Thankfully the election only lasted 12 days, which is a little bit crazy, I think. I think it's amazing that the candidates can only have 12 days to campaign from the announced day of the election to the actual election. Here the Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning for president at least 16 months early. I do tend to think we go a bit overboard, however. I guess when there is a president, everyone has to vote for him/her, so it requires more campaigning. There's no president in Japan, just a prime minister. He's appointed by the legislature's ruling coalition, so there's no need to campaign for it.

The ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party won, again. It was not much of a surprise, but they did lose some of their seats to the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan. One reason it is not much of a surprise is that the LDP has always won. It has never lost since it's founding after WWII. It has ruled for about 50 years in Japan. I think even the Japanese are a bit surprised by it when they talk about it. Many of them think it has a lot of porkbelly politics, is large and inefficient, and tries to avoid necessary reforms. Yet people still vote for them. I think they must think the evil they know is better than a possible evil that's out there. Also surprising is that there are a large number of political dynasties. Many members of parliament's father also served on parliament (and some of their fathers).

There were some funny quotes on the BBC about the election. They interviewed different people in Japan about it. One woman said that in other countries, when the economy goes south and things start going badly for a country, that often people vote for a different leader. However, she said, in Japan they still vote for the LDP, despite the decade long recession. The LDP is so large that there are various factions inside the party warring over things. The current prime minister is considered quite flamboyant and rebellious. He says he wants to institute many economic reforms to help pull the country out of its recession. I'm curious if it will work or not.