Japanese Prime Ministers

So Japan has a new prime minister; the 8th since 2000. Many feel that Japan has a high rotation of Prime Ministers which has created uncertainty in the economy, a lack of coherent policies and distrust for government in general. But the real complaint coming from people, especially those who do not understand the system is, "Why does Japan change Prime Ministers more often than most people buy new cell phones?" 

But really, how does Japan compare to other parliamentary governments? I decided to crunch the numbers on the number of Prime Ministers since 1945 (end of WWII) and the average number of days per Prime Minister. I compared Japan, The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, India, Thailand and Italy. (data from Wikipedia)

Average Days in Office since 1945

	Days		Days
Japan	708	Denmark	1322
United Kingdom	1776	India	1296
Canada	2346	Thailand	571
Australia	1530	Italy	615
New Zealand	1459

Japan has very short terms compared to other parliamentary countries. Only Italy and India have had more changes since 1945. Italy had to reestablish a republic after Mousulini. Italians sometimes joke that they change governments more out of fashion than out of political needs. Thailand has only had a stable political party based democracy since the 1990s. Before this it was dominantly military led.

But just how many Prime ministers have these countries had since 1945?

	PMs		PMs
Japan	34	Denmark	17
United Kingdom	16	India	17
Canada	13	Thailand	44
Australia	18	Italy	38
New Zealand	17

One item to keep in mind is that though some countries like Italy have had 38 Prime Ministers. Some Prime Ministers have had multiple non-consecutive terms. The current Italian PM, Silvio Berlusconi, has had three non-consecutive terms; May 10, 1994 to January 17, 1995, June 11, 2001 to May 17, 2006 and his current term which started May 8, 2008. In fact, Italy has had nine men elected prime minister in non-consecutive terms since WWII with the most going to five-term Amintore Fanfani. His first was in 1954 and his last was in 1987. (He shares this distinction with Giovanni Giolitti who was the 19th, 25th, 29th, 32nd and 37th PM between 1892 and 1921)

Japanese PMs with more than 1000 days

The real trick is to find the number of Japanese Prime Ministers since 1945 that have been in office for more than 1000. Okay not that hard...there have only been six:

	Days		Days
Junichiro Koizumi	1979	Hayato Ikeda	1574
Yasuhiro Nakasone	1805	Nobusuke Kishi	1265
Eisaku Sato	2792	Shigeru Yoshida*	2247

* Shigeru Yoshida had two non-consecutive terms resulting in a grand total of 2614 days

Once these people are taken out. The average number of days for a Japanese prime Minister is 455 days. Yikes!

But what about the Heisei Period?

We are currently what is called the Heisei Period. This is the term used for the reign of the current Emperor Akihito who ascended to the throne in 1989. The average days served since 1989 is better than the total average minus the 1000-dayers at 508 days. But since Elvis loving Junichiro Koizumi left office the average number of days drops to 360 days...1 year. The outgoing prime minister, Naoto Kan, is the only one to break the 1 year mark at 448 days.

Good Luck Noda!

I guess that we have to hope that Yoshihiko Noda can not only break the 360 day average mark and exceed his predecessor in days serves, but also rebuild trust in the government among the people, rebuild a devastated Tohoku region, and rescue the faltering economy. I think if he has no skeletons in his closet which hurt several post Koizumi PMs and can do the later three, he will have a good chance of defeating the odd. Good Luck Mr. Noda! 

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Note about the data:

In calculating the average days.

Current Prime Ministers were NOT included in these numbers. Only the total number of completed days at the time they leave office were used. The average is produced from the completed days.

Counting the PMs

Number of Prime ministers was counted by the times a new person was elected. Non-consecutively elected PMs were counted not by years served but times a new person was put in the position. Some prime ministers had to go through several elections. Thus Shigeru Yoshida is counted twice in Japan. Silvio Berlusconi is counted only three times in Italy.