Copyright 2000 www.cosmopolis.ch Louis Gerber All rights
reserved.
The 2000 Lower House election in Japan Voter turnout: 62.49% (about 3% higher than its postwar low in 1996) Book
your hotel in Japan online.
Party
Seats 2000
Seats 1996
LDP
233
271
DPJ
127
95
New Komeito
31
42
JCP
20
26
NCP
7
20
Liberal Party
22
18
SDP
19
14
Others
21
13
Total
480
499
Article added on July 14, 2000
In the Japanese parliamentary elections of June 25, the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party
(LDP), New Komeito and
New Conservative Party (NCP) has again won a comfortable majority. In
early July, the government lead by Yoshiro Mori, won the confidence of the
Lower (284 out of 479 votes) and the Upper House (133 out of 242
votes).
The clear wins of the coalition and the government
hide the crisis in Japan. The country is not only economically stagnant and heavily indebted (public debt
is around 650 trillion yen), but the elite
still does not treat the problems at the roots. Instead, one economic
stimulation package follows another, primarily serving the
clientele of the LDP. The party has run Japan for the all but two years
since 1955. But the cabinet and leading politicians have a popularity rating
scarcely reaching the double digits - a poll conducted by The Nihon Keizai Shimbun between June
16 and 18 showed that Mori
was favored by only 10% of the respondents. Japan is in a confidence
crisis and at the same time lacks a credible alternative.
The opposition is far from challenging the ruling
tripartite coalition, even in the unlikely case of an alliance between the
Democrats (DPJ), the Communist (JCP) and others. The chief of the main
opposition party (DPJ), Yukio Hatoyama, announced during the electoral
campaign that in no case would the Democrats work together with the JCP.
The DPJ is furthermore divided into former Social Democrats and former
members of the LDP. The DPJ expanded their strength to 127
seats compared with 95 pre-election mandates. But since the LDP alone has
won 233 (1996: 271) seats, the DPJ's success is of no political relevance,
although its progress is a clear sign of dissatisfaction with the
government. In the Tokyo area a number of sitting Cabinet and
former Cabinet members were defeated in their single-seat district races.
And the Democrats outpolled the LDP in the Tokyo proportional representation
constituency. But if the going gets tough, there is also the Liberal Party
of Ichiro Ozawa. The Liberals left the ruling Japanese coalition before
the elections, but they are more likely to rejoin the government than to
become an ally of the Democrats.
The ruling coalition, with a total of 271 seats,
still enjoys the so-called perfectly working
majority in the Lower House. It commands an absolute majority on all committees, in addition to
monopolizing the chairmen's post on all those committees. Therefore,
political and economic change can only come from within the LDP for the
moment. But before the parliamentary elections, almost 50%
of voters indicated no preference for a specific party. So, if one day, a
credible oppositional party should rise, the undisputed leading position
of the LDP could be challenged. And Prime Minister Mori has done
everything to maintain this possibility. Before the
election, he said on a campaign tour in the Niigata Prefecture, that it would be
better for undecided voters (estimated to account for 40% of the total
electorate) to stay home and sleep on June 25, the day of the general
election. Another controversial remark was on the divine nature of the
Japanese people.
But also on the personal level, the opposition does
not offer an alternative. DPJ chairman Hatoyama lacks the necessary
charisma to convince voters. Takako Doi of the SDP has the attitude of a
schoolteacher. The able Ichiro Ozawa of the Liberal Party is to much a
product of the LDP to be seen as an alternative. He primarily left the
coalition out of ambitions which he thinks to be able to realize with his
new party.
However, the Japanese voters are responsible for the
current political and economic malaise. The 26-year-old daughter of the
late former Prime Minister Obuchi, Yoshiro, was easily elected the the Lower
House, despite the fact she
acknowledges to not have the faintest idea about politics. She looked more
like a campaign staffer than a candidate and did not deliver a single
political speech. In total, 140
out of 500 seats in the old Lower House were such "inherited"
mandates. By the way, already former Prime Minister Obuchi himself
"inherited" his seat at the age of 26 after his father's death.
But not only loyalty is responsible for Japan's
political "stability". Especially in more rural areas, the
LDP-clientele such as construction companies and other businesses are
regularly made to
understand that if they do not support the LDP, contracts will dry
up and bidding opportunities will disappear. In this symbiosis, Diet members
represent the interests of their clientele and suck money out of the government
in order to spend it in their constituency. The
late former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, who died in June 2000, was the champion of this system
in the 1980s and managed to attract record
subsidies to his prefecture. Most of today's LDP politicians still emulate
him.
As long as the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party,
New Komeito and
New Conservative Party remains in power with 271 out of 480 seats in the
Lower House, the political and economic mismanagement
in Japan is unlikely to disappear. The former LDP General Secretary and
now Prime Minister Mori did not change the major posts in his government
such as the Finance and Foreign Ministers or the chief of the state's
economic planning agency. The average age of cabinet members is 66 - no
sign of reform either. But the results of the
parliamentary elections showed that for New Komeito, the cooperation with the LDP
primarily benefited the Liberal Democrats whereas the smaller New Komeito, which is supported by Soka Gakkai, the nation's largest
lay-Buddhist group, lost nine of its forty-two seats from the 1996-election.
Discontent could lead to problems within the coalition. Furthermore, tax increases
could soon become necessary in order to continue the governments
(ineffective) spending program, with the economy going into another
tailspin. Anyhow, it is unclear how long Prime Minister Mori will be able
to remain in power since he is not part of the largest faction within the
LDP. A new LDP-led government could become reality with the next crisis -
governmental or economic.
