Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08SAPPORO32
2008-04-30 11:39:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Sapporo
Cable title:  

NOTES ON CURRENT JAPANESE POLITICS: LUNCH WITH LOWER HOUSE

Tags:  JA 
pdf how-to read a cable
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FM AMCONSUL SAPPORO
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INFO RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 0406
RUEHOK/AMCONSUL OSAKA KOBE 0184
RUEHFK/AMCONSUL FUKUOKA 0185
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SAPPORO 000032

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/J

E.O. 12958: DECL: 4/30/2018
TAGS: JA
SUBJECT: NOTES ON CURRENT JAPANESE POLITICS: LUNCH WITH LOWER HOUSE
MEMBER MUNEO SUZUKI AND AIDE AKIRA MIYANO

CLASSIFIED BY: Donna Welton, Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General Sapporo, State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)
Infamously brazen lawmaker Muneo Suzuki and aide Akira Miyano
(his money man),took time to share with us their view of the
state of politics in Japan during a late April Diet break visit
to the home district in Hokkaido. A former Liberal Democratic
Party lawmaker, Suzuki was forced out of the party in 2002 after
a series of scandals even the big tent LDP couldn't countenance.
He returned to the Diet in 2005 on his own party ticket (Shinto
Daichi or "New Party Big Earth"). Out on bail, Suzuki is still
hugely popular in Hokkaido, but his power to influence the
political scene may wane if his final appeal to the Supreme
Court fails and he has to return to jail. With nothing to lose,
Suzuki was even more frank than usual on the vagaries of
Japanese politics. Here's a summary of the monologue:

#1: The Near Future, "Nejire" and More Coalition Government

The Democratic Party of Japan cannot take over the Government in
the upcoming Lower House election, no matter what the timing.

Because the DPJ can secure 150 seats at most in the individual
districts, for a total of probably 200 with proportional seats
(there are 480 total seats in the Lower House),the LDP will
continue to govern for the near future, forming a coalition with
smaller parties (Kokumin Shinto, the Hiranuma group, and Shinto
Daichi.) It is up to the Komeito Party if it wants to stay in
the coalition or not, but that alliance probably will not last.
Koizumi will not return this soon to be prime minister, although
he is quite popular. [Career pork barrel politician Suzuki] has
trouble understanding how Koizumi, who drastically reduced the
public works infusions that kep the Hokkaido economy afloat, can
still be popular here.

Locally, the Japan Communist Party will concentrate its campaign
efforts to garner votes for a proportional seat in Hokkaido.
Similar to the recent Yamaguchi by-election, about half of the
JCP supporters are likely to vote for DPJ candidates. Among
Komeito supporters, there is an internal struggle going on over
whether it is beneficial for the party to continue to ally
itself with the LDP. (This is not lost on the LDP.) The next

election is expected to be a difficult one for the Komeito.

But this next coalition government won't break the political
stalemate ("nejire"),with the Upper House remaining in DPJ
hands.

#2: Political Realignment? Not for Now

Real political realignment will only happen after three more
Upper House elections, over the next eight years. (Half of the
Upper House is up for election each time.) Koizumi probably
wants to wait the current situation out, and will come back when
change [in his favor] is possible.

As always, "realignment" will be a matter of shifting existing
groups of personal networks; politicos rule, not ideology. The
DPJ Maehara group, openly critical of Ichiro Ozawa, for example,
will likely partner up with some split of the LDP. There are no
real ideological conflicts between LDP members and DPJ members,
or any other Diet members except those from the JCP and the
Social Democratic Party.

#3: The Next Lower House Election Should be in October

The Diet will be dissolved in September, followed by a Lower
House election in October. Although Prime Minister Fukuda and
former Prime Minister Abe are members of the same faction
(Machimura),they do not get along. One of the reasons for the
fall election timing is that Fukuda wants to remain in power
longer than Abe and he will not step down a day earlier than the
length of his predecessor's term in office. Also, the LDP does
not want to hold an election after the U.S. presidential
election, presuming that the global appeal of change if the
Democrats win will negatively impact on the LDP. ("We're in the
Republican brotherhood.")

#4: Who Will be the Next Prime Minister? Only Mori Knows

Kiro Mori [who apparently makes all these decisions for the LDP]
does not get along well with Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka
Machimura. Although Machimura wanted to run for the LDP
presidency last time, he could not gather the necessary twenty
party members to support him, lacking Mori's cooperation.

Although they are members of different factions, Mori gets along
well with LDP Secretary General Bunmei Ibuki ("a politician with
good political sense") and Makoto Koga, Election Strategy

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Council Chairman. Koga supports policy chief Sadakazu Tanigaki
as a future Prime Minister. Unfortunately, Tanigaki has zero
charisma ("lacks political color") and it is difficult for the
voters to understand him.

Yuriko Koike is often talked about as a candidate for Prime
Minister, but she doesn't stand a chance. Her political
networks are too shallow because she has moved between parties
too many times and she has the image of someone "with no
political beliefs of her own." She is very good about reading
the immediate politial situation in front of her but she lacks
the ability to work for the future.

Taro Aso and Toshihiro Nikai also are in well with Mori, but if
Aso misses his chance this time, he will be too old for
subsequent tries. In the last LDP presidential election, Mori
supported Fukuda, of course, but a surprising number [like
Suzuki] supported Aso, especially in Hokkaido, partly because
they do not care for Fukuda and wanted him to know that, even as
Prime Minister, he has to work for their support.

#5: Counting the Districts in Hokkaido

Young Taizo Sugimura could run in District 8 (Southern Hokkaido)
and solve the stand-off with the Hokkaido LDP chapter who wants
to put up local son Gaku Hasegawa in Sapporo, but so far
Sugimura isn't backing down. But it really doesn't matter
because neither of them can beat DPJ leader and former Hokkaido
governor Takahiro Yokomichi. This is his last election and he
will get a lot of sympathy vote.

[Suzuki] will not support LDP members who favor urban
constituencies over rural development. But it is also hard to
support DPJ members who want to cut taxes that fund road
construction and maintenance.

#6: Young Politicians are Not What They Used to Be

It is hard to recruit young people into politics. Party loyalty
is fungible, too. Young politicians who want to run on the LDP
ticket but do not win the LDP party endorsement just go over to
the DPJ, and vice versa. Not a single potential statesman among
them. Unlike now, the old mid-sized electoral district system
improved the quality of politicians as there had to be debate
not only between the parties but also among candidates from the
same party.

#7: ~and on the Subject of Bureaucrats and Politicians

Regarding the Bank of Japan governorship, they should have put
up Eisuke Sakakibara. He was the best choice acceptable to both
parties. Actually, Ozawa started off unopposed to the Ministry
of Finance candidate, Toshiro Muto, but reconsidered at the last
minute given negative public opinion and existing DPJ policy
opposing the "amakudari" system (giving retiring senior
bureaucrats high profile positions in quasi-government
institutions and the private sector.) It was a big mistake to
leave the initial negotiations to former MOF vice minister Jiro
Saito, although he is close to Ozawa, and his counterpart
Yasuda, also a former MOF vice minister who was a secretary to
Fukuda's father.

Although Koizumi is known as a man who fought against the
bureaucrats, in fact he is the one who made them stronger,
particularly the Ministry of Finance. Koizumi's postal reform
was something that the MOF wanted to do in the first place. So
the MOF supported him. Fukuda supports the MOF in the same way
-- to his detriment as the Bank of Japan fiasco showed. Koizumi
opposed the amakudari system, but he looked the other way on the
Ministry of Finance.

#8: Come to Think of It, Koizumi was Pretty Savvy in Some Ways

The LDP suffers from the way the Japanese media are structured.
All the major companies own both print and broadcast media and
there is no diversity of coverage. Yomiuri, Asahi, Nikkei,
Sankei, Mainichi, etc. all have their own TV stations. If you
are subject to their criticism, it comes at you from all
directions.

Japanese young people, though, read the sports dailies more than
any other newspapers. Koizumi (or his secretary Iijima) used
these papers to get his policy across to younger voters and
boost his popularity. He was always on page 2. Fukuda does not
do this, "he is too clean."


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#9: Foreign Policy Lacks Vision

Japan has lost the opportunity to solve the Northern Territories
issue by sticking to its all or none stance. [This statement
was followed by a very long, predictable riff on the miserable
"nasakenai" stupidity of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka.]

Nakagawa and Machimura are strongly one-sided against China.
They lack a sense of balance in foreign policy. And no one at
any level of government can keep any intelligence matter or
information confidential. They tell everything to the press.


Listener's Comment: Although he has greatly benefitted from his
own personal appeal to the voters, Suzuki doesn't see political
change as coming from the ballot box any time soon. In his
experience, Japan has a two-party system -- only the two parties
aren't the LDP and the DPJ, they're the bureaucrats and the
mainstream politicians. Public opinion is merely tangential to
the process. Japanese politics as usual.
WELTON