Democracy Invades Japan

The phenomenal changes that have taken place in Japan in the last 35 years are a tribute to the stable and efficient government provided under the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party.

People are richer, better fed and better educated. The country has become an overwhelmingly urban one with the world’s longest life expectancy, in which people increasingly see themselves as discriminating consumers rather than disciplined producers.

Yet the country’s political development has not kept pace with its economic and technical progress. Many of the voters felt provoked beyond endurance. On Sunday, they took it out on the LDP.

The Japan Socialist Party, led by a spirited ex-law professor, Takako Doi, thrashed the LDP, cutting the governing party’s representation in the 252-member Upper House of Parliament from 142 to 109. Only half the seats were at stake this time. The Socialists are now likely to use their strength, together with that of the smaller opposition parties, to force the government into an early general election that would allow them to seek more seats in the more powerful House of Representatives.

What has driven the normally placid Japanese voters to this drastic state? A combination of factors are at work, compounded by the arrogance and complacency that the long years of unchallenged power have bred in the LDP.

The new mood surfaced with the Recruit Co. scandal and the eventual resignation of Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita. When he was replaced by an apparently untainted (and relatively unknown) figure, Sosuke Uno, a lot of people still felt that the fat cats were getting off far too lightly.

This simmering indignation over the Recruit scandal partly reflects unhappiness with the way in which the enormous wealth now sloshing around the country is being distributed. Japan has long been a society distinguished by a high degree of social and economic equality. Now skyrocketing land prices and the amazing boom in the stock market have made some people instant millionaires while many others are deprived of any prospect of ever owning a home. For most Japanese, daily life does not correspond in comfort or amenities to what one expects of one of the world’s richest nations.

As the Recruit affair unfolded, the LDP chose to ram through a new 3% sales tax. When it went into effect on April 1, it provoked a furious reaction.

Many of those most directly affected by the tax are women, particularly since all family budgeting is the traditional responsibility of housewives. And, increasingly, Japanese women are voting the way they want to, not just the way their husbands do. As luck would have it, stories of Uno’s involvements with geishas and other women began to emerge shortly after he became prime minister. A number of women voters saw in him a symbol of the contempt for women’s concerns that is shared by many of the ruling male elite. Doi, whose party fielded 11 women among its 46 successful candidates, skillfully exploited this mood without referring to Uno’s escapades.

Still, the Socialists have problems of their own. Decades in the wilderness have left the party hopelessly split into rival factions divided on personality or dogma. The Socialists have become dependent on the support of affiliated trade unions, and their parliamentary leadership has for long been dominated by superannuated union leaders who long ago stopped thinking about new policies or the possibility of power, preferring the thrill of doctrinal hair-splitting. The party is still officially wedded to outworn doctrines on defense and foreign policy, and has yet to reconcile itself officially to Japan’s security treaty with the United States or normal relations with South Korea.

However, in Japan, even more than other places, nothing succeeds like success. Doi has shown skill in attracting new and vigorous life to the party, and big business has begun to talk to the Socialists since it looks as if they may begin to wield some influence. Some of Japan’s elite bureaucrats, who nowadays have less chance of seeking a political career in an increasingly hereditary and seniority-ridden LDP, may start to eye the Socialist Party as a better prospect.

The political consequences of the election are hard to gauge. If the LDP can get its act together, it may be possible to stymie the Socialists’ chances of forcing a general election, perhaps by making concessions to one of the smaller parties that hold the balance of power in the Upper House. Alternatively, the current wave of support for the Socialists may turn out to be a transient protest. The LDP might try to bolster its fortunes by soft-pedaling the economic and trade liberalization policies it has been following, many of them in response to urging by the United States and other trading partners.

If that happens, we might expect the Japan-U.S. relationship to get a bit bumpier, or at least franker. To judge by the nonchalance of the Tokyo stock exchange, nothing special has happened. For the time being, we must wait until the dust has settled and the Japanese people get used to the discovery they have made: That democratic politics can be interesting.