Lion Heart who treasures cherry
blossoms By Richard
Hanson
"The Koizumi cabinet will soon enter
its fourth year. While the past three years have been
intense and pressured, no matter what the weather, I
will keep the idea of 'the wild cherry blossoms glowing
in the morning sun' close to my heart at all times, and
ceaselessly endeavor in my duties of national
administration." - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi, in "Lion Heart", the Koizumi Cabinet E-mail
Magazine, No 138, April 22, 2004.
TOKYO -
"Lion Heart" is the title of a column that the prime
minister writes in his own Internet publication, which
serves as a sort of chatty online fan club, pieced
together after he was selected Japan's leader in April
2001. That was quite a feat. He beat other veteran
members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),
including a former prime minister, in a landslide party
vote just three years ago on April 26.
Congratulations are in order.
The noble
wild animal is appropriate. As the official weblog
explains, it is a reference to the 62-year-old Junichiro
Koizumi's unruly mane-like, "lion-like" - now heavily
gray-streaked - hairstyle, and "his unbending
determination to advance structural reform". As a rakish
unmarried divorcee, and secretary general of his party,
Koizumi attracted many women's votes. His election
platform was heavily tipped toward a vague agenda of
"restructuring" of the economy and government
institutions that had, in some cases, become hotbeds of
graft and corruption. Above all, it was a source of
pork-barrel patronage that sustained a number of
personal "factions" within the LDP. Koizumi remained
somewhat above the muck.
As a third-generation
politician, on the one hand, the aspiring prime
minister, in a "safe" constituency in the urbanized
Kanagawa prefecture to the west of Tokyo, was not
beholden to special interests. On the other hand, that
quality also makes him attractive to big business,
which, in the poor economic times of the 1990, needed
political energy to pump new life into the economy.
As prime minister, Koizumi was quick-witted
enough to grasp (or mimic) the power of nurturing, to
acquire a knack for reading the twists and turns of what
was and is on the minds of the voting public. "Prime
Minister Koizumi was probably among the first to
recognize that 'interest group' politics was fading,"
observes one senior bureaucrat. "Having surpassed the
interest-group barrier, Koizumi could afford to take big
chances as prime minister in challenging old taboos."
Freeing politicians from money
factions Moreover, Koizumi realized that the
election reforms put in place after a series of
money-related scandals that surfaced in the late 1980s
and through the mid-1990s could free Japanese
politicians from the factions. The traditional role of a
faction boss was to raise money and distribute funds to
his members, especially around election time. (Before
election reform around 1994, parties also fielded
multiple candidates in each district.)
Koizumi's
contribution to electoral history was formulated in 2003
when, as LDP party leader, he virtually banished
factions from the heart of party power by fostering
factional splits. At the party convention in September,
Koizumi made his move to run for re-election. Given the
prime minister's remarkably stable showings in
popularity polls, his victory was assured.
The
LDP meeting set the stage for a general election in
November. For the first time in recent memory, voters
were being given a choice between two rival parties that
in theory were both capable of governing Japan. Koizumi
became the embodiment of the LDP itself, with one major
fiat. To govern after the election would require a
coalition with the New Komeito Party, whose strength is
a very large Buddhist religious group, the Soka Gakkai.
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is a motley
grouping formed in the late 1990s whose popular leader
Naoto Kan (having unified the party) vowed to take on
Koizumi and his policies. Within the DPJ, a joining of
forces with the onetime LDP strongman Ichiro Ozawa
boosted Kan's fortunes. Koizumi had a strong alliance
with US President George W Bush, who was plotting a war
against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The prime minister made
sure that the Japanese public understood that the US
alliance was critical for Japan's national security.
This was an especially potent message given the problem
with belligerent North Korea, which still held kidnapped
Japanese citizens and was rattling the threat of
missiles and a nuclear-bomb program.
In
November, the LDP and its coalition New Komeito partner
retained power, but the opposition DPJ did well enough
to firmly establish itself as a viable future government
of Japan. Meanwhile, Koizumi has led Japan into a deeper
commitment to international intervention in dangerous
parts of the world.
It took a lion heart to
send troops to Iraq This began with his decision
to send several hundred ground troops of Japan's
Self-Defense Forces (SDF) on what is supposed to be a
strictly "humanitarian" mission in southern Iraq. This
decision put Japanese military forces in a war zone with
the prospect of combat-related casualties. Public
opinion polls generally split on support for or against
such deployment carried out at the request of President
Bush.
So far, the biggest scare has been the
taking of five Japanese civilian hostages. There have
been two incidents so far, involving a group three
do-gooders and two journalists. The Koizumi government
came through those crises with high marks for avoiding
any thought of giving in to the hostage takers. And
there has been no violence involving the SDF in Iraq so
far.
That hostage experience probably prepared
the Japanese public for the real threat of deaths and
accidents. And it is fair that Koizumi's stature as a
leader has risen in the eyes of the public. That is good
news for Koizumi and the LDP as it approaches an
election on July 11 for the Upper House of the Diet
(parliament). Koizumi, however, is determined to
maintain a very cautious outlook for the LDP's election
prospects. That's smart politics. Being optimistic is
dangerous.
Barring deaths in Iraq or terrorist
attacks on Japan itself, Koizumi actually does have room
to be privately pleased with himself as he starts his
fourth year in power. The reforms that he advocated
starting three years ago in his campaign for LDP party
leadership are showing some results.
He has made
progress on privatization of the giant postal system and
cleanup of a crony-infested public road-building
corporation. He is tackling the long-term problems of a
national pension program, inviting the opposition
Democratic Party to join forces in the effort to secure
the future of Japan's aging population.
He faces
other problems. But it does appear that Koizumi is also
feeling the inevitable tug of passing time and the time
left in office. For the first time, Koizumi realizes
that he is passing the line where he has served longer
than he will have to serve in the future. LDP party
rules give him another two and a half years. If he stays
in office for that long, he will rank among the
longest-serving Japanese prime ministers of the
post-World War II period.
He has already left a
larger imprint on history than perhaps he himself, or
anyone else, might have anticipated three years ago. Not
bad for a man who dares call himself Lion Heart.
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