THE KOIZUMI REVOLUTION

“Is it a revolt?” So Louis XVI is reported to have asked on the night of July 15, 1789, when the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt informed him of the storming of the Bastille the day before. “No, Sire,” Liancourt replied, “it is a revolution.” Fifty-nine-year-old Koizumi Jun’ichirô, seen as a maverick within the Liberal Democratic Party, replaced Prime Minister Mori Yoshirô at the helm of the Japanese government on April 26. Last November Katô Kôichi, another prominent figure within the LDP, staged a revolt against Mori. The LDP establishment managed to quash it, but the bleakness of the party’s fortunes was highlighted by its defeats in gubernatorial elections in three prefectures, Nagano (October 15, 2000), Chiba (March 25, 2001), and Akita (April 15). Early in April Mori officially announced his intention of resigning, leading to the calling of an election for a new LDP president. This series of missteps and unexpected developments probably does not qualify as a “revolution.” But having reported on Japanese politics since the time of the LDP’s first presidential election by party members in November 1978, I can state with confidence that it marks the end of a political style established by former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei (1972-74). Incumbent Prime Minister Fukuda Takeo (1976-78) went into the election expecting to win in the primary voting among the party’s 1.5 million members. But the Tanaka faction overwhelmed Fukuda with its organizational strength, assigning its massive force of campaigners to gather votes diligently at the level of the party’s local and workplace chapters; this machine swept up the swing voters that Fukuda had been counting on. But this time the process has been reversed. The grass-roots party membership has turned its back on the vote-gathering machine that had initially been expected to produce a victory in the primary for Hashimoto Ryûtarô, the former prime minister who heads the LDP’s biggest faction, the successor to the organization created by Tanaka.

I call this the end of Tanaka-style politicking rather than the end of LDP-style politicking, because it is an approach that encompassed not just the LDP but virtually all of the established political parties except the Japanese Communist Party. In simplified terms, the Tanaka approach may be called “quarter politics.” By controlling a majority of the party that in turn controlled a majority of the seats in both houses of the national legislature, the organization created by Tanaka was able to dominate the country, determining who got selected as prime minister and controlling the appointments of cabinet members and assignments of senior bureaucrats. Through its hold on a network of people in key posts, this political machine could channel government appropriations to local municipalities, farming and fishing organizations, and construction firms.

Influence-peddling politics of this sort is of course not limited to the LDP or to Japan. But what set the Tanaka machine apart from every other spoils system was that its construction was completed after Tanaka himself had been forced from the political stage as a defendant in the Lockheed scandal. Tanaka pursued the cause of building up the numerical strength of his faction with extraordinary determination because of his strong belief that holding on to a majority within the LDP was the only way to secure his own acquittal and return to power. The weapon the Tanaka faction used to enlarge itself was the handing out of cabinet posts. And in order to get its way with the other factions, the Tanaka organization established a policy of not taking the prime minister’s post for itself—but making it clear that any faction aiming for this post could get it only with the Tanaka faction’s support. This was the way the administrations of Ôhira Masayoshi (1978-80), Suzuki Zenkô (1980–82), and Nakasone Yasuhiro (1982–87) came into being. And this was why the move by Takeshita Noboru, head of a group within the Tanaka faction, to grab the premiership for himself in 1987 represented such a rebellious act. Ironically, though, after he was driven from office by a political scandal in 1989, Takeshita himself proceeded to pull the strings from behind the scenes in the same way as Tanaka had before him.

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A number of major factors worked together to bring Tanaka-style politicking to an end. One was the abolition of the old electoral system of multiseat districts for the lower house, under which a single party could run more than one candidate in each district. A second was the shift in the flow of campaign funding: With the imposition of limits on individual contributions and the introduction of subsidies for the parties from the national government, the LDP secretary general came to be the one in control of the funds. A third was the change in the economic structure, which made it clear that the old practice of buying interest groups’ support by providing indiscriminate largesse from the government budget could not be sustained any longer. But the fatal blow came from another direction, namely, the growing camp of anti-LDP independents described by Kabashima Ikuo in the following article.

The rise of the anti-LDP camp was evident in two recent gubernatorial elections, the first on March 25 in Chiba Prefecture, which adjoins Tokyo, and the second on April 15 in Akita, a mostly rural prefecture in northern Honshû. Both are traditional LDP strongholds where the party’s endorsement has been tantamount to election. And in both the LDP-endorsed candidate for governor went down to defeat.

The victor in Chiba was Dômoto Akiko, a 68-year-old woman who used to be a television reporter and director and who served two terms in the House of Councillors from 1989 to this year, one as a member of the Social Democratic Party and one as a member of the New Party Sakigake (Harbinger).

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Dômoto's victory was a shock to all the parties. It was as if Ross Perot were elected governor of Maryland or Virginia, right next to Washington, D.C. Obviously the outcome was a blow to the LDP, but it was also damaging to the current number-one opposition force, the Democratic Party of Japan. Dômoto and her supporters had sought the DPJ’s endorsement, but the party’s headquarters withheld it under strong pressure from the Chiba chapter of Rengô, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, which is one of the Democrats’ most powerful support groups. Organized labor is in its own way just as opposed to change as are the traditional LDP support groups, having benefited from the interest-balancing system that the LDP worked out with the Japan Socialist Party under the old 1955 setup. And out of consideration for the Rengô Chiba’s wishes, the DPJ rejected Dômoto in favor of another candidate, only to see the former emerge victorious.

The results of the voting in Chiba were also a considerable shock to the JCP. The Communist candidate’s share of the vote was much lower than in the previous gubernatorial election, showing that many of the ballots that have been cast for the JCP so far have been not in support of this party but in opposition to the LDP.

A closer look at the results reveals some interesting points. One is the contrast between the urban districts of the prefecture near the Tokyo border and the rural districts elsewhere. Dômoto swept the urban districts, while the LDP candidate came out ahead in almost all the rural districts. The outcome revealed that the machinery that the parties have been using to get out the vote is no longer working. It was particularly notable that the parties’ usual support groups, such as the farmers’ and fishers’ associations, construction industry groups, labor organizations, and Sôka Gakkai, the powerful lay Buddhist organization that backs the New Kômeitô, were unable to deliver the expected shares of the ballot despite the fact that the turnout was just 36.9%.

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In Akita the LDP suffered an almost unbelievable defeat even in rural districts. The victor was the incumbent governor, Terata Sukeshiro, who ran without any party’s endorsement this time, unlike in the previous election, when he ran with the backing of the since-dissolved New Frontier Party (Shinshintô), headed by Ozawa Ichirô. Terata won twice the votes of his only serious rival, LDP candidate Muraoka Kenkô. Muraoka, the first-born son of the chairman of the party’s General Council, an Akita native, lost badly despite the all-out support of agricultural and construction industry groups.

Here we need to look back and consider why the LDP used to be as strong as it was. And in this connection, Saitama University Professor Matsumoto Masao offers an interesting set of observations in an article that appeared in the April issue of Chûô Kôron, “‘Jimintô shijisha’ no taijô” (The Exit of the LDP Supporters).

Examining the results of political polls from 1956 through 1995, Matsumoto found a major shift in the pattern of support for the LDP. From the 1960s through the 1980s, there was a strong tendency for individuals to switch to support of the LDP as they aged from their twenties to their forties. But during the 1980s the slope of this rising curve of support became more gradual, and in the 1990s it became almost flat. Meanwhile, support for the LDP among those in their twenties and thirties, which was above 20% in the 1960s, fell to a little over 10% in the 1990s.

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During this 30-year period the voters had no choice of government, because the JSP, the number-one opposition group at the time, was unable to field enough candidates to win a legislative majority. Effectively their only choice was whether or not to support the LDP.

The results of the LDP presidential election were produced by party members, not by independents. But they showed a striking contrast within the party between the thinking of the general membership around the country and that of the elected legislators in Nagata-chô. And we must not forget that the motive force behind the new thinking that emerged in this vote was the rise of the anti-LDP independent camp. (Kawachi Takashi, Mainichi Shimbun)

© 2001 Japan Echo Inc.