Japan Echo Web

Party Politics In Japan—On Course for a Meltdown?

HANDŌ KAZUTOSHI In the first sixty-five years following World War II, Japan had thirty prime ministers, if you begin with Higashikuni Naruhiko and count up to Asō Tarō. I made the interesting discovery that looking at them in three equal groups, divided chronologically, is an excellent way to go about understanding postwar Japan.

The first group of ten begins with Higashikuni Naruhiko [prime minister Aug.–Oct. 1945] and ends with Satō Eisaku [1964–72]. The members of this group were mostly seasoned former bureaucrats, including veterans of Japan’s prewar bureaucracy.

The next group extends from Tanaka Kakuei [1972–74] through Miyazawa Kiichi [1991–93]. In contrast to the first group, which was dominated by people who rose up through the bureaucracy, six out of ten in this group began their careers as party politicians. As a group, they were tempered by the heat of factional strife.

Finally, we have the third group of ten, from Hosokawa Morihiro [1993–94] to Asō Tarō [2008–9]. Here we have a parade of second- and third-generation politicians—children of privilege who rode into politics on their parents’ or grandparents’ coattails and rose to the premiership without having to struggle for it. To be blunt, they were poorly prepared for the job and lacked a historical or global perspective.

Last year the Democratic Party of Japan broke the Liberal Democratic Party’s decades-long lock on power, and Hatoyama Yukio took over from Asō. For a moment we thought Hatoyama’s premiership was the dawn of a new era, but it didn’t last. So I think it makes more sense to classify Hatoyama as the eleventh member of group three. Now, with Kan Naoto having succeeded Hatoyama, it does look as if the fourth era begins with Kan. What’s your view on all of this?

MATSUMOTO KEN’ICHI Certainly Hatoyama is a classic example of someone who road to the top on his father’s and grandfather’s coattails. [Like most second- and third-generation politicians] he started out in the LDP. And the way he fumbled as a result of his idealism culminates a trend set by the previous three prime ministers during the last gasp of the LDP’s long reign. No member of group two—the experienced party politicians—would ever have tied his own hands the way Hatoyama did by pledging to resolve the Futenma air base issue by the end of May. I agree that it makes sense to put Hatoyama in the third group.

HANDŌ And what about Kan?

MATSUMOTO He’s not a second-generation Diet member, and he didn’t get his start in the LDP. Maybe we should say that the real “regime change” only occurred last June with the emergence of Kan and [Chief Cabinet Secretary] Sengoku Yoshito.

HOSAKA MASAYASU This is less nuanced view than Mr. Handō’s but it seems to me that the Tanaka Kakuei–style money politics of the Shōwa era [1925–89]¹ continued to hold sway into the current Heisei era. If you looked at the Hatoyama cabinet objectively, it had the appearance of an unholy alliance between the old Tanaka faction and the old Socialist party. And it was always focused on how to divide up the pie and never on issues of principle or ideology. Perhaps it’s partly wishful thinking, but I do get the feeling that with Kan, that era is finally coming to an end.