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2 A moment of truth for Japan's
Abe By Hisane Masaki
House election, the LDP will have
to garner 51 seats to reach the win-or-loss
threshold of 64 and claim victory for the
coalition.
Uphill battle The
ruling coalition faces an uphill battle in Abe's
first electoral test since he took office last
September. There is an ever swelling mood of
public anger over the government's pension
record-keeping fiasco and a series of other
political scandals. Public
support for the Abe cabinet
remains at abysmally low levels, with some recent
opinion polls showing it slipping below 30%, a
figure widely considered to be a crisis level for
any cabinet.
In one of the most recent
blows to the already embattled prime minister and
his coalition, Fumio Kyuma, the gaffe-prone
defense minister, resigned this month after
causing widespread outrage with remarks that were
widely taken as justifying the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in the
closing days of World War II. Kyuma said in a
speech that the A-bomb attacks "could not be
helped".
Defense became the third cabinet
portfolio to change hands since Abe succeeded
Koizumi. One of two scandal-tainted members of the
Abe team resigned last December and the other -
farm minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka - committed
suicide in May. Matsuoka's successor, Norihiko
Akagi, has also come under fire over a similar
scandal involving political funds.
The
prime minister himself has faced a barrage of
criticism from the public as well as opposition
parties for failing to handle those scandals
properly and to exert strong leadership. In the
eyes of critics, Abe seemed to be out of touch
with public feelings, taking the scandals less
than seriously and intent on just shielding his
political allies.
Especially, Abe has
sought desperately to soothe voters' ire over
mismanaged pension records. But he apparently has
failed.
The Social Insurance Agency, under
the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, Labor
and Welfare, has been found to have some 50
million unidentified pension-premium payment
records. This means many retirees could get
shortchanged. The LDP-led coalition pushed through
a pair of pension-related bills to deal with the
fiasco. The two new laws, enacted at the end of
June, will dissolve the Social Insurance Agency
and scrap the five-year statute of limitations on
claims for unpaid pensions.
The coalition
also pushed through the Diet a bill to enhance
transparency in political fund transfers in the
wake of a spate of scandals involving politicians
from both the ruling and opposition camps. The new
law requires lawmakers' political fund-management
groups to attach a receipt to their fund reports
for every recurring spending item worth 50,000 yen
(US$421) or more.
Surveys conducted this
week by Japanese national dailies show that both
the LDP and New Komeito are experiencing rough
going in the election, while the DPJ is gaining
ground with crushing force. The LDP may fail to
get even 40 seats and New Komeito may not win 13
seats. The DPJ may garner 60 seats or more.
Capitalizing on public outrage over the
pension and other scandals, DPJ leader Ichiro
Ozawa has vowed to stake his political life on
depriving the LDP-led coalition of its majority.
Ozawa hopes to boost his party's chances of
achieving a change of government in the next House
of Representatives election. "Unless you allow
[the opposition parties] to gain a majority vote
in the Upper House election, you'll never see a
change of government in Japan," he said during a
stumping tour.
Abe's allies within the
coalition have said the prime minister will not
resign no matter how badly the coalition fares.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, for
example, said the vote is for the House of
Councilors, and not for the House of
Representatives. "Elections for the House of
Councilors are not seen as occasions to choose an
administration. This election will be no
exception," the top government spokesman said.
All the same, the elections are often seen
as a referendum on the government. And a survey by
the Yomiuri Shimbun national daily showed this
week that 48% of pollees think Abe should resign
if the coalition loses a majority in the House of
Councilors, compared with 26% who think he should
not do so.
Despite denials by his allies,
Abe seems to have positioned the election as one
that will determine the administration. During a
debate with Ozawa this month, Abe said, "Which one
of us, Mr Ozawa or myself, is more suitable as a
prime minister? I ask the nation to make the
judgment."
That they will do on Sunday.
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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