Hatoyama gets his chance
Japan's opposition Democratic Party has chosen Yukio Hatoyama to take over following the scandal-tainted resignation of former party leader Ichiro Ozawa. Hatoyama is not the public's first choice, though his political pedigree rivals that of Prime Minister Taro Aso. Their upcoming national election replicates an earlier battle between their grandfathers in post-war Japan. - Kosuke Takahashi (May 18,'09)
Hatoyama gets his chance
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - "With the Democratic Party playing a central role, let's do a thorough cleanup of Japan," Yukio Hatoyama appealed to party members at the top of his voice after he was officially named to revive the opposition Democratic Party of Japan's (DPJ's) fortunes on Saturday.
His imminent task is to unseat the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)-led conservative government as the front man in grueling general elections that must be held by October 19. This election could result in a major power shift for Japan's 50-plus years of de facto one-party dominance, making Hatoyama the next prime minister.
Yet, without any strong and popular support for the patrician
Hatoyama, he and his party have a rocky road ahead, possibly falling short of a lone majority in the powerful 480-seat Lower House of parliament. This will lead to yet another unstable situation for Japanese politics.
Secretary general Hatoyama, 62, beat out his sole rival, DPJ vice president Katsuya Okada, 55, in a 124 to 95 vote cast by DPJ parliament members.
Hatoyama immediately replaced Ichiro Ozawa, 66, who resigned over a political donation scandal that led to the arrest of his state-funded secretary, as top leader of Japan's leading opposition party.
"For the DPJ, Okada should have been a better choice to pick, as he has a good image," Minoru Morita, a noted political analyst in Tokyo, told Asia Times Online. “He conjures up the image of US President [Barack] Obama. His leadership could have led to a generational change in party leadership."
The defeated Okada was much more popular than Hatoyama among the general public, according to Japanese newspaper polls. In an online survey by Nikkei ahead of the actual election on Saturday, Okada was picked by 61.4% of respondents in the poll asking who should be the party's president, compared with the 18.9% who preferred Hatoyama. This is because Okada is widely known for his clean image in terms of money related issues.
But veteran DPJ co-founder Hatoyama had better connections within the party, resulting in more support from national lawmakers. He was Ozawa's right-hand man and close aid as secretary general of the party for three years. He kept saying publicly that Ozawa and he were "in the same boat", even after the political fundraising scandal involving Ozawa's secretary and Nishimatsu Construction Co broke out in early March.
Thanks to such solid links with Ozawa, however, Hatoyama gained broader support from the largest faction of the party. He had a particularly strong backing from new Upper House lawmakers, who won their seats in the 2007 election under Ozawa. They are even called "Ozawa Children" nowadays.
Many Lower House lawmakers, who are sensitive enough to the changing climate of opinion due to nervousness about the election, reportedly voted for Okada. But that number was not enough for him to win the party presidency. In the 2005 Lower House election involving the then-popular prime minister Junichiro Koizumi-led LDP, the DPJ lost its greatest share in the major metropolitan areas of Tokyo and Osaka, which were traditionally the opposition's strongholds because of their millions of swing voters. Thus the current limited number of Lower House lawmakers from the metropolitan areas may have adversely affected Okada's ballot box.
More than a few political observers believe that should DPJ executives, led by Ozawa and Hatoyama, assign votes not only to Diet (parliament) members but also to local members of the party, Okada would have been elected the new president.
Moreover, the time schedule for the presidential election was decided on May 12, just four days before the actual election on Saturday. This very short campaign might have limited Okada's election activities, keeping him from reaching out to ordinary people, like struggling recession victims, and thus making him unable to change national lawmakers' voting behavior in the election indirectly.
"Okada enjoys strong support in the polls," Chuichi Date, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party Upper House member who currently serves as the party's deputy secretary general, told Asia Times Online. "It's better and easier for us to compete against Hatoyama, not Okada, in a snap election."
Political analysts such as Morita still think the DPJ under the leadership of Hatoyama will win the largest number of seats in the general election.
“But the DPJ's seats alone cannot win a single-party majority in the election. It won’t exceed the combined total of the LDP and its coalition partner New Komeito," Morita said.
According to an Asahi Shimbun survey taken over the weekend, 16% of the respondents said their impression of the DPJ had improved with Hatoyama, while 75% said their view of the party remained unchanged.
Asked if they had high expectations for a Hatoyama-led DPJ, 47% said they did, while 43% said they did not. Only 24% of DPJ supporters said their impression of the party had improved, suggesting that most voters are adopting a wait-and-see attitude on how Hatoyama leads the party.
Blue-blood politicians
Hatoyama is a scion of Japan's most powerful and wealthy political family.
He is the grandson of Ichiro Hatoyama, the first president of the ruling LDP and three-time prime minister between 1954 and 1956, the son of former foreign minister Iichiro Hatoyama and the elder brother of Kunio Hatoyama, who is currently internal affairs and communications minister under the Taro Aso administration.
The strong political advantage provided by the famous Hatoyama family pedigree is equivalent to that of Aso. Aso himself is related to seven former prime ministers, including his grandfather Shigeru Yoshida, Japan's first post-war prime minister. Aso's younger sister married the eldest son of Imperial Highnesses Prince and Princess Mikasa, the current emperor's uncle and aunt.
Many political observers point out the crucial battle that will take place between Aso's LDP and Hatoyama's DPJ replicates that of their grandfathers Shigeru Yoshida and Ichiro Hatoyama, who led the two strong conservative groups in post-war Japan.
More than 60 years ago, Yoshida was able to hold a firm political foundation for a stable government because the United States-led General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (GHQ) in 1946 purged then-powerful political leader Ichiro Hatoyama, who formed the Liberal Party in August of 1945. Five years later, Hatoyama was depurged by the GHQ, and in 1954 he regained control of the Japanese government by overthrowing prime minister Yoshida.
"Ichiro Hatoyama ousted Shigeru Yoshida," Morita said. "History may repeat itself, as Yukio Hatoyama does the same thing against Aso."
Now many in Tokyo wonder if Japan's two leading political parties have finally reverted to the policies of their more traditional leaders' descendants' battle some 60 years later. Can those preppy and hereditary politicians grasp the public mindset and gain knowledge of the tasks people on the street most expect the government to fulfill amid a deepening economic slowdown?
The onus is now on Hatoyama to ease such nationally widespread concerns if he really wants to become the next prime minister and take the reins of government.
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based journalist. He can be contacted at letters@kosuke.net
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