Page 3 of
3 The political stakes are rising in
Japan By Hisane Masaki
will turn their
back on the DPJ. Under pressure within the DPJ, Tsunoda
resigned as the Upper House vice president on
Friday.
The bottom line is that the DPJ
has not benefited from the LDP's troubles and fall
in popularity. According to recent opinion polls,
the DPJ has seen its public support rise only
slightly. This means that the party has failed to
win over people who have withdrawn
their
support from Abe's LDP.
In a development
that sent shock waves through Japanese political
circles, entertainer Sonomanma Higashi handily won
last Sunday's gubernatorial election in Miyazaki
prefecture, western Japan, by running as an
independent. Higashi, an apprentice of comedian
and film director "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, beat two
former central government bureaucrats - one backed
by the LDP-led coalition and the other by two
opposition parties, including the DPJ. The results
were widely taken as showing profound distrust of
the existing political parties among Japanese
voters.
But it may be that voters are more
concerned about pocketbook issues than the
constitutional revisions. One of Koizumi's slogans
was, "There will be no economic growth without
reform." One of Abe's slogans is, "There will be
no future for Japan without growth." The Japanese
economy is renewing the record postwar growth
spell. But the benefits of the current economic
expansion have yet to filter through into
households as well as small businesses and rural
areas fully.
Personal consumption remains
weak as most Japanese workers have not seen their
wages rise during the current economic expansion.
In addition, although Koizumi is widely credited
for beating deflation and turning around the
ailing economy, critics say his laissez-faire,
market-oriented structural-reform program has left
the negative legacy of a widening gap in society,
especially between rich and poor. Abe has vowed to
address the disparity issue, but he has yet to
produce tangible results.
The opinion poll
by the Asahi Shimbun published on Wednesday showed
that 50% of the respondents now perceive Abe as a
"politician who is out of touch with the public
sentiment". A whopping 89% said they cannot feel
their income has grown, while 48% said it is
"inappropriate" that Abe has picked constitutional
revisions as an Upper House election issue.
Apparently bearing in mind growing
criticism of his economic policies, which are
widely seen as being heavily in favor of
corporations, Abe said at the recent LDP
convention, "Economic growth is not for business
enterprises, it is for the public ... Therefore, I
would like to do my best to make the economic
recovery extend to households."
Speaking
as a guest at the same party convention, even
Akihiro Ota, head of the LDP's junior coalition
partner New Komeito, said, "I want the LDP to
consider ordinary people and small and
medium-sized companies, which is our party's
standpoint."
For fear of drawing an angry
backlash from many workers in the upcoming Upper
House race, the LDP-led coalition has already
given up the idea of presenting to the current
ordinary Diet session a bill for what is called
the Japanese version of "white-collar exemption",
which was to do away with overtime pay for company
employees in managerial and related positions (see
All work and no pay,
January 6).
So on the surface, the DPJ's
strategy of making the widening income gap a key
election issue may look more promising than Abe's
focus on constitutional revisions. Issues closely
related to people's daily life, especially the
increasingly uncertain future of the nation's
social security system, have been matters of
greatest concern for voters in recent national as
well as local elections. It remains to be seen,
however, whether the DPJ's election strategy will
work as fully as it expects.
Rehabilitating the creaking
social-security system, including pensions,
medical insurance and nursing-care insurance for
the elderly, has emerged as a pressing task for
the government, amid the rapid aging of society
and continued decline in birth rates. Government
finances remain in dire straits. Japan's fiscal
condition is the worst among major industrialized
economies, with the deficits held by the central
and local governments totaling a staggering 1
quadrillion yen ($9 trillion). This figure
translates into about 8.3 million yen ($68,700)
per person in a nation of about 127 million
people.
Many critics charge that both the
LDP-led coalition and the DPJ are irresponsible
because the former has opted to steer clear of a
possible hike in the currently 5% consumption tax
until after the July Upper House election and the
latter has dropped its earlier proposal for an
increase in the tax rate to 8%. Many experts say -
and even many voters feel - that a hike in the
consumption tax will become inevitable in the
not-so-distant future to finance rising
social-security costs and stem an even further
rise in government debts.
Hisane
Masaki is a Tokyo-based journalist,
commentator and scholar on international politics
and economy. Masaki's e-mail address is
yiu45535@nifty.com.
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