The LDP predominant party system ended in 1993. The big question now is whether an effective opposition party can be created or whether the LDP will find a way to re-establish predominance. One key will be gubernatorial elections. Governors sit at the pivot between national and local politics. All parties except the Communists strive to be part of the gubernatorial coalition because only then can they influence distributive political decisions. Most gubernatorial elections are thus noncompetitive. Recent gubernatorial elections, however, have given some hope to those who would create an alternative to the LDP. Even if an anti-LDP candidate wins, he will be tempted to return to the LDP fold, or at least remain neutral in national politics. Recent gubernatorial elections in Aomori illustrate these pressures and complexities. Aomori was one of three prefectures where the New Frontier Party won gubernatorial elections. The NFP represented the first failed attempt to create a credible alternative to the LDP and we can learn much from its failure.

On 26 April 2001, Junichiro Koizumi emerged as the new prime minister of Japan, representing the public's desire for economic recovery through fundamental structural change in Japanese politics. More than two years have passed since then, and Japan has seen neither significant economic revival nor major changes in its political and administrative structures. People's expectation and faith in this henjin (“weirdo” as labeled by Former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka) prime minister for rescuing Japan's economy has been greatly undermined as Japan's unemployment rate stays high and stock prices low. Japanese banks are performing poorly as usual, and bad loans seem to never go away or decrease in amount. Despite these seemingly critical shortcomings, however, Prime Minister Koizumi and his administration have maintained a high approval rate from the public.

The performance of the Japanese Diet in 2003 indicates that a new political era may have begun. The rate at which government sponsored bills were passed in 2003 was 11 per cent higher than in 2002. The unity of government parties, especially the unified support of the Komei Party, the high approval rates of Koizumi Cabinet, and changes in the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the largest opposition party, all contributed to this high passage rate. Most notable was a change in the treatment of national security issues. The confrontational style of the 1955 regime gave way to a new political era of discussion and compromise through the Diet deliberation. The Koizumi cabinet demonstrated strong leadership over the government parties, and the cabinet made many substantial policy decisions.