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Japan's PM seeks to defy political
gravity
By J Sean Curtin
TOKYO
- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
second anniversary in office last weekend triggered a
massive wave of media speculation about his future
prospects. Many pundits are predicting that the nation's
leader will soon have to relinquish his post. Koizumi
himself seems completely confident that he will retain
power for a few more years and defy his critics. In
order to survive, Koizumi will have to overcome some
daunting economic and political challenges. The next few
months will be crucial in determining whether he can
retain his crown.
Apart from the two-year
anniversary itself, no actual concrete event lay behind
the sudden media onslaught aimed at Koizumi. The
underlying cause of the outburst is to be found in the
short political lifespan of most Japanese leaders. While
a week is considered a long time in British politics,
two years is normally an entire lifetime for a Japanese
prime minister. Furthermore, not every individual is
lucky enough to survive this long in office and some
premierships last just a few months. Since 1972, only
one premier has celebrated a third year in office and
that was back in 1985 when Yasuhiro Nakasone held the
post. It is this backdrop that convinces so many
political analysts that Koizumi's days at the top must
be numbered. To try to escape the fate of most of his
predecessors, Koizumi is concentrating his survival
efforts on two key areas: deflecting criticism away from
his economic policies and winning re-election as his
party's president.
On the day of the
anniversary, Japan's diehard leader broke with
convention and was not to be found on Japanese soil. In
a carefully calculated move, Koizumi chose to be in
London playing international statesman before the global
media. A week-long tour of the major European capitals
gave the premier the perfect opportunity to emphasize
his international credentials and project an image of
strong leadership. As he rubbed shoulders with the likes
of Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac, Koizumi was radiating
with the Shakespearean confidence of a winner. The trip
was also an extremely shrewd political move aimed at
avoiding bad news at home. On the first day of his
visit, the Japanese stock market tumbled to a new
20-year low and the latest youth unemployment statistics
hit a record high of 13.2 percent.
Koizumi has
an amazing flare for dodging bad economic news by
utilizing the international stage to create his own
counter-headlines. The best example of this was his
unexpected 2002 North Korean foray, which also clearly
demonstrated the effectiveness of this type of strategy.
The Pyongyang visit revitalized Koizumi's then sagging
popularity and focused the nation's attention away from
the ailing economy. The US-led invasion of Iraq
furnished another chance to turn voters' minds away from
domestic woes.
If the economy remains in its
current near-terminal condition, then part of Koizumi's
survival strategy will have to be based around utilizing
his international status to generate positive media
coverage. This is the only way to distract the
electorate away from near economic collapse at home.
While such a policy is obviously fraught with a great
deal of risk, it might be the only viable option.
There are two highly potent foreign-policy
issues that could already be written into the Koizumi
survival scenario. One is the ongoing confrontation with
the ever-unpredictable North Korean regime. Resolving
this crisis requires an incredibly delicate balancing
act between the United States and North Korea. This is a
role for which Koizumi is uniquely qualified. In
Washington, Koizumi's support for the Iraq invasion has
raised his profile to such a degree that no other
Japanese politician can match him. This status is a
powerful asset in the domestic political arena.
The other potential opportunity for displaying
international statesmanship would be a treaty with
Russia to resolve finally a long-standing territorial
dispute over four islands lying off Hokkaido. These were
seized by Moscow in the dying days of World War II. A
well-timed and satisfactory breakthrough in the Northern
Territories dispute would probably be enough to
overshadow domestic economic gloom and substantially
boost Koizumi's rating.
Besides deflecting
attention away from the failure of his financial
policies, the prime minister's other key objective will
be to get himself re-elected Liberal Democratic Party
president in September. If he does not accomplish this,
he will lose his job. This is because the LDP is the
dominant force in the governing coalition and its
president automatically assumes the premiership.
Re-election will be an uphill struggle, as powerful
forces within his own factious party are against him.
Many prominent LDP figures have already clearly signaled
that they consider Koizumi's allocated time to be up.
One faction leader, Shizuka Kamei, has even declared he
will run against Koizumi, while other faction chiefs
have recently highlighted Koizumi's isolation from the
mainstream of the party by hindering his appointment of
a cabinet minister.
Despite the tense
relationship between Koizumi and his party, the
premier's greatest strength is that at the moment he has
no realistic contender within parliament who can match
his popularity with the public. His impressive track
record in sustaining his own personal ratings despite
near economic meltdown and a generally hostile press
will undoubtedly make him a formidable opponent. His
mastery and brilliant exploitation of the media have
already altered the underlying dynamics of Japanese
politics. Whoever takes over from Koizumi will have to
display a similar kind of appeal to an electorate that
has now come to expect more from their leader. Provided
Koizumi can sustain his current 40-percent-plus
popularity rating, his bitter party rivals may find it
impossible to depose him.
If there is one
guiding principle that holds the LDP together, it is the
overwhelming desire to be in power. Were the LDP
grandees to pass the premiership to someone like Shizuka
Kamei, they would be committing electoral suicide. They
are fully aware of this fact and ultimately unlikely to
risk their own political futures by such a foolhardy
act. Thus, despite senior party figures' obvious
loathing of Koizumi, they may in the end conclude that a
popular Koizumi is their best hope of hanging on to
power.
As long as Koizumi can retain the
presidency of his own party and contain the current
economic crisis, he has a reasonable chance of staying
in power for at least another year or two. In the final
analysis, the greatest danger may come from his economic
policies not his political enemies. Even if he has some
great foreign-policy triumphs, the dire financial
situation may yet generate enough public anger to bring
this daredevil politician crashing down to earth.
Koizumi's battle to stay in power is certainly going to
be a tale with an unpredictable end.
J
Sean Curtin writes a weekly Japanese Social Trends
Series for the Tokyo-based think-tank Global
Communications from Japan. He is also a professor at the
Japanese Red Cross University. A different version of
this article has appeared on the GLOCOM
platform.
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