LDP MEMBERSHIP DECLINES AS VOTING PATTERNS CHANGE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TOKYO 005161 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV JA SUBJECT: LDP MEMBERSHIP DECLINES AS VOTING PATTERNS CHANGE UNDER KOIZUMI ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Membership numbers for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have fallen sharply on the mass defections of postal workers since the passage of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's postal privatization package in 2005, according to recently released party statistics. Peaking at almost 5.5 million party members in 1991, the LDP's formidable political machine that reached every corner of Japan is now down to one million members. To prevail in the upcoming elections and maintain their hold on power, the LDP is working to recruit unaffiliated individual voters and, more recently, to win back the disaffected postal workers. Election campaigning Japanese style has changed fundamentally under Koizumi, who has presided over the wind-up of the conservative party's national and local chapters and members. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's skillfully orchestrated passage of a postal privatization package in 2005 has had a dramatic impact on membership numbers for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),according to figures published on August 29. The most recent numbers, released by the party in connection with the LDP's September 20 presidential election, show a decrease of 333,956 qualified voting members since 2003, down from 1,402,621 to 1,068,665. (Note: Qualified voting members are those who have paid the membership fees for two consecutive years and are consequently entitled to vote in party elections. End note.) ¶3. (SBU) The nearly 25 percent decline in membership since 2003 is due almost entirely to the mass exodus of the Association of Special Postmasters (ASP) and an organization composed of postal system retirees, called "Taiju," according to Embassy contacts in the LDP's national headquarters office. The two organizations were among the largest of the LDP's support groups, prior to cutting their ties with the party over Koizumi's postal privatization measures. Over 95 percent of Taiju members, nearly 110,000 qualified voting members of the LDP, turned in their memberships at nearly the same time, the press reported. As an example of the tremendous clout these organizations enjoyed in the past, an LDP candidate with career connections to the postal system received over one million votes from organized postal workers in the 1980 Upper House Diet election, according to a recent press report. ¶4. (SBU) Declining LDP membership rolls predate Koizumi and postal reform. Party membership reached a high of 5.46 million in 1991, but has steadily declined ever since. While Japan's economic doldrums played a role, Embassy Tokyo's LDP contacts attribute the bulk of the nearly 75 percent decrease since 1991 to reforms that radically reduced incentives for recruiting new members (e.g., abolition of recruitment quotas for Diet members in 2000, elimination of "rewards" for recruitment to Upper House proportional candidates in 1998 and purging of "phantom members" from the roles that same year). ¶5. (SBU) Prior to the 2004 Upper House and 2005 Lower House Diet elections, much media and scholarly attention was focused on the fact that the LDP could no longer rely on organized voting of the sort made possible by groups like the postal workers and postal retirees, but would instead need to win over the roughly 50 percent of the electorate that was classified as unaffiliated. Total membership hovered just above 1.67 million in 2001 and 2002, then held at approximately 1.4 million for the next two years, before falling to 1.22 million in 2005. With support for Koizumi at 50 percent and support for the LDP itself at only 35 percent just prior to the LDP's landslide victory in the 2005 general election, Koizumi was clearly successful at pulling in these "floating" votes. The postal workers fought hard to reelect Lower House candidates who had resigned from the LDP over postal reform, but Koizumi fielded his own candidates against TOKYO 00005161 002 OF 002 the "postal rebels" and led the LDP to a landslide victory on the strength of his reform message. Embassy contacts confirm that party efforts have succeeded in enrolling more of these "floaters," with individual memberships having risen slightly, even as organized memberships are dropping. ¶6. (SBU) According to LDP officials, Party Organization Headquarters Chairman Yoshio Yatsu initiated efforts back in February 2006 to reconcile with the postal workers in hopes of regaining their support in time for unified local and Upper House Diet elections in April and July of 2007, respectively. Prime Minister Koizumi supports these efforts to repair the strained relationship, recognizing the important role the two organizations will play in efforts to implement the privatization process, slated to begin in October 2007. This is a far cry from when the Prime Minister referred publicly to the two organizations as "forces of resistance" for their attempts to block his privatization legislation. The postal workers, for their part, have an interest in staking out a meaningful role for themselves in the implementation process, although it is still unclear whether they will rejoin the LDP fold. ¶7. (SBU) Comment. Prime Minister Koizumi stated at the beginning of his term that he was out to either reform the LDP or destroy it. His willingness to break the rules and alienate two of the party's largest support groups just prior to an election in pursuit of his legislative agenda is a clear illustration of how unconventional a politician he has been. Despite the steep decline in party membership during his term, the LDP still maintains its lock on power. To prevail in the coming elections and maintain that hold, however, the LDP will need to maintain it's support levels among fickle "floating voters." The well-oiled organizational machine of their coalition partner, New Komeito, will likely supply significant support. SCHIEFFER