Sashimi v. Wasabi

Japanese voters this week gave a smashing electoral victory to the conservative government of cigar-smoking Shigeru Yoshida's Democratic Liberal party. With 263 seats of his own, and the support of 70 almost equally conservative members of the Democratic party, Yoshida would have for the next four years an overwhelming majority of the Diet's lower house of 466 members.

Just before the election, one of Yoshida's opponents, Communist Sanzo Nozaka, had said: "Compared to the other Japanese parties we are now merely the dash of wasabi (horseradish) which flavors the sashimi (raw fish). We must become the sashimi, too." In the election, Communist seats rose from four to 35, their popular vote from 3.6% in 1947 to 10.5%. The Communists were not yet the whole sashimi] the voters would have four years to decide whether they liked quite so hot a seasoning.

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