Asia Times: Japan should call a general election


	March 30, 2001	atimes.com

Editorials

Japan should call a general election

According to Japanese press reports, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will select a new party president on April 22 to replace Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. Votes in the party's presidential "election" - originally scheduled for September this year - will be limited to LDP lawmakers and representatives of prefectural chapters. There had been calls for the election to involve all party members, but "time considerations" forced LDP executives to choose a slimmer version.

Reference to time considerations is, of course, simply a rotten excuse. Party elders and faction leaders do not want to lose control over the process of chosing the next party president, who will almost automatically become the next prime minister. Much as when a gang of four LDP leaders picked Mori last year to succeed Keizo Obuchi, the same or a slightly different group of elders will now once again preselect the new head of government and legislators and prefectural representatives will duly ratify that closed-door decision.

That's all utter nonsense. It will merely further alienate Japanese voters from the political process and will yield an outcome no better and no more credible than the last time around. Rather than waiting until July's scheduled Upper House elections, LDP leaders should show the guts to return their mandate to the voters now and call a general election to allow the electorate to pass judgement on government policies.

We don't expect that to happen - indeed, we have not heard any voices in Japan making such a suggestion. But anything else will simply lead to indefinite continuation of political and economic stagnation. There are no guarantees that fresh elections well ahead of schedule will produce a substantially different parliamentary lineup and a government more capable and willing to tackle Japan's economic woes. As we wrote yesterday, when push comes to shove, voters - no matter how dissatisfied - will tend to opt for the devil they know. Still, at this stage, almost anything but continuation on the present path will be an improvement.

Earlier this year, it appeared that Financial Affairs Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa and central bank governor Masaru Hayami had reached an agreement under which Yanagisawa would aggressively push for bad loan write-offs in return for monetary easing to prevent shock to the financial system. It was Japan's last, best chance to get the economy back in order - though at the expense of considerable short-term pain. LDP politicians have now scotched that agreement and once again opted for political expediency. Minimally, new elections might produce the combination of political forces to enact a banking system clean-up, the absolute precondition for economic recovery.

So, someone should shout it from the roof tops: No more backroom deals for prime minister, general elections now.

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