KOIZUMI KIDS FACE TOUGH ROAD TO REELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TOKYO 000346

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SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/07/2018
TAGS: PGOV JA
SUBJECT: KOIZUMI KIDS FACE TOUGH ROAD TO REELECTION


Classified By: CDA Joe Donovan, reasons 1.4(b),(d).


1. (C) Summary. The 82 "Koizumi "Children" who swept into
office in the September 2005 postal privatization election,
rode the coattails of Prime Minister Koizumi and his promises
of reform. Today, they face widespread elimination in the
next general election. The majority were elected with
minimal political experience and little in the way of a
political support base. Almost three years later, many have
floundered, victims of a lack of leadership, an internal
party preference for factions, and, in some cases, a real
lack of skills. As a group, the "Children" never put forward
a unified message, or exerted their influence, despite their
numbers (82 out of 305 LDP seats in the Lower House). Their
failure in October 2006 to stop the return of "postal rebels"
expelled from the ruling LDP for their opposition to
Koizumi's reform plan in October 2006, or to engineer a
Koizumi comeback in September 2007, demonstrated their
weakness as a group. Stripped of the preferential treatment
they enjoyed in 2005, only those who have proven themselves
in their districts will be allowed to run again. End
summary.

"Koizumi Fever" Brings Unprecedented Electoral Success
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2. (C) The term "Koizumi Children" refers to 82 first-time
Lower House Diet members elected on the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) ticket in the 2005 snap general
election. That election, known as the "Postal Privatization"
election, was a bold stroke by then Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi to use his popular mandate to overcome resistance
within his own party to his landmark postal privatization
package. As opponents of the reform plan left the party to
run as independents, or to form new parties, they were
replaced on the ticket by Koizumi's hand-picked "assassins."
In some cases, the so-called "postal rebels" succeeded in
winning back their electoral district seats, relegating a
number of the assassins to proportional seats on the party
list. In the majority of cases, however, the newcomers were
able to capture the imagination of the public and ride
"Koizumi Fever" all the way to the Diet. In the process, the
LDP gained a landslide victory over the main opposition
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ),giving the ruling coalition
its current two-thirds majority of seats in the Lower House.
Koizumi's legacy of "reform" seemed assured.


3. (C) Of the 82 LDP newcomers, 35 won their electoral
districts outright, while the remaining 47 were elected on
the proportional list. Their success was primarily skewed to
urban areas, where the DPJ had succeeded in the 2003 election
by running younger candidates with limited political
experience. The term "Children" is somewhat misleading, in
that many of the first-time Lower House members are no
younger than their mid-ranking colleagues. For the most
part, however, they were noteworthy for their lack of
political experience and weak support bases in their
districts. A survey of campaign funds by the Sankei Shimbun
just one year after the election revealed that the newcomers
had raised 40 percent less, on average, than the postal
rebels. In Gifu 1 district, postal rebel Seiko Noda
quadrupled donations over 2004 to JPY 60 million, while her
"assassin" opponent, Yukkari Sato, raised almost nothing from
donors and depended on JPY 20 million in party subsidies and
an additional JPY 10 million from the Yamasaki faction to
fund her campaign.

Newcomers Quickly Fail to Realize Their Potential
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4. (C) Shortly after the election, the "Koizumi Children,"
comprising slightly over 25 percent of all LDP Diet members,
were just a few members shy of becoming the largest faction
in the LDP. Given their numbers, and their close connection
to the Prime Minister, they were widely expected to bring a
fresh voice to policy discussions and internal party debates.
They have failed to live up to expectations. Many of the
newly-elected lawmakers joined one of the nine existing LDP
factions early in their terms, giving up their independence
and becoming the lowest-ranking members in their party

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organizations. At present, 56 of the 82 "Koizumi Children"
have joined factions, in numbers proportional to the relative
size of each faction. The 26 remaining unaffiliated members,
a number that is still larger than four LDP factions, have
not met routinely as a group and have made no formal attempts
to speak with a unified voice.


5. (C) Part of the problem, in addition to the factional
divide, has been the ambivalent relationship between the
group and its namesake. Koizumi has opted to maintain a low
profile in leadership and policy debates since stepping down
in 2006, but even before he left office, he made no attempts
to mobilize his offspring as an effective force to promote
his agenda. Tsutomu Takebe, LDP Secretary General under
Koizumi and the de facto guardian of the "Children", appears
to have turned his back on his wards by proposing a reduction
in the number of proportional seats. Several "Children" have
told Embassy Tokyo that one of the problems they have faced
is a lack of a strong central leader. Koizumi Child Keisuke
Suzuki, 31, lamented that the "Children" were doomed from the
start, due to the lack of money and patronage that are
essential to getting reelected. Inevitably, he said,
ideology and policy goals wind up taking a back seat.


6. (C) The "Children" have worked hard to maintain a veneer
of a connection to Koizumi and his promise of reform. In
October 2006, as Prime Minister Abe and senior LDP leaders
staked out sides over a proposal to take back the postal
rebels, the "Children" spoke out in opposition to the plan,
evoking the spirit of Koizumi's reforms, even as Koizumi
himself remained publicly silent. The 82 first-term
lawmakers met in a rare plenary session and put forward a
position paper, but to no avail. Lower House member Suzuki
gave the Embassy a sense of the emotional impact of this
issue on the "Children," noting that postal privatization was
the very symbol of reform, and a rallying point for those who
thought Japan could change. Moreover, it was an issue on
which the voters had clearly spoken. Taking the rebels back
undermined all that had been accomplished.


7. (C) That said, Suzuki admitted, the "Children" could have
played the issue better by working through the party
mechanism, rather than making their appeal so publicly. A
month later, Abe's waffling over a proposal to stop relying
on road-related taxes to finance public works projects and
reclassify the funds as general revenue led to further
accusations from the "Children" that the Prime Minister had
turned his back on the reform agenda and was once again
catering to entrenched interests and "old-style" LDP
politics. When Abe stepped down unexpectedly in September
2007, however, the "Children" were stymied by Koizumi himself
as he refused to entertain their attempts to orchestrate his
comeback as a "third candidate" to challenge Taro Aso and
Yasuo Fukuda. About the same time, according to a policy
secretary for Koizumi Child Koichi Yamauchi, main opposition

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Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Ichiro Ozawa attempted
to woo some of the first-termers away from the LDP.

Re-election Outlook Grim for Many
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8. (C) Prospects for many of the 82 "Koizumi Children" in the
next general election remain in doubt. Some will fall victim
to their lack of political experience and a failure to
connect with constituents. Director General for LDP
Headquarters Hiroshi Motojuku pointed to 27-year-old Taizo
Sugimura, seeking to run in Hokkaido, as an example of a
first-termer who had failed to prove himself and would
probably have to give up his slot. (Even LDP boss and
"Children" mentor Takebe spoke disparagingly of Sugimura in a
recent speech, saying: "We have protected him, saying 'a
stupid son is the most lovable,' but he says it is up to the
party to decide whether to endorse him or not. Stupidity can
be cured only when the person dies.") Kotaro Nagasaki, in
Yamanashi 2 district, is the rare example of an "assassin"
who has acquitted himself well in his constituency, according
to local Embassy contacts.


9. (C) Others will lose out to former postal rebels with
better credentials and stronger support organizations.

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Motojuku and other LDP insiders have made clear to the
Embassy that the party will only back "winners." In Gifu 1
district, for example, Motojuku noted that "postal rebel"
Seiko Noda is much stronger than "assassin" Yukkari Sato and
will get the nod. Coordination in all ten of the districts
where "assassin" candidates must now compete for a spot
against more seasoned postal rebels seeking to regain their
original LDP seats is likely to follow the same course. In
five of the ten districts, incumbent Lower House members will
face off; in the other five, Koizumi Kids will face
challenges from rebels who failed to win reelection.


10. (C) LDP Election Headquarters Director Akira Kume
emphasized to the Embassy that very few of the "Koizumi
Children" had protested the lack of favorable treatment, and
know full well that they will have to qualify for the party's
nomination based on their prospects for electoral success.
Koizumi himself is reported to have addressed 20 or so of his
"Children" as members of Takebe's "New Wind" movement at a
reception in October 2006, telling them: "You have to work
hard to win the election on your own." (Note: According to
LDP International Bureau Director Miyako Ito, the New Wind
members are mostly "leftovers" -- proportional members or
defeated assassins who were not good enough to be picked up
by the factions." They could never form their own faction,
she added, without access to serious political funds and
strong leadership.)


11. (C) In terms of concrete numbers, former LDP Secretary
General Koichi Kato recently told the Embassy that at least
30 of those on the LDP proportional list will lose their
seats, although some individuals might try to use their votes
on key legislation to wrangle for higher placement on the
list in the next election. LDP Election Chief and senior
faction leader Makoto Koga is reported to have urged
low-ranked proportional list members to try to find electoral
districts in which to run, but some districts have balked at
the idea. He has made clear that the "Children" will not
receive the preferential treatment on the proportional list
that they received in 2005. First-termers unable to win
approval to run in the districts will be relegated to the
lowest spots on the party list, where they will be the first
to be eliminated when the LDP finds itself unable to match
the landslide victory of 2005. Koizumi Kid Suzuki predicted
that no more than 30 of his 82 "class of 2005" colleagues
would win reelection.
DONOVAN