Japan Party Caucus to Pick New Leader : Ruling Liberal Democrats Seeking Applicants to Succeed Uno

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Monday decided to receive applications from candidates for the party presidency on Saturday and then hold a caucus Aug. 8 to choose a successor to outgoing Prime Minister Sosuke Uno.

The decision by the Liberal Democrats’ presidential election management committee marks the first time since former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone was chosen in 1982 that the party has committed itself to pick a new leader in an open election, rather than through back-room machinations. It is expected to be formalized today by the party’s executive board.

It came as Ryutaro Hashimoto, who had been touted as a potential “youth candidate” to lead the beleaguered party into a crucial lower-house election, declared himself out of the running after being informed that the party’s biggest faction has decided to refrain from fielding any of its members, including Hashimoto, as candidates to succeed Uno.

Taking Responsibility

Ichiro Ozawa, the faction’s secretary, said faction leaders had decided to stay out of the presidential race by way of assuming responsibility for the Liberal Democrats’ defeat in an upper-house election July 23.

Ozawa said former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, who heads the faction, shares the blame with Uno, his surprise successor, for the upper-house debacle. Takeshita resigned in May after the yearlong Recruit influence-buying scandal.

Already reeling from a voter rebellion over the scandal and a broken promise by the ruling party not to impose a consumption tax, Liberal Democrat fortunes encountered new problems when a weekly magazine revealed three days after Uno took office that the new prime minister had purchased sexual favors from a geisha in 1985.

In the election last month, the Liberal Democrats lost nearly a fourth of their holdings in the House of Councillors, falling 17 seats short of a majority.

The defeat marked the first time in the party’s 34-year history that it had lost control of either house of Parliament and raised the specter of a thrashing in an election for the lower house, which elects the prime minister. That ballot must be held by next July but is expected much sooner.

Political analysts said the real reason behind the Takeshita faction’s move Monday was a fear that the faction might split up. In addition to Hashimoto, the party’s 52-year-old secretary general, two other Takeshita followers had been mentioned as possible successors to Uno.

Takeshita lieutenants gave no indication of whom they might back. Speculation swung toward either Toshio Komoto, 78, the leader of the party’s smallest faction, or Toshiki Kaifu, 58, a Komoto lieutenant who has served twice as education minister.

No one has yet declared his candidacy, however, and a host of names are still being bandied about.

The party’s presidential election commission said applications will be accepted for one hour Saturday morning from candidates who receive the endorsement of at least 20 of the party’s members of both houses of Parliament.

Candidates would then be asked to present their policies both in a Saturday afternoon news conference and in a speech before a caucus is convened next Tuesday to elect one of them.

If only one candidate files for the contest, that leader will become the party president and the next prime minister--Japan’s third in three months--by virtue of the Liberal Democrats’ control of the lower house.

Uno’s Cabinet officially decided today to convene a six-day special session of Parliament next Monday to elect both officials of the upper house and conduct a ballot for the new prime minister. Although both houses cast ballots for the prime minister, the decision by the lower house is final.