Eclipse of Reforms

  Pork-barrel electioneering is not the sole thing that returned to its old ways. Political reforms were also brought to a halt.

The initial goals of political reform, which started after the Recruit Scandal, were to reduce the cost of electoral politics, to increase the transparency of party financing, and to establish political morals. Afterwards, the themes of political reforms went beyond the issue of money for political activities to include other areas such as reform of the Diet and the political parties, decentralization and electoral reform.

In May 1989, the Political Reform Commission of the Liberal Democratic Party completed 'The Fundamental Principles of Political Reform'. This report pointed out problems in the medium-sized constituency system as follows. Under this system, candidates from the same party were forced to compete in the same district. This '[was] the cause of the pork-barreling and costly elections, for the candidates [had] to maintain personal support organizations and satisfy the expectations of more voters [than in the single-seat district system]. On the other hand, the correlation of forces among the political parties was frozen under this system, and we [could] see little prospect of a change of government'. On the basis of this diagnosis, the report proposed the introduction of the single-member constituency system combined with some elements of proportional representation. In addition, as regards party reform, it suggested the dissolution of habatsu (intraparty factions) and the introduction of mechanisms by which to recruit new political talent from society at large.

These proposals for reform came under serious consideration in the LDP when it lost power in the 1993 general election. However, when we read this 'Fundamental Principles' now, we are surprised by the wide gap between the acute sense of crisis present among the Liberal Democrats at that time and the present situation in which the initial concern has completely evaporated.

Take the recruitment of new talent, for example. In this election there were 233 successful candidates among the Liberal Democrats, of which some 90, or nearly 40 per cent of the total, were so-called hereditary candidates, who inherited their constituency from their father or relatives. In addition, the election winning rate of the hereditary candidates is more than 80 per cent, which is quite a high proportion. The successors of  OBUCHI Keizo, KAJIYAMA Seiroku and TAKESHITA Noboru, who passed away just before the election, are all hereditary candidates. It was ten years ago when the LDP proclaimed the need to create mechanisms by which to recruit new talent from the society at large, and nothing has been done since then.

The reason behind the increasing number of hereditary candidates is the existence of individual supporters' associations for each politician. Local self-employed persons, business managers and the executives of agricultural cooperatives constitute the core of such organizations, which function as a machine to call in public works to respective areas through the assembly representatives. This is a miniature version of the assembly persons-bureaucrats-business triangle. The individual supporters' associations of the assembly representatives who have retired or passed away attach the highest priority to maintaining their organization and thus to safeguarding their vested interests. To accomplish this, they choose the relatives of the assemblymen as the candidates, who will be easily elected, regardless of the candidates' personal capacity. All they have to do to secure the local interests is to maintain a relationship between the assembly representative and the supporters' associations. This tendency is getting even more pronounced since the adoption of the single-member constituency system. The National Diet members, who are to govern at the national level, are increasingly assuming the character of the representative of a particular locality, or even of a particular supporters' association, composed of a tiny portion of the electorate. As a result, policy-centered and party-centered elections, which were originally sought by the new electoral system of single-member districts with proportional representation, can never be realized.

Another aim of the new electoral system, the alternation of power, has also been denied by the Liberal Democrats. Since the last election in 1996, the LDP has giddily changed its coalition partners. If the composition of the ruling coalition is changed from the one presented on election day, the proper way to proceed for the ruling parties is to dissolve the House of Representatives immediately and seek the people's approval. However, the Liberal Democrats never sought the people's judgment, even though they have repeatedly changed their coalition partners using every possible means, in order to stay in power. As a result, the real meaning of the change of administration was completely lost.

Consciousness and Behavior of the Electorate

For the electorate, the general election means the choice of the prime minister as well as the choice of the government. The ruling coalition presented before the electorate the maintenance of the three-party coalition and the continuation of Prime Minister Mori. The electorate clearly refused this option.

As was remarked on at the outset, the support for Prime Minister Mori was at an extremely low level, unprecedented in the polls taken just before the general election. The three-party coalition government was not appraised positively, either. According to the polls taken by one of the leading national dailies, the Asahi Shimbun (May 2000), support for the Cabinet was 19 per cent and non-support was 62 per cent. The support for the three-party coalition was 21 per cent; non-support was 53 per cent. And the support for the LDP was 29 per cent, that for the Democratic Party of Japan was 9 per cent, and those who had no party to support amounted to 49 per cent. These figures indicated the following: Prime Minister Mori was not considered qualified as prime minister, due to a series of controversial remarks and the scandals reported by the media. In addition, people were not in favor of the three-party coalition government. But, if one was asked which party to support, the general response was that, since  the Democratic Party did not seem sufficiently reliable,  the only practical choice would be the Liberal Democrats.

There are other interesting figures given by the Asahi Shimbun. In March 2000, when people were questioned about the trade-off between economic recovery and fiscal reconstruction, no less than 77 per cent of the respondents chose 'now it is time to restore fiscal health by reducing the debt burden', whereas only 17 per cent chose 'it is inevitable that the government increases its indebtedness to stimulate the economy'. However, when the candidates of the ruling coalition were asked 'whether the government should shift its policy to fiscal reconstruction', only 12.8 per cent said yes and 33.7 per cent said no; 49.9 per cent of the opposition candidates said yes to the same question. There is a wide gap of concern between the electorate and the candidates of the ruling parties.

Thus, judging from the public opinion polls, the prospects for the ruling coalition was almost entirely bleak, except that the support for the LDP greatly exceeded that for the Democratic Party of Japan. In reality, however, the ruling coalition achieved an absolute, stable majority of seats. Especially, in the single-seat districts, the Liberal Democrats achieved 177 seats, which was nearly 60 per cent of the total.

So, why is it that the electorate, who were dissatisfied with Prime Minister Mori and the coalition government, did not vote for other parties, especially the Democratic Party, the largest opposition? We cannot deny that the failure of the Democrats, who were unable to offer an effective policy alternative and a definite candidate for prime ministership, accounts for much of the result. However, the result may also be attributed in part to the voters' lack of ability to relate the choice of Prime Minister and the government's performance with the choice of the representative of their local district, and fiscal reconstruction at the national level with local public works.

People's negative attitude toward positive fiscal policy and the current coalition government, as shown in the public opinion polls, represents a significant shift in their thinking during the past few years. They are clearly taking seriously the change of the environment surrounding Japan and the change of the times. In this sense, they have a deeper understanding of the present situation than our Diet members. However, that is not reflected in the elections, which are the only opportunity for political action given to the ordinary citizens.

SEKAI, vol. 678 (August 2000).