nuclear-news

Japan’s aging, weakening, pro nuclear lobby

POINT OF VIEW/ Eiji Oguma: Japan’s nuclear lobby will die soon, Asahi Shimbun, 19 Nov  Shizuoka’s prefectural assembly has rejected a bill to hold a public referendum that would have put the restart of the nuclear reactors in the prefecture to a yes-or-no vote. The Asahi Shimbun reported on Oct. 12 that some assembly members had yielded to pressure by labor unions
of the electric power industry.

Denryoku Soren (the Federation of Electric Power Related Industry Worker’s Unions of Japan) is believed to be able to mobilize 5,000 to 7,000 voters in Shizuoka Prefecture.

But 165,000 people signed the petition for the public referendum. So what makes 5,000 people more special than the 165,000? I believe I know what the assembly members are thinking: the 165,000 signatures are just a statistic. The politicians do not see mere names as real people.

But pressure groups like power-utility unions provide more visible
support by, for example, providing campaign staff to help put up
election posters. Even if there were only 10 such staff per assembly
member, politicians tend to rely on them more than the 165,000 who may
or may not vote.

However, pressure groups are remarkably weakening. Every assembly
member knows that the ranks of non-aligned voters are growing, while
the old campaign tactic of seeking support from large organizations
such as labor unions, chambers of commerce and industry, and builders
and contractors is no longer effective.

So why do pressure groups still hold power?……..
it is perfectly appropriate to call the nuclear power industry “dinosaurs.”
The idea that dinosaurs are strong has another effect. It makes
declining industries seem stronger than they are. Legislatures,
government agencies and the mass media are all old, unchanging parts
of Japanese society, and many in those sectors are unable to adapt to
a new way of looking at things. To them, when the old giants like
political factions, big labor unions and Keidanren do something, that
action has exaggerated importance.

Meanwhile, their radar simply does not register the growing number of
non-affiliated voters. Even though they sense that something is
different now, they lack the energy to enact reforms on their own and
they stick to the same old approach….. They cannot respond to new
trends that they do not understand and cannot foresee, and they
stubbornly focus on old sectors that are steadily dwindling…..
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/opinion/AJ201211190006

November 19, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, politics