New Premier Begins Choosing Japanese Cabinet

Former Education Minister Toshiki Kaifu was elected today as Japan’s third prime minister in just over two months and began the process of naming a new Cabinet.

Kaifu received 294 of the 487 votes cast in the lower house of Parliament, which has the ultimate power to elect the prime minister, against 142 for Socialist Chairwoman Takao Doi. The leaders of two other opposition parties each received 25 votes.

In the upper house, in which the Liberal Democrats lost their majority for the first time in a July 23 election, Doi outpolled Kaifu, 112 to 109, but none of the four candidates received a majority, forcing a runoff. In that ballot, Doi became the first opposition candidate in 41 years to win a race for prime minister in the upper chamber.

She received 127 votes, a majority of three, while Kaifu polled the same 109 votes he had on the first ballot.

Thirteen upper-house members--apparently including all of the middle-of-the-road Democratic Socialist Party representatives--cast blank ballots in the runoff. Their failure to support Doi underscored the troubles that still lie ahead for the opposition to unite against the Liberal Democrats.

Fourteen Communists voted for Doi in the runoff. But the Socialists, in trying to forge an opposition alliance to seize power from the Liberal Democrats, have made it clear that the Communists would be excluded from any opposition-led coalition of the future.

The constitution specifies that the lower-house vote for prime minister takes precedence in case the two chambers fail to agree on the same candidate.

Kaifu told reporters that he wants to visit the United States but needs time to fix a schedule for the trip. He said nothing about trade friction with the United States, but added that relations with Washington will continue to be the “axis” of Japanese diplomacy.

Kaifu reportedly has decided to name a new foreign minister to replace Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, who has been in office only since June.

Finance Minister Tatsuo Murayama, who was retained in a Cabinet named June 2 by Prime Minister Sosuke Uno, is also to be replaced, according to reports in the Japanese news media.

Mitsuzuka, these reports indicated, will become chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party’s policy board, one of the party’s key executive posts.

Kaifu, who had won the party presidency Tuesday, was reported to have decided on appointments for two of the four major party posts. In addition to Mitsuzuka, Ichiro Ozawa was said to be in line for the post of secretary general.

Mitsuzuka is a member of the party’s second-largest faction, which is headed by former Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe, and Ozawa a lieutenant of the party’s largest faction, which is controlled by former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita.

The support of the Takeshita and Abe factions, along with that of the group formerly led by former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, was responsible for Kaifu’s victory in the party election.