Japan's opposition leader 'for a new
age' By Richard Hanson
TOKYO -
"This appears to be my destiny," Katsuya Okada said
after he was officially named to lead the almost down
and out opposition Democratic Party of Japan
on Thursday.
Yet an old Japanese saying goes:
"In politics, you see ahead one step at a time."
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the
nation's scandal-rocked main opposition group, suddenly
leaped forward into what one newspaper described as a
brave "new age" for the party's leadership. The new
leader, Katsuya Okada, a mild-mannered 50-year-old
former elite bureaucrat, replaces veteran DPJ co-founder
Naoto Kan.
A week ago, Kan's career came
crashing down, along with dozens of other political
careers, after being fingered for neglecting to pay
their mandatory government pension premiums. The most
likely replacement was Ichiro Ozawa, the acting
president of the party and a past mentor of Okada, who
was first elected to the Diet (parliament) in the early
1990s as a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party
(LDP). "I'm still inexperienced," he told his fellow
party lawmakers, including a large contingent of also
youthful politicians itching to gain power.
By
Thursday, Okada seems to have gotten the hang of the new
role of leader, when he was formally given the office of
party president. He in fact has little time to waste. In
just 50 days, Okada will lead the party into a crucial
battle with the LDP - and its strong coalition partner,
the New Komeito - in the election July 12 for the Upper
House of parliament.
That contest will be fought
over a range of issues, including Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi's strong support for US President
George W Bush's troubled war in Iraq, where Japan has
more than 500 troops deployed in "humanitarian"
projects. Okada will also challenge the LDP on pension
issues, and his handling of North Korean problems.
The pension problem is a serious issue because
Japan's population is aging, the workforce is shrinking,
pension schemes are chaotic and reform - pushed by the
government - means that citizens will be required to pay
more for fewer benefits. Official pension scofflaws
touting the virtues of paying pensions do not persuade
the average voter.
Koizumi is vulnerable on all
these issues and recently admitted that he, too, failed
to pay obligatory pension premiums, although he said he
did not realize he was required to do so - and the
lapses were many years ago.
Unlike Koizumi,
Okada is one of the few political leaders who has
faithfully paid pension premiums.
What impresses
many observers is Okada's quick grasp of how important
it is to surround himself with respected and competent
party leaders. He has gotten high marks for naming a
former finance, minister, Hirohisa Fujii, to his old job
as party secretary general. Fujii was a colleague of
Ozawa in the now-defunct Liberal Party, which merged
with the DPJ last year under the rule of Naoto Kan.
From the start, Okada made it clear that new
blood is needed to give the party backbone. That is no
easy task, given the wide spectrum of political
ideologies that combined to create the party in the late
turbulent 1990s. Okada never struck many of his fellow
generation as a bomb thrower. If anything he has a
reputation for caution, learned perhaps during his elite
(he dislikes that word) education (Tokyo University,
Harvard) and government career (in the famous defunct
ministry of international trade and industry, or MITI).
Okada's father is the famous founder of one of
Japan's largest retail businesses, a connection that he
tries to play down also.
Last Tuesday, when the
party tapped Okada for the job, he appeared surprised.
"This appears to be my destiny. Now I have decided to
take up this duty, I will do my utmost. We should not
allow the current situation in which Prime Minister
Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party is behaving
irresponsibly and betraying the public," he told a party
gathering.
He will soon have a chance to show
his stuff.
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opposition Democratic Party of Japan
on Thursday. 
