Japanese politics: No ode to joy
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Political reform was supposed to deliver a new beginning for Japanese politics, but our Asian correspondent Harvey Stockwin reports that they are frequently failing to deliver on that promise. A new rival to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) called Shinshinto has been born but it threatens to be more an imitation of the LDP rather than a distinct and original rival of it. --------------------------------------------------------------------
HONG KONG (JP): The final fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with soloists and chorus singing Schiller's Ode To Joy, is, if well played, one of the most deeply moving passages in the symphonic repertoire.
In Japan at this time of year this particular piece of music is played so often that it inevitably becomes an ode to boredom. The habit is rather as if the Japanese feel the need to ring out the old year by forcefully reminding themselves of their affinity to the West rather than of their Asian roots.
The fourth movement was played in Yokohama's ultra-modern convention center on Dec. 10 at the start of the inaugural meeting of Shinshinto (New Frontier Party). The moment should have been a moment of joy, marking as it did the culmination of the 1993-94 political reform process.
The Diet had finally passed the enabling legislation for the political reforms initiated by the government of former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa. The creation of a new electoral system was at last being capped with the formation of a new large opposition party. In theory, a western-style two-party system was at last within reach.
Instead, the moment was something of a damp squid which not even Beethoven could rescue. The high degree of public enthusiasm for political reform which peaked in mid-1993 has long since dissipated. The politicians have given the public plenty of grounds for cynicism.
Earlier this year, an attempt at founding a new large party, Kaikaku (Renovation), which would be better able to compete with the long-ruling LDP, had merely resulted in a break-up of the political unity of former opposition parties, and the return to power of the LDP.
The LDP only secured a parliamentary majority with the support of the left-wing of the Socialist Party led by Tomiichi Murayama, who proceeded to happily abandon long-held Socialist policies as the price for becoming Prime Minister.
The protracted process by which Shinshinto finally came into being further underlined for many Japanese that political reform in their country appears more apparent than real.
The lengthy reform process had its origin in the reaction to the massive political scandals of the last decade. These scandals seemed the obvious product of the vast sums thought necessary to purchase elections in multi-member constituencies, plus the willingness of businessmen and corporations, awash with funds from the former "bubble economy", to purchase influence.
The recently enacted reform bills merely make cosmetic changes in the political funding laws. If corruption diminishes, it will probably be because the bubble economy has burst.
The key political reform, on which many hopes are still pinned, was the institution of single-seat constituencies and proportional representation for elections to the House of Representatives, in place of the old multi-member seats.
This, it was thought, would end longtime LDP domination, and lead to the creation of a two-party system which would deter corruption, and also place a premium on principled policy discussion rather than personal power-seeking.
This may eventually come about, but the ordinary Japanese voter cannot be blamed for being profoundly skeptical.
Murayama's accession to the prime ministership, with LDP backing, was the ultimate alliance of convenience. Ironically, it is the left-wing socialists, once the staunch-defenders of the principles now jettisoned, who are now the most dedicated supporters of the alliance with the LDP, the party which the Socialists dogmatically opposed for 40 years.
Some right-to-center socialists, led by Hosokawa's former minister for political reform Sadao Yamahana, see that the Socialist party is likely to be extinguished in the single-seat competition between Shinshinto and the LDP -- and that the Socialists will not gain electorally from protracted alliance with the LDP. They are therefore moving towards setting up a new liberal and progressive party, the National Democratic League (NDL).
So far, Murayama, seeing that too many defections would topple his coalition government, has managed to keep their moves in check. However, some socialists are impatient with Yamahana's slow pace of defection and may try and force his hand.
All these maneuvers are critical because if 37 Socialists followed Yamahana, it could result in the fall of the Murayama Cabinet and an early election under the new rules.
Meanwhile, the formation of Shinshinto as another large nationwide party should deprive the LDP of a walkover in the new single-seat constituencies. However Shinshinto has not been formed amidst public enthusiasm, as it once might have been.
First, Shinshinto's birth was accompanied by a great deal of jockeying for power, and intra-factional maneuvers, none of which served to convince a cynical electorate that a new day was dawning.
The former Clean Government Party, Komeito, decided to break in half with one half joining Shinshinto now, and the other half waiting until the middle of next year. At least one former leader of the Democratic Socialist Party decided at the last minute that he would not join Shinshinto. Several members of Hosokawa's Japan New Party have either defected or threatened to do so.
The constituent parties of Shinshinto have formally dissolved themselves but the old identities seem likely to stay on as factions within the new grouping.
The selection of Toshiki Kaifu as Shinshinto leader and of Ichiro Ozawa as secretary-general was initially accomplished in smoke-filled back rooms and according to factional considerations, just as the LDP has always done it.
The leadership contest, between Kaifu and former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata, was very much an afterthought and a formality, as it has usually been for the LDP.
The LDP's smoke-filled back rooms supported Kaifu as Prime Minister from 1989-91 before dumping him, despite his public popularity at the time. Ozawa was LDP Secretary-General when Kaifu was Prime Minister.
In all these ways, Shinshinto has hardly promoted a fresh and open image, as once promised. Instead, these moves have understandably hardened the public perception of Shinshinto as "just another LDP". Far from arousing concern as to where reform will now lead, it diminishes interest in what looks like being a contest between two LDPs.
The widespread expectation that reform would create one conservative party vying for power with one reformist party, in the classic Western two-party model, does not look like being realized. The convention did not improve matters.
Kaifu dutifully stressed reform, but the Shinshinto declaration and platform were long on cliches, and exceedingly short on specifics. The effort of bringing together nine diverse political parties from all parts of the political spectrum had taken its inevitable toll.
The hope that a large number of like-minded Japanese politicians could naturally get together to form a new party had proved an illusion. The only clear-cut, resounding tones heard at the initial Shinshinto convention came from Beethoven's Ninth.
This is precisely where Yamahana, and his ally Socialist Party secretary-general Wataru Kubo, with their dream of forming a third non-conservative party, the NDL, complicate matters.
They despair of a Japan dominated by two conservative parties, and seek to give the voters a liberal, progressive alternative.
The trouble is that the voters will probably see the NDL as a mere deception. Apart from one or two politicians who refused to join Shinshinto, plus Shinto Sakigake (New Pioneer Party), there are no other groups, apart from the Socialists, who could join it.
The Socialists are in a complete impasse. If they stay in the ruling coalition, as Mr. Murayama wants, they will have no separate identity left at the time of the next election, when the LDP will probably jettison them anyway.
If they do form a new party, they may only succeed in taking enough votes away from Shinshinto to ensure another LDP victory. Poll simulations clearly indicate that if the non-LDP vote is divided, the LDP secures a clear majority under the new electoral system.
So the only hope will be a no-contest agreement between Shinshinto and the NDL under which they avoid splitting the non- LDP vote. Such a back room deal could probably be worked out by Ozawa and Yamahana. But the price will more public disillusion that reform is leading Japan down old uninspiring paths.