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Koizumi takes policy out of
politics
By Richard Hanson
TOKYO - With the race for prime minister a
non-event and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
government not making any waves, Japanese politics have
been unusually dull lately.
There are, of
course, still scandals. For starters, a senior official
of the Communist Party (yes, Japan still has one)
resigned after admitting to sexually harassing a woman.
The party's policy chief gave up his seat in the Upper
House of the Diet (parliament) after misbehaving at a
real party. This came just as the Communists were trying
to rid themselves a hardline Marxist-Leninist image.
"What Hideyo Fudesaka [did] should never be forgiven by
society [or] our party," said another party member.
On the other end of the spectrum, you might
consider the disgraced ex-Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
power broker and Diet member, Muneo Suzuki, who is about
to surpass most records for jailed parliamentarians
after marking his first year in the lock-up while
awaiting a verdict on bribery charges. Suzuki is one of
the characters behind the mess that led Koizumi to fire
his voluble female foreign minister, Makiko Tanaka, in
January 2002.
That incident sent Koizumi's
popularity in the polls plunging, and encouraged potent
enemies in the conservative wing of the LDP to attack
his agenda of reform and structural change. Suzuki is
said to be plotting a political comeback. Loyal
supporters in his Hokkaido constituency still like
believing "politicians like him will no longer emerge".
Several loyalists have indeed been elected in
local elections.
"Since he helped to work for
the benefit of the community, we cannot very well ignore
him now," the Asahi Shimbun quoted one supporter as
saying of Suzuki, 55.
Now that is the kind of
loyalty that Koizumi covets, as he steps gingerly toward
next September's LDP convention, where he will run for
re-election as party president (and hence the prime
minister's post, which is controlled by a LDP-led
three-party coalition). By most reckoning, Koizumi
should be able fend of his opponents within the party.
The prime minister has the upper hand at the moment and
has indicated he is in no mood to reshuffle his cabinet
until after the LDP election.
The prime minister
tends to discount polls, but the most recent survey
taken by one newspaper found that about 52 percent of
people asked favored Koizumi to be re-elected head of
the LDP, while 30 percent were opposed. There is one
caveat. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun result suggests 73
percent of the supporters simply don't see any other
candidates qualified to lead the LDP. Koizumi gets good
marks for remaining relatively scandal-free, as well as
for battling with forces within the party who are
opposing his reform plans.
Last year, Koizumi
fought tooth-and-nail to pass legislation to privatize
Japan's huge postal system, which includes postal
savings and insurance. He was less successful in
tackling the problem of public works spending for
highway and other construction, which is protected by
large factions within the LDP.
Those critical of
the prime minister also cited slow progress on his once
ambitious agenda for reform and little confidence in the
prospect for an economic recovery. Rather than direct
volleys against Koizumi, critics have homed in on the
policies of State Minister Heizo Takenaka, who is in
charge of economic and financial policy, including the
government's recent decision to bail out Resona Holdings
Inc, the country's fifth-largest banking group. Koizumi
is given credit for his handling of Japan's role in
supporting the United States in going to war in Iraq, a
reflection of how nervous Japan is about the very real
nearby threat of North Korea, which says it is
developing nuclear weapons.
What Koizumi has
excelled in is putting forward policies - from tax
reforms to decentralization of government - that will
require time-consuming deliberation among competing
vested interests and various deliberative bodies.
For example, the Council on Economic and Fiscal
Policy, chaired by the prime minister, last week set out
the draft of guidelines for economic management in 2003
that included a "three-way" decentralization plan. One
idea is to give more tax-collecting authority to local
governments. The central government, however, would cut
the amount of subsidies it gives to local governments.
This sort of delaying tactic pushes any
substantial debate into the fall, when budget
negotiations begin in earnest. The idea is to avoid such
details jelling before the September LDP presidential
election, while giving the appearance of movement.
Koizumi cannot be faulted for such tactics.
Early in his administration his enemies within the LDP
derailed much of his legislative agenda, which led to
confrontations that threatened to split the party. This
time Koizumi has make it clear that he will only reward
members of any new cabinet formed after the LDP election
who show a strong commitment to implementing his
structural reforms. To the press he said he would pick
ministers from among the LDP "on the assumption that
they will cooperate with me on reforms".
He
added, "I have to build unity in the party."
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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