Ronald J. Hrebenar - Japans New Party System

Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryotaro announced his resignation on Monday, July 13the day after the LDP defeat in the 1998 HC elections. Immediately, the Japanese media began the frequently played game of speculating on who would be the next Japanese prime minister. The names put forward were truly the usual suspects, including former LDP president Kono Yohei, who had stepped aside three years earlier to give Hashimoto his clear shot at the prime ministership; former LDP president and prime minister Miyazawa Kiichi, who was prime minister when the LDP split in 1993, allowing the opposition to form the first non-LDP government since 1955; Obuchi Keizo, the foreign minister and leader of the most powerful faction within the LDP and boss of Hashimotos faction; Kajiyama Seiroku, the most crafty deal maker left in the LDP; and Koizumi Junichiro, one of the most unconventional LDP Diet members. Obuchi was the winner of the

These events can tell us much about the nature of party politics in contemporary Japan. The central theme of this book is that Japan has moved into a new style of party politics since the breakup of the LDP in 1993. This new era of politics is called the Second Postwar Party System (SPWPS). The First Postwar Party System (FPWPS) began with the creation of the LDP and the JSP in 1955 and died in the disarray of 1993. One of the interesting aspects of this change in party systems is that some things never seem to change in Japanese politics. First, despite the emergence of new parties and the destruction of old parties, the LDP still rules Japanese national politics. When the LDP lost seats in the 1998 HC elections, it did not have to relinquish control of the government or even resign the prime ministership. Hashimoto resigned because he had so inflated expectations prior to the voting that the winning of 44 of the 126 seats contested (the most seats won by any party) was considered a defeat, since he and other LDP leaders were talking about winning more than 69 seats and, surely, at least 61, the number they were defending in the election. The LDP still had a 13-seat majority in the crucial HR. The second feature is that the LDP continues to recycle one weak prime minister after another as though they were all faceless cogs in a perpetual machine. The question regarding the possible successors to Hashimoto were all focused on whether any of these LDP leaders could actually lead the nation in its troubled times. Japans economy had been stagnant since 1990, and the various LDP and opposition leaders had no idea how to break the nation free from the pattern. Third, the LDP leaders, and thus the prime ministers, still emerge from the murky depths of the partys internal factional maneuvering despite the official disbanding of the factions in the early 1990s. The fact that Obuchi was seriously considered a potential prime minister had nothing to do with his new ideas, leadership skills, or great public respect and support because, clearly, these did not exist. He was the heir of past prime ministers such as Tanaka and Takeshita who had led his faction in previous decades, and thus he automatically was a contender for the post of prime minister. Kono was one of the few sincere reformers in the party, and Miyazawa was one of the few LDP members who understood economics. Each represented different LDP factions in competition for party and governmental power. Strangely, another candidate emerged, the hard to categorize Koizumi Junichiro, who represented the Mitsuzuka faction and appeared to appeal to younger LDP Diet members who were concerned with their electoral prospects if the party chose a leader such as Obuchi.