Uno Elected to Japanese Premier Post : He Picks Younger Cabinet, Pledges Political Reform

A beleaguered Sosuke Uno was elected Japanese prime minister Friday, and he named a relatively youthful Cabinet and ruling party lineup described as purged of soiled strongmen and pledged to reform.

Public distrust of politicians, disgruntlement over a 3% consumption tax, new party disunity, his own ties to scandal-tainted former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and trade frictions with the United States give Uno a tough agenda. And he ran into snags immediately.

Two of those newly appointed by Uno, a former Nakasone lieutenant who was foreign minister until Parliament elected him to the premiership, admitted at their first news conferences that they had received or signed receipts for small sums in political contributions from Recruit Co., whose $7.7 million worth of favors toppled the government of Noboru Takeshita.

Uno also failed to find an appointee for vice president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, a post that Takeshita faction leaders had agreed would be responsible for carrying out political reform. The post was left unfilled.

Opposition Vote Split

Uno, who was attacked by rebels at a party caucus as a “secret room” appointee, handily won election as prime minister in the lower house of Parliament by a 285-192 vote. Four opposition candidates split the votes against him. The party caucus earlier in the day had chosen him to fill the remainder of Takeshita’s term as party president. The term ends Oct. 31.

Uno, 66, named a Cabinet of 20 ministers whose average age is 59 1/2 years--youngest in the party’s 34-year history.

The Cabinet retained both of Takeshita’s key economic aides. Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, however, dropped his portfolio at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry to replace Uno as foreign minister, while Tatsuo Murayama stayed on as finance minister.

Both Mitsuzuka and Uno have harshly criticized the United States for branding Japan “an unfair trading nation.”

Named to head the Defense Agency was a junior member of the upper house of Parliament, Taku Yamasaki, 52.

Absent from the new Cabinet were all of the ruling party’s strongmen, who were tainted in the Recruit scandal. A party reform committee barred them from holding any major post for a year.

Uno is the first Liberal Democratic prime minister without a power base of his own since the party was formed in 1955.

The new prime minister carefully dispensed Cabinet and party posts evenly among the four major factions that control power in the party. He also went out of his way to placate one of his severest critics, former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, 84, by naming a close Fukuda associate, Masajuro Shiokawa, 67, as chief Cabinet secretary. The post corresponds to that of the President’s chief of staff in the White House, but its occupant here holds Cabinet rank.

$7,000 Contribution

Shiokawa admitted at his first news conference that he had signed a receipt for a Recruit contribution of $7,000 to another politician. Ryutaro Hashimoto, 51, named to the ruling party’s No. 2 post as secretary general, acknowledged receiving nearly $17,000 in Recruit contributions.

The Asahi newspaper also reported that the chairman of one of Uno’s own supporters’ associations had received Recruit stock preferentially. But in this case, the information and real estate conglomerate appeared less interested in Uno than in the association chairman, who was Yoshimi Mizukami, chairman of Haseco, one of Japan’s largest construction firms.

Mizukami, an influential businessman, told Asahi he would resign as chairman of the Uno supporters’ group “to clear up any misunderstanding.”

Mass media, including Asahi, gave minor attention to the disclosure.

Uno pledged to “restore people’s faith” in politics and the Liberal Democratic Party by implementing the party’s plan for political reform.

“This includes party reform, electoral reform and parliamentary reform, as well as doing away with the factions” that control the power in the ruling party, he said.

Widely regarded as a pinch hitter, Uno theoretically could serve as prime minister until Parliament’s lower house is dissolved for a general election. That ballot must be held by July, 1990, when the present term of the powerful lower house expires.

Already, party critics have declared that they will seek Uno’s ouster if he fails to lead the Liberal Democrats to victory in an upper house election July 23.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that as foreign minister, Uno had developed a close relationship with President Bush, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and many other U.S. officials.

“Prime Minister Uno is a distinguished and experienced international statesman,” Boucher said at a news briefing. “We look forward to working with him and the new Japanese Cabinet on the challenges that our two countries face in the period ahead.”