Leadership contest contest!

Pick the winner(s), win a prize!

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The prize that awaits the winner of the LDP’s leadership contest, but unfortunately not the winner of this website’s contest. Photo by author.

As readers of Observing Japan are well aware, the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election is unusually and historically unpredictable, to the point that Asō Tarō is lamenting that he doesn’t know the stars or even the cast of the show yet.

Therefore, I think this would be the perfect opportunity to have a prediction contest. If you click the link to the survey, you will be ask to pick your choices for the top two finishers in the first round of the LDP election, the eventual winner, and who will win the most votes from lawmakers and rank-and-file supporters in the first round (and how many they will win from each). For the latter questions, extra points will be awarded for picking a number within ±5 of the actual result. As a tiebreaker, I have also asked you to pick the winner of the Constitutional Democratic Party’s leadership election. This survey will close at 11:59pm on Thursday, 19 September, so get your entries in soon.

The winner will receive signed copies of either the expanded paperback edition or hardcover edition of The Iconoclast: Shinzō Abe and the New Japan as well as Political Reform Reconsidered, my translation of a book by Professor Machidori Satoshi.

"Political Reform Reconsidered"

The runner-up will receive the hardcover edition of The Iconoclast: Shinzō Abe and the New Japan.

If there are two winners even after the tiebreaker, both will receive the top prize. If there are more than two, winners will be selected at random.

If you would prefer not to wait to get a copy of The Iconoclast, Hurst Publishers is having its annual back-to-school sale through 15 September, with all books — mine included — on sale for 40% off.