for politicians they don't even know!

Under this system, people who have lost in their home districts can get a seat anyway; even sumo wrestlers who have zero experience in politics or public policy can quickly become a Japanese Diet member because nobody is directly voting for them by name.

Many, many proposals have been put forward by by critics in Japan for reforming the country's political system, but I think the most important suggestion that can be made is simply to put the individual back into the game. Make the candidates think for themselves, and make the voters think about the candidates.

Shukan ST: Nov. 29, 1996

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