Mikiko Imai, ONE’s policy analyst from Japan, writes on the recent Japanese general election:

This past weekend, the Democratic Party of Japan won the Lower House election by a landslide. This historic victory by the main opposition party will end more than half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party. The president of the Democratic Party, Yukio Hatoyama, will be appointed as Japan’s new prime minister by mid-September.

Many in Japan are predicting that this unprecedented political upheaval will change the way Japan is run. Before the election, the Democratic Party pledged that once in power, it would scrutinise the government’s budget.

So what will this mean for Japan’s international development policies? Despite concerted lobbying efforts by our Japanese NGO friends, international development was not a major focus of any of the parties in this election. Politicians were mainly concerned with Japan’s domestic problems, specifically the dire state of the economy. But in today’s interconnected world, no long term solution for Japan’s revival will be viable unless the poorest parts of the world are fully considered – their economic growth can be part of the long term solution for Japan.

Japan can’t afford to decrease its development assistance budget, which funds programmes that are truly working. I hope that Mr. Hatoyama and his new coalition government will take this into consideration when he goes over Japan’s government budgets!

-Mikiko Imai