A lthough the approval rating of the Hatoyama administration and the DPJ are both waning, the Liberal Democratic Party is having a difficult time capitalizing on the ruling party's misfortunes. The LDP has adopted a new party platform, but there are no signs that voters are embracing it and switching their allegiance to the party that ruled Japan for more than five decades.
At a Jan. 24 party convention, LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki declared that his party had put behind it both the intraparty power struggles that had characterized the LDP's rule and the collusive relationship that the LDP had nurtured with the business community and the bureaucracy.
Mr. Tanigaki must carry out the difficult task of uniting the LDP membership and of developing policies that distinguish the party from the DPJ and win over voters. But while a party platform should spell out long-term goals, the new LDP platform focuses too much on criticism of the current ruling party and on abstract visions of Japan's future.