DPJ Leadership Election: Banri Kaieda Says He Will Enter, Willing to Run Personal Risk for the Sake of the Party

Literally, he says he will pick up chestnuts out of fire.

17th Century French poet La Fontaine wrote a fable, after Aesop, in which a cat is coerced by a monkey to pick up chestnuts in the hot embers. The cat did it, but burned its paws badly. The monkey ate all the chestnuts.

Mr. Kaieda is saying he will be the cat, even if he knows it will burn his paws - i.e. ruin his career as politician.

Mr. Kaieda, who lost to Mr. Noda in the second round of the leadership election in August last year, partly thanks to NHK's erroneous reporting, is so far the only candidate for the Democratic Party of Japan's leadership election scheduled for December 25.

Younger politicians with ambitions like Seiji Maehara and Goshi Hosono have already declared they are not running this time.

From Asahi Shinbun (12/22/2012):

民主党の海江田万里元経済産業相は２２日、東京都内のホテルで記者会見し、「あえて火中の栗を拾う気持ちで代表選に臨むことを決意した」と述べ、２５日投開票の党代表選に立候補する考えを表明した。赤松広隆元農林水産相、大畠章宏元経済産業相のほか、旧民社党グループも支援に回る見通し。代表選への立候補表明は海江田氏が初めて。

Banri Kaieda, ex-Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry and a Democratic Party of Japan member, held a press conference at a hotel in Tokyo on December 22 and declared his candidacy in the leadership election to be held on December 25. He said, "I have decided to enter the leadership election, to pick up chestnuts in the hot embers." Former Minister of Agriculture Hirotaka Akamatsu, former Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Akihiro Ohata, and the former Democratic Socialist Party group are expected to support him. Mr. Kaieda is the first person to declare candidacy in the leadership election.

Meanwhile, Japan Future Party under Ms. Yukiko Kada, governor of Shiga Prefecture is planning to work very closely with Social Democratic Party in the Lower House, forming a parliamentary group. Ms. Kada's party managed to send 7 members to the Lower House in the December 16 election, and there are two Social Democrats who survived the election.

As I posted previously, Ms. Kada has expressed her intention to work closely with the boy wonder's party (Japan Restoration Party).

I do have a feeling that people may wish DPJ were still in power.

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Banri Kaieda Says Then-PM Naoto Kan Couldn't Decide Whether to Declare a Nuclear Emergency Without Knowing "Legal Basis"

. . . (sigh).

The Fukushima nuclear accident independent investigation commission set up by the Diet called Banri Kaieda as witness on May 17.

Kaieda was the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who oversaw the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency when the Fukushima nuclear accident happened in March 2011. After losing the leadership election of the Democratic Party of Japan to Yoshihiko Noda in August last year, thanks partly to NHK, he has kept a low profile unlike Naoto Kan (who went on a media blitz to spread his version of the accident), Yukio Edano (who quickly became the Minister of the Economy), or Goshi Hosono (who was promoted from a personal assistant to Kan to the minister in charge of the nuclear accident and then to the Minister of the Environment).

The hearing lasted two and a half hours, and the media reporting it picked different aspects of his testimony. So, from several newspapers and NHK, here's what Kaieda had to say about the early days of the worst nuclear accident in Japan. Nikkei Shinbun has the most extensive coverage. (Emphasis is mine.)

From Nikkei Shinbun (5/17/2012):

• In accordance with the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness, TEPCO notified the Ministry of Economy at 4:45PM on March 11, 2011 after the loss of power to Reactor 1 and Reactor due to the tsunami. Kaieda, as Minister of Economy, requested then-Prime Minister Kan to declare a Nuclear Emergency Situation and set up the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters. But it took PM Kan until after 7PM to declare a Nuclear Emergency Situation.
  
  Kaieda said "It took a long time to obtain Mr. Kan's agreement [to declare a Nuclear Emergency and set up the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters]" because Kan had to be satisfied with information such as the condition of the reactors and the legal basis for [declaring, etc.].

• About injecting seawater into the reactors to cool, Kaieda said Mr. Kan expressed his concern that injecting seawater might cause re-criticality.

• Kaieda felt that TEPCO didn't start the injection of seawater immediately because the company was hesitant to decommission the reactors. [If you pour in seawater into a reactor, the reactor cannot be restored.]

• Kaieda received a telephone call on late night on March 14, 2011 from Masataka Shimizu, then-President of TEPCO, who told Kaieda that he would like to evacuate the workers from Fukushima I Nuke Plant to Fukushima II (Daini) Nuke Plant. Kaieda interpreted the call to mean it was a "complete withdrawal".

• Kaieda emphasized that he thought "it was a grave mistake" for Kan to closet himself in his office on the 5th floor of the Prime Minister's Official Residence. The risk control center [for the nuclear accident] was located in the basement.

• Kaida felt that it was like a telephone game among the PM's Official Residence, TEPCO Headquarters, and Fukushima I Nuke Plant.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (5/17/2012):

• Kaieda requested Kan that he declare a Nuclear Emergency Situation and set up the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters, but Kan asked "what's the basis?" So then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano and PM's assistants [no doubt including Goshi Hosono] had to pour over the related laws and regulations. In the meantime, Kan did other things including attending a meeting with the opposition party leaders.

From NHK (5/17/2012):

• About the delay in the vent to lower the pressure inside the Containment Vessel [of Reactor 1], Kaieda said he thought "TEPCO is hesitant, because the company wants to minimize the accident".

I didn't know the reason for the delay in declaring a Nuclear Emergency. I didn't know TEPCO's proposal to evacuate the workers was to Fukushima II Nuke Plant. As to injecting seawater (or for that matter, any kind of water) may have been hard with increasing pressure inside the RPV.

Two interesting points:

• There was no one who was able to tell then-Prime Minister Kan, "Prime Minister, just do it", when Kan wasted everyone's time by wanting to know the legal basis for declaring a Nuclear Emergency. Instead, Kan insisted on knowing the legal basis, and Edano (and no doubt Hosono) went to look up the information for their Prime Minister when every second might have counted. Not really a picture of a resolute leader as Kan wants to portray himself.

• TEPCO's "complete withdrawal" was what Kaieda thought, not necessarily what then-President Shimizu of TEPCO told him. He didn't tell Kaieda that he wanted complete withdrawal, but since he didn't tell Kaieda that it would be partial withdrawal either, in Kaieda's mind it was "complete withdrawal".

Yukio Edano's turn as the witness will come on May 27.　Goshi Hosono will be interviewed by the commission on May 19, but it will be closed to public, according to Mainichi (5/18/2012). Hosono says he requested the open hearing, but the commission said no, because Hosono was not in a decision-making position when the accident started. (Huh?)

On May 28, Naoto Kan will be the witness.

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Ex-Minister of Economy Looks Back on Fukushima Nuke Accident: "Flood of Emotions..."

Banri Kaieda was Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who supervised the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency which in turn supervises TEPCO, when the earthquake hit Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on March 11, 2011.

We haven't heard about him for a while, since he lost his bid to become the leader of of the DPJ thus the prime minister of Japan last August. Instead of Kaieda, who was backed by the kingmaker Ozawa, Japan's got highly unpopular Yoshihiko Noda who can only speak in cliches, thanks partially to NHK who fed the wrong information to the viewers and the delegates in between the two votes.

Kyodo News (3/10/2012) reports Kaieda is flooded with emotions when he think of the progress they made in one year:

帰還準備「万感の思い」　海江田元経産相、福井で

Residents preparing to return, "I'm flooded with emotions" says former Minister of Economy Kaieda, in Fukui Prefecture

　東京電力福島第１原発事故後の初動対応などに当たった海江田万里元経済産業相が１０日、講演のため訪れた福井県鯖江市で取材に応じ、「少しずつ、避難された方も戻る準備が進められている。１年後をこういう形で迎えられるとは思わず、万感の思いがある」と述べた。

Banri Kaieda, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry at the time of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident last year, spoke with the reporters in Sabae City in Fukui Prefecture on March 10 where he was giving a talk. He said, "Little by little, preparation is underway for the evacuees to return home. I didn't expect that I would celebrate the one-year anniversary [of the accident] this way, and I'm flooded with emotions."

　海江田氏は、除染などの課題が現在も残っているとした上で、事故直後には、放射性物質の影響を受けた地域に避難住民が戻るとは想像できなかったとし「３月１１日からの１週間に味わったことと比べると、何とかここまでくることができたのかなと思う」と話した。

Mr. Kaieda acknowledged that there are still challenges such as decontamination, but said he couldn't even imagine the evacuated residents would return to their homes in the areas affected by radioactive materials. "Compared to what we went through in the week of March 11, we've come a long way, somehow."

Kaieda should know that the Noda administration, with his former buddies Edano and Hosono on board, is pushing the residents back to their homes in the contaminated areas after one "decontamination" effort by the government which amounts to nothing more than a good cleaning.

He didn't, and still doesn't strike me as a bad person, but the whole accident was way over his head. And judging from his comment, it is still totally over his head.

As to the person who continues to strike me as dishonest and evil, Yukio Edano spoke with the reporters on March 9 at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry about the government's response to the nuclear accident on March 11, 2011 when he was the Chief Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister Kan.

Just like he was doing in the early days of the nuclear crisis, he still plays a "lawyer". When he can't get away with technicality ("There is no immediate effect on health" which he now says meant "There may be some effect on health if you stay longer/drink milk longer than a few days"), he declares he doesn't remember.

As Jiji Tsushin (via a blog, as Jiji's article disappears quickly)(3/9/2012) reports:

事故発生当日の昨年3月11日に開かれた同本部の第1回会合で、炉心溶融（メルトダウン）に至る可能性が指摘されていたことについて、当時は官房長官だった枝野経産相は、だれがその点に言及したのか「自分かどうかも含めて、全く記憶がない」と述べた。

When asked about the possibility of meltdown already mentioned during the 1st meeting of the government's nuclear emergency response group on March 11, 2011, on the day of the accident, Minister Edano, who was the Chief Cabinet Secretary at that time, said "I don't remember, including whether it was myself" who referred to the possibility.

He's not worried. No one will go after him. His current boss, PM Noda, has already declared to the world that no one person is responsible.

There are demonstrations, gatherings, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of whatever people choose in Japan on March 11. For some, it is anti-nuclear power plant demonstration. For others, it is anti-disaster debris burning. Or ceremonies for those perished in the earthquake and tsunami. But many others particularly on the net have chosen to rest, do nothing. It's been a long year.

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Yukio Edano to Become the New Minister in Charge of Organization for Nuclear Disaster Compensation

You cannot get more cynical, for at least a few minutes until the next horror is revealed in Japan.

But for now, Yomiuri Shinbun (10/3/2011) says that Yukio Edano, former Chief Cabinet Secretary and the current Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (who is seen trying to suppress a laugh in the video I posted) will also become the Minister in charge of the nuclear disaster compensation scheme set up by the government and the nation's electric power companies that operates nuclear power plants to socialize the cost of the accident.

The position has been held by Goshi Hosono, who as the Minister of the Environment has submitted the Ministry's budget that is more than 5 times the size of the last year's, riding high on the decontamination bubble.

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No More Free Lunch at #Fukushima I Because TEPCO Ran Out of Boil-In-The-Bag Food??

It's an unconfirmed bit of information from a Representative in the Lower House of Japan's Diet.

Yukiko Miyake says she had a chance to talk to Banri Kaieda, ex-Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who lost the bid to become the party leader and the prime minister. According to her tweet on September 16:

本会議で海江田さんと話すチャンスがあった。一昨日連絡した作業員食事打ちきりの件をすぐ調べてくれた。打ちきりは事実で、私達も試食した真空パックの非 常食がなくなったということだが、内部被爆の問題もあり今までのものが安全に思える。全国にストックがあるはずではとのこと。

I had a chance to talk to Mr. Kaieda during the main session of the Diet. I had told him two days ago about the free lunches for the [Fukushima I] workers that were stopped. He immediately did some research, and said to me the following: "It is true that the free lunches were stopped, because the emergency boil-in-the-bag food ran out. But we have to worry about internal radiation exposure for the workers, and I think the boil-in-the-bag lunches are safer. I think boil-in-the-bag food is in stock throughout Japan."

So, TEPCO may have run out of boil-in-the-bag food stocked at Fukushima I and at J-Village, and it couldn't buy more and/or it couldn't ask for more.

I wonder how Mr. Kaieda is doing these days, relieved of the ministerial job. My personal vote for the new PM was actually Kaieda, despite all the badmouthing I did of him. Unlike ex-prime minister Kan and ex-cabinet secretary and current Minister of Economy and Trade Edano, Kaieda hasn't appeared in the media circuit (I almost wrote "circus") to peddle "his side" of the recent 6 months history of Japan's nuclear crisis.

New Prime Minister Noda has gone very quiet after becoming the PM, with some questionable appointments of ministers and party leaders including Mr. Maehara, who was revealed in WikiLeaks to have been informing Americans about Japanese politicians like Ichiro Ozawa.

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NHK News May Have Tipped the DPJ Leader Election With Wrong Report on Vote Prospect

wrong, as in "180-degree wrong".

From what I've gathered in twitters and blogs of people who actually watched live both the election proceedings and NHK's reporting on the election (I watched only the election, live on the net), NHK repeatedly reported the totally wrong information about the number of votes that might go to Noda between the first round of voting and the second (final) round of voting.

There were close to 90,000 people watching the netcast of the election, with many of them also watching NHK.

The sequence is something like this:

1. 1st vote ended. The result: Kaieda 143, Noda 102, Maehara 74, Kano 52, Mabuchi 24.

2. 2nd round of voting started. Then about 15 minutes into the voting that took about 30 minutes, NHK reported: "Mr. Mabuchi instructed his supporters this morning to vote for anyone other than Kaieda [if Mabuchi loses in the 1st round]."

3. NHK also said "Kano instructed his supporters to vote for Noda, so did Maehara." NHK was practically predicting the landslide victory of Noda in the 2nd round. They were still voting, and the NHK report was conveyed by the reporters covering the election to the representatives.

4. 2nd round ended. The result: Noda 215, Kaieda 177. Difference was 38 votes.

5. 4PM: Special NHK News - "What we reported earlier about Mr. Mabuchi was wrong. He did not instruct his supporters to vote for anyone other than Kaieda; he told his supporters to do vote FOR Kaieda because Kaieda's policy on tax was close to his (they are both against increasing tax)."

Well, that admission was about 2 hours too late.

Despite the report, Mabuchi supporters are said to have voted for Kaieda after all. But the NHK's erroneous reporting may have swayed enough undecided voters in each faction, as all it took was to sway 16 votes in favor of Noda.

So, NHK may have ended up playing the "kingmaker" in deciding the next prime minister of Japan. Inadvertently or not, I do not know.

I do remember, after the election, PM Kan was all big smiles on the stage with 5 candidates. He must have been so happy to see the candidate backed by Ichiro Ozawa defeated.

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Democratic Party of Japan New Leader Election Today

(Update: The last one, Minister of Agriculture Kano, just finished his speech. Well-rehearsed, totally irrelevant in today's Japan, IMHO. Mabuchi made the most sense, and so he won't get the vote. The worst two were Kaieda and Maehara; if either of them ends up getting the majority vote to become the next Prime Minister, oh boy, it's bleak.)

(Update: Kaieda spoke in an agitated manner, incoherent speech. So that's what Ozawa backs - someone who's hapless. Makes sense, just look at the former PM Hatohama, dubbed "space alien". Now Minister of Finance Noda is speaking. Much calmer, focused.)

(Update: The meeting is live on the net. Right now, Kaieda is speaking. Nothing worthy of mentioning. Sumio Mabuchi, who has the least number of supporters, seems to have impressed many net viewers for his forthright message of the first thing first - tackle the Fukushima nuke plant and recover from the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuke accident.)

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The members of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will elect the new leader for the party (who will then become the prime minister) in the early afternoon on August 29, JST.

The meeting of 398 DPJ members of the Diet has just started in Tokyo. The candidates are to give 15-minute speech to the audience before the voting.

The majority vote is necessary to determine the winner. If there is no majority winner in the first round of voting, then they vote on the top two in the first round.

The first round of voting will start around 12:20PM, and the tally will be in by 1PM. If the second round is necessary, it will start about 1:20PM after the top two in the first round tries to convince more voters to vote for them. By 2PM, we will know who will be the new DPJ leader and the next prime minister.

Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Banri Kaieda is the front-runner to succeed the outgoing PM Kan. Minister of Finance Noda is considered second, followed by ex-Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara. None of them seems to have secured the majority vote (200).

If it is a popularity contest among the Japanese, ex-Foreign Minister Maehara would win, according to the Yomiuri poll, because he is not backed by the kingmaker Ichiro Ozawa and he is young (he's 49).

"It doesn't matter who's at the top, they're all the same" has been the attitude of most Japanese from the time immemorial. At the same time, they trust the government authority (yes, even today) and clamor for a strong leader to guide them.

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Democratic Party of Japan to Select New Leader, Ozawa Backs Kaieda

Prime Minister Kan finally steps down now that the renewable energy legislation has passed, the ruling party Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is going to hold an election to select the next party leader who will be the new prime minister of Japan.

The election is to be formally announced on August 27, and the voting will be on August 29, according to Jiji Tsushin (8/26/2011).

Jiji reports that there will be 5 candidates for the job. But it seems to boil down to two leading candidates backed by two warring factions within the DPJ.

On one side is Seiji Maeda, 49 years old former Minister of Foreign Affairs, backed by PM Kan and his faction. On the other, Banri Kaieda, 62 years old Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, backed by the faction led by Ichiro Ozawa and ex-PM Yukio Hatoyama, both of whom like to be the "king maker".

Banri Kaieda has been an unabashed proponent of nuclear power as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry that oversees the nuclear industry in Japan.

5 candidates are:

• Seiji Maehara, age 49, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs

• Yoshihiko Noda, age 54, Minister of Finance

• Michihiko Kano, age 69, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

• Sumio Mabuchi, age 51, ex-Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism

• Banri Kaieda, age 62, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry

Take your pick.

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Kyushu Electric: Emails Sent to 2,300 Employees at Subsidiaries

More on Kyushu Electric Power Company busted (thanks to the Internet) for urging its employees and the employees at its subsidiaries to stuff the hearing for the re-start of Genkai Nuke Plant in Saga Prefecture with "anonymous, pro-nuke" emails.

According to Kyodo News Japanese (7/8/2011), A "Bucho" (general manager of a division) at Kyushu Electric ordered a "Kacho" (junior manager who work under "Bucho") to send emails urging the subsidiaries to participate in the hearing as anonymous pro-nuke citizens. 4 managers at the 4 subsidiaries dutifully forwarded the email to everyone at their respective companies, total 2,300 emails to 2,300 employees.

4 managers at the subsidiaries are all from Kyushu Electric. The "bucho" who ordered the "kacho" to create this email didn't say whether he also specified the details.

As the result of this scandal, even the pro-nuke gung-ho mayor of Genkai-cho (where the nuke plant sits) has grudgingly withdrawn his consent for the re-start, trashing both Kyushu Electric and the national government, who out of the blue has come up with the brilliant idea of nuke plant "stress test" that will not only delay the re-start at best, and at worst may reveal the aging Genkai plant to be very unsafe (if they really test).

But would anyone who believe the test, when the test parameters are set by the NISA and the nuclear industry?

Well, sadly it may well work. Just like the "stress test" for Wall Street banks devised by the US regulators (Turbo Tax Timmy and Helicopter Ben) and the banks themselves seems to have worked. Not that anyone believed the result, but more like "OK it's done, they cheated again, what's next? Anything changed? No. So what? Let's move on. Oh American Idol is on!" And the declaration by the banks and the regulators that "the US banks are safe".

Another minor victory for no-nuke people in Japan is that Banri Kaieda, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who amassed a fortune selling books on how to invest in risky assets right before the Japan's asset bubble collapsed, may be resigning over this Kyushu Electric scandal.

He feigned surprise and indignation, but hardly anyone believes he didn't have a hand in it. But just like his boss PM Kan, resignation "when the time comes" may mean he will never resign because no one knows "when" the time will come and what he means by "the time".

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: METI's Kaieda May Be Open to the Idea of Shutting Down the Plant

So the Japanese government was thinking (probably still is thinking?) all along that those Reactors at Fukushima I Nuclear Plant could be somehow resuscitated?

Extend and Pretend, supremo, borderline delusional.

Mainichi Shinbun (in Japanese; 12:50AM JST 3/20/2011) reports:

Banri Kaieda, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, disclosed during the March 19 press conference that his Ministry was urged by the mayor of Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture that the government and TEPCO plan for eventual abandonment of the plant. When asked about his opinion on abandoning the plant, he answered "Do you think the plant is in a condition to resume operation? There's no one right now who thinks that way," indicating the possibility of abandonment.

Hmmm. Was that even a question?

When asked about the call for emergency halt of Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant (operated by Chubu Electric Power Company) in Shizuoka Prefecture, which would be hit hard if a strong earthquake occurs as has been anticipated, Kaieda answered "We are trying to bring gas/petroleum power generation plants back online, but there is not enough supply and we have to avoid large-scale blackout."

Another fine bureaucratic speech. Get it? He was asked about Hamaoka Nuke Plant, and he answered by talking about how inadequate the power generation by burning gas and oil is. In essence, he's saying no way to the call for halting Hamaoka Nuke Plant, but never say never, or he may regret later.

Mr. Kaieda was famous for his books on how to get rich by investing in risky assets during Japan's bubble era in 1980s.

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