32 Asia The EconomistJuly 20th 2019
21pending on the election, makes it difficult
for new parties and candidates to catch vot-
ers’ attention and convey a coherent mes-
sage. “Most simply repeat their names over
and over again in front of train stations or
on their campaign cars, because that’s all
they have time to do,” says Kenneth Mori
McElwain of the University of Tokyo. Even
if the opposition were to get into power
again, the bureaucracy, which has close
ties to the ldpafter all these years, would
work against it, as it did to the dpj.
The ldp’s long dominance has also kept
politics a pursuit for old men. This is the
first parliamentary poll since the Diet ap-
proved a resolution urging all parties to try
to field more female candidates: 28% of the
370 people contesting seats on July 21st are
women, a record. But only 15% of the ldp’s
candidates are female. Many ldp mps, in-
cluding Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, in-
herited their seats from their fathers.
A recent poll of candidates revealed that
the ldp’s have less socially liberal views
than those of other parties. “It is to do with
the gate-keepers, the party elite, who have
very old ideas of what leadership looks like
and entails,” says Linda Hasunuma of the
University of Bridgeport in America. There
are hardly any openly gay politicians, for
instance. Mari Murakami, a 29-year-old
lesbian, says she feels “marginalised”
when she votes, because the leading par-
ties are against same-sex marriage.
The long tenure of Mr Abe has made
things worse. He faces little opposition
from within his own party because of his
successive electoral victories and because
of a weakening of the factions that once
jostled for power within the ldp. He has
concentrated authority in the Kantei, the
prime minister’s office. A recent editorial
in the Asahi Shimbun, a left-leaning news-
paper, lamented that “the relationship be-
tween the administrative and legislative
branches of the government has lost the
healthy tension vital for a sound democra-
cy... this has led to endemic arrogance and
lax discipline within the administration.”
Ministers drag their feet about provid-inginformationtothepublicanddebating
policy. The budget committees of both
houses have not held a single meeting
sincetheDietpassedthebudgetinApril.
Thegovernmentrefusestoprovideclear
anddetailedexplanationsofscandalssuch
astheoneconcerningMoritomoGakuen,a
privateschoolthathastiestoMrAbeand
wasabletobuypubliclandonthecheap.
The Constitutional Democratic Party,
thelargestoppositiongrouping,iscam-
paigninginpartonrevivingJapan’sde-
mocracy. Asahi reckons that the upper
houseelections“willbeanopportunityfor
Japanesevoterstomakechoicesthathelp
restorehealthtothisnation’sdemocracy”.
Theyseemunlikelytoseizeit.Thereisa
chancethatvotersmightdeprivetheruling
coalitionofitscurrentsuper-majorityof
seats,MsMulgansays,whichwouldim-
pedeitsplantoamendtheconstitution.
Butpollssuggesteventhatmaynothap-
pen,leaving thegovernmentstrong and
publicenthusiasmforpoliticsweak. 7Thinking outside the ballot boxSource:TheAssociationforPromotingFairElectionsJapan, voter turnout in elections
By age group, %204060801001990 95 2000 05 10 1720-294 0-4960-69N
aheed afridi is something of a spec-
tacle. She is canvassing for votes in
Khyber district ahead of elections later this
month. In a region where women are large-
ly confined to their homes, her progress
through villages near the Afghan border at-
tracts curiosity and admiration, but also
criticism. “I know I have challenged the ego
of so-called strong men, and that’s why
they tell me it’s against our religion and
culture,” she says.
The poll on July 20th, in which candi-
dates will vie for one of 16 slots in the pro-
vincial assembly, is a milestone for Paki-
stan’s neglected tribal borderlands: it is the
first time they have been allowed to vote for
local administrators. Since colonial times,
the area has been run directly by the central
government. But last year a constitutional
amendment brought the Federally Admin-
istered Tribal Areas (fata), as the frontier
zone used to be known, into the political
and legal mainstream by merging it into
the neighbouring province of Khyber Pakh-
tunkhwa. In theory, that gives the region’s
5m inhabitants the same rights as other
Pakistanis. But the ballot follows a military
crackdown against the very movement for
civil liberties which has recently been in-
vigorating local politics.
fatahas been starved of development
and repressed for decades—in part, pre-sumably, because its people had little say
in how it was run. The Frontier Crimes Reg-
ulations—passed more than a century
ago—awarded a colonial official nearly ab-
solute power. The set-up stayed in place
after the British left because it suited the
Pakistani authorities too.
Life for residents worsened when fata
became a battleground after 9/11. Used for
years as a base for Islamist insurgents who
served as Pakistani proxies in Afghanistan,
and then colonised by Afghan militants, it
became a haven for jihadists. Residents,
mainly from the Pushtun ethnic minority,
found themselves caught between the mil-
itants and the army’s repeated offensives.
The most recent, in a part of fatacalled
Waziristan in 2014, finally pushed the mil-
itants out and ended a bloody domestic ter-
rorist campaign by the Pakistani Taliban.
The army now claims that peace has
been restored in the tribal borderlands and
that rebuilding is under way. Opposition
parties say that its tough tactics undermine
promises of reform and show it has little
intention of allowing civilian governance
to bloom. The disagreement is at the core of
the forthcoming election. Although securi-
ty in the country has improved, military
campaigns have displaced hundreds of
thousands of people and soldiers stand ac-
cused of human-rights abuses.
A popular protest movement called the
ptm arose in the area in 2018. Its activists
complain of oppressive curfews and check-
points, and also decry extra-judicial kill-
ings and disappearances. Supporters
thronged to its rallies. Unaccustomed to
such dissent, the army at first tried to ap-
pease the ptm. Then its intolerance re-
turned. In April infuriated generals public-
ly warned that the ptm’s time was up. The
following month troops at a checkpoint in
Waziristan fired into a crowd of its suppor-
ters and killed 13. The army claimed the sol-
diers were fired on first; the ptmsays theKHYBER DISTRICT
Poor borderlands win full political
representation for the first timePakistan’s tribal areasPolitical
camouflage
Weapons? Drugs? Democratic stirrings?