At a meeting of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Affairs on the morning of April 6, 2010, Liberal Democratic Party legislator Koizumi Shinjirō addressed Kamei Shizuka, minister of state for postal reform and head of the tiny People’s New Party, and he did not mince words. According to an opinion poll recently published by the daily Sankei Shimbun, public support for the PNP stood at 0.0%. It fared only marginally better–0.7%–in a Kyodo News survey. In effect, Koizumi said, a party with virtually no voter support was ramming through an overhaul of one of the nation’s key institutions. And the main ruling party, the Democratic Party of Japan, was allowing itself to be pushed around by this political nonentity. It was the DPJ, not the PNP, that the people had voted into power with a resounding 300-seat lower house majority. The young ... ... [Read more]