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KOIZUMI'S
HOT SUMMER
It's August, do you know where your party
is?
By Richard Hanson
In
this series: If
it's my party, I do as I want to
TOKYO -
Politics in August? Most years, forget it. Your ordinary
citizen in Japan, intent on a snippet of vacation,
escapes for a few days away from the hot, crowded city
to party (not the political kind) in hot, crowded
vacation resorts. The shrill rasp of the male cicada, a
large fly-like bug, will compete with the radio drone of
Japan's annual national fetish, the summer high-school
baseball tournament. For a while, all is well with the
world.
August is a time to commune with the
spirits of your departed ancestors. What is called Obon
passes as a holiday, but there are no official days off,
save solemn remembrances of two atomic bombs dropped
before the August 15, 1945, end of World War II. Last
year, the war's-end observance prompted loud protests
when the Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi paid his
respects at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine for the war dead. No
such fuss is anticipated this time.
So why are
the serious pols in Nagatacho, the heart of Japanese
national politics, hunkering down for what, for many, is
not going to be a month of fun in the sun? This is
especially true of the leaders of political parties -
both those in struggling opposition parties and at the
core of the ruling coalition that (most of the time)
supports Koizumi's reform-minded government.
Koizumi is on everyone's mind.
Locked in
the prime minister's enigmatic gray-streaked head are
the privileged secrets of office that only he can know.
Bluntly put: When will the magic wand of dissolution of
the Diet and a general election be waved? Just the
thought makes other politicians downright antsy,
especially those in the opposition. Koizumi has waved
the threat of going to the country more times than you
can shake a stick.
That has rattled Yukio
Hatoyama.
His anxiety level was high enough this
week to prompt the largest - and thus most angst-prone -
opposition party to flail out, at least symbolically, at
Koizumi. As president of the Democratic Party of Japan
(DPJ), Hatoyama tried to rob Koizumi of the power to
call an election through the only parliamentary option
available. Hatoyama introduced an anti-Koizumi
no-confidence motion against the cabinet.
Hatoyama is a patrician-looking rich politician
of impeccable conservative political stock. He bolted
the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the early 1990s
and embraced the cause of liberalism in one of the
world's most conservative societies. In the early
stages, such unpolitical catch words as "love" and
"friendship" appeared on slogan flyers.
The
current DJP is the most successful opposition party in
Japan, with 129 members elected in either the lower or
upper houses of the Diet (parliament). The LDP is the
chosen nemesis. What distinguishes it from the LDP is
that its members are generally younger. The party is too
young to have developed rigid seniority barriers to
young politicians.
When the votes were counted
in the 480-seat Lower House, the no-confidence attempt
lost 280 votes against and 185 votes for. This was the
first no-confidence vote faced by the prime minister in
his tumultuous 15 months in office. Thus the 154th
regular session of the Diet came to an end after 192
days - memorable more for scandals and internal
ruling-party squabbling.
Hatoyama could justify
the grandstanding. He cited the Koizumi cabinet's poor
record on the economy (a generally agreed blind spot for
Koizumi). But he then told reporters something closer to
the truth: "We submitted it in anger." He could have
added frustration that it isn't easy to build a party.
Being in the opposition has been a more or less
thankless job since the heyday of the initial rebellions
from within the LDP a decade ago.
Back in those
days, a seemingly endless parade of corruption and
scandals, along with internal bickering, reduced the
ruling party severely in stature. When the LDP lost the
mandate to control the prime minister's post in 1993,
even its most loyal backers were forced to reconsider
their support. Japan's most important business
organization, now known as Nippon Keidanren, stopped
funneling political contributions from its members to
the LDP. Old postwar relations were no longer working.
Japan's other mainstream political parties were
either ideologically stunted or closely affiliated with
special-interest groups (such as labor unions and
religions) to draw broad support. The current coalition
that enables to the LDP to hold sway as the majority
party involves the New Komeito Party and the New
Conservative Party.
They are both useful in
providing a margin of votes in electoral contests where
the LDP is weak. This fall, there will be a number of
by-elections where the LDP will be looking for narrow
victories. On issues, the coalition is frequently out of
step. Koizumi is so far out on his own somewhat muddled
policy agenda that his fellow party members are very
often his fiercest opponents. This is especially true
when the prime minister tackles fiercely coveted vested
interests, such as the post office.
Public works
and construction interest provide the lifeblood for the
largest of the factions within the LDP (the biggest,
with about 100 members, is headed by pro-construction
former prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto). In April 2001,
Koizumi defeated Hashimoto in the party election that
made him prime minister. Until serious illness struck
him this year, Hashimoto served to block a weakening of
the flow of pork-barrel largess such as that provided by
the road construction lobby.
Hatoyama's
Democratic Party of Japan is not heavily on the dole.
But Hatoyama himself is said to be a useful source of
funds to keep the party alive. A little history is
useful. His career in politics came naturally from his
family. In 1954, Yukio Hatoyama's famous postwar
politician grandfather, Ichiro Hatoyama, brought an end
to the long postwar rule of Shigeru Yoshida's Liberal
Party.
Ichiro Hatoyama formed the Japan
Democratic Party and became prime minister (the first of
three terms that he served). The 1956 merger of the
Liberal Party and the Democratic Party created the
Liberal Democratic Party, with Hatoyama taking on the
role of its first leader and prime minister.
In
1996, Yukio snitched the name Democratic Party from his
grandfather and began a campaign to displace the LDP.
The inherited Hatoyama family's wealth helped. Before
the DPJ, Hatoyama helped built a liberal-minded party
named Sakigake. That party had been the smallest member
of an odd three-party coalition led by the LDP, which
embraced its erstwhile socialist enemy, the Social
Democratic Party.
The cacophony of party names
alone has made it difficult for the average voter to
keep things straight. Keeping the past decade of
political-party-hopping and name-changing is a daunting
task. Parties appeared and died with blinding frequency.
In all, some 30 parties were formed, but that figure
does not count less formal political groups and
independent lawmakers elected to parliament.
In
theory, Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan should be
able provide voters with the best alternative to
challenge the ruling. The name is now well established.
After the last Lower House election in 2001 the party
held 126 seats, a bit more than half that of the LDP.
The problems of running a small party, however, can be
daunting. So far, Hatoyama has not been able to convert
the troubles and falling popularity of the LDP into
strong gains for his own party.
Japanese
editorial writers have questioned whether Hatoyama
himself may be to blame. For all the youthful emphasis
of the DPJ, the leadership is getting older. Hatoyama is
55 years old, as is the secretary general of the party
Naoto Kan, who also split from the LDP. What makes the
party unique is the high proportion of young lawmakers
elected to office. The party has 43 first-term Diet
members. About 70 percent of the members have served in
the Diet for less than 10 years. A number have changing
party affiliations from the LDP and other parties, where
age means seniority.
The question facing the
party as the presidential election looms in September is
whether it is time for the old guard (Hatoyama and Kan)
to give way to a young guard. This is complicated by
relations between Hatoyama and Kan. The Japanese press
has made much of stories of younger members seeking a
"third man" as leader, though there are no obvious
candidates.
What has not been raised is the role
that the DPJ could play if an alternative to the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party should appear on the horizon.
That could put the DPJ in a different light. If Japan is
seriously going to tackle the problems of reforming
government and dealing with the dilemma of an aging
society, what better way to do so than by tapping into
the younger talent that is already proving itself as
vote-getters?
That still leaves the question of
who could lead such a youthful coalition, keeping in
mind that the best and brightest of the DPJ lawmakers
chose the party to avoid the stultifying seniority bias
of the LDP and other long-established parties.
This brings the focus back to where it began.
Just what is Prime Minister Koizumi planning?
After surviving the no-confidence vote, the
poker-faced Koizumi thanked his supporters. He has
already asked his cabinet members to devote themselves
during the summer break to preparing further legislative
plans. "There will a time for work, and there will be a
time for play," he said. This is the sort of hard work
that young politicians would be well suited for.
So as Koizumi spins his plans for reforming
Japan, it is best to keep in mind that just about
anything is possible in politics. Koizumi faces no
rivals at the moment, and he carries with him a powerful
tool in being able to chose the time to move on the
election front.
For this summer, politicians -
such as those in Koizumi's ruling-coalition parties, but
especially those from the opposition parties that dream
of unseating the gangling man dubbed Lionheart - will be
hunkering down with each other with an unusually acute
sense of urgency.
For the leaders of the handful
of opposition parties circling the center of Nagatacho's
power, this is a time to panic and act. They have been
out in the cold since a brief period of rule in the
mid-1990s.
For his part, Koizumi has made the
guessing all the more difficult by surviving - against
the odds, according to doomsayers - for at least a year
and a half in office (if the politically dead time
between now and September is toted up). That is not a
bad record so far. His election to head the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party came in April 2001. His
predecessor, the scandalous faction leader Yoshiro Mori,
was booted out after just one year.
The question
that politicians may be contemplating this August is:
Where will your party be next summer?
(©2002
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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