Breer pointed out that the LDP and the opposition New Frontier Party, which counts many defectors from LDP among its ranks, are centrist and have minimal policy differences between them, although policy differences exist within each party. An election, Breer suspects, il will launch a process that shuffles politicians according to views on Self-Defense Force participation in United Nations peacekeeping efforts and other issues. Professor Nathaniel Thayer of the Johns Hopkins University Nitze School of Advanced International Studies agreed. Maybe what we'll see is the emergence of parliamentary parties that organize in the Diet to control it, and future governments will probably be coalition governments. A bright spot for politicians may be the possibility of gaining the upper hand against Japan's powerful bureaucracy, which, as Japan's economy has struggled to revive, has faced increasing criticism in recent years.
Critics single it out for mishandling Japan's troubled banking situation and other financial crises.
Some observers say elections are necessary to boost Japan's struggling economy. Bemoaning what he considers the Bank of Japan's misguided handling of the economy since the late 1980s, David Gitlitz, senior economist of Polyconics, Inc., argued that the present Japanese government is not interested in making the changes that would cure the country's economic woes. The problem is that the political will for needed fiscal and regulatory reform is now sorely lacking. In a mature economy like Japan's, there can be no substitute for breaking down the barriers to competition and entrepreneurship in order to return to an optimal path of expansion. Global influences may also affect developments in Japan.