Political Drama in Tokyo

Japan’s financial markets have reacted with relief to Prime Minister Noburo Takeshita’s announced resignation. So have members of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who were starting to get nervous about their own political futures after eight months of revelations that the Recruit Co., an information and real estate conglomerate, had spent freely and widely to buy influence within the government.

Takeshita has conceded that he and his aides received at least $1.2 million in political contributions and insider-trading stock profits from Recruit. In addition, Takeshita belatedly admitted getting a $380,000 loan from the conglomerate, a transaction that, while not technically illegal, was certainly ethically dubious. By last week, Takeshita’s public support, according to one poll, had plunged to a subterranean 3.9%. By early this week he was on his way out.

Takeshita has indicated he will stay as head of a caretaker government until his budget passes parliament and his party chooses a new president who will then automatically become his successor as prime minister. Finding a successor who is both acceptable to the party’s jealous factions and free from the odor of scandal is no simple thing. The most likely choice at the moment seems to be former foreign minister Masayoshi Ito, who is 75, in ill health, and--so he suggests--not eager to take over. Ito could consent to serve on an interim basis until after elections this summer for the Diet’s largely ceremonial upper house.

In the end, the Recruit affair, smelly as it is, will probably have little lasting impact. The Liberal Democrats have held power since 1955, have survived other scandals and can count on a strong party organization and well-practiced pork barrel politics to see them through. Helping matters along, of course, is that most Japanese continue to identify with the Liberal Democrats generally conservative policies. But whether the party’s solid grip on power is a healthy thing for Japan’s democracy remains a disturbing question. Japan enjoys honest elections, a free press, a multiparty if largely inept political opposition. It also has an entrenched governing party that too often has let itself become cozy with some of the less savory elements of big business. Takeshita becomes the fourth postwar prime minister forced to quit because of financial scandal. As he said in his resignation statement, that kind of thing can foster a popular distrust of politics.