The 192-day regular Diet session that ended on Wednesday will be remembered more for what it did not achieve than for what it did. In brief, it failed in two critical areas: political reform and economic revival. While politics bogged down in a quagmire of corruption, deflation dragged on, with no recovery in sight.
It was a scandal-wracked session that saw a number of bigwigs fall in disgrace. Mr. Muneo Suzuki, a former Liberal Democratic Party power broker, was arrested and indicted. Mr. Koichi Kato, former LDP secretary general, was effectively ousted from the Diet, as was Mr. Yutaka Inoue, former president of the Upper House.
In another dramatic reversal of fortune, Ms. Makiko Tanaka, the nation's first female foreign minister, lost her job as her aggressive attempt to shake up the ministry backfired in the face of a bureaucratic revolt. She suffered further blows from a pay scandal involving her legislative secretaries, becoming a fallen idol in the process.