The once dominant Liberal Democratic Party has withered so miserably since losing the general election Aug. 30 that it looks as if it could suffer a total collapse or disintegration.
Nearly three months after the Democratic Party of Japan unseated the LDP, the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama still appears too shaky to garner much voter trust, but even more conspicuous is the LDP's self- inflicted defeatism and its failure to take up the role of a leading opposition party.
What was it that enabled the DPJ to win 308 of 480 seats in the Lower House while dropping the number of LDP seats to only 119? Even as the votes were being counted, Katsuya Okada, then DPJ secretary general and now foreign minister, said, "I believe it's because the Liberal Democrats have become unworthy of running the government."