2 Women Named to Japan’s New Cabinet

In the hope of stemming a rising tide of popularity for Socialist leader Takako Doi, Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu on Wednesday named two women to an all-new Japanese Cabinet.

It was the first time in Japan’s history that two women were named to the Cabinet at the same time. Only three women have held Cabinet posts in the past, the last one five years ago.

Kaifu’s other appointments emphasized a traditional balance of ruling-party factions at the expense of foreign policy considerations. All three of the ministers who accompanied former Prime Minister Sosuke Uno to the summit conference in Paris last month were dismissed.

The big surprise was the appointment of Sumiko Takahara, an economist who has often served on government advisory councils. She will head the Economic Planning Agency, the government’s economic coordinator.

Focus on ‘People’s Livelihood’

No woman without a seat in Parliament had ever been named to the Cabinet.

Takahara said: “I have written repeatedly in books that the movers of Japan’s economy are women, with housewives as the core, to whom attention must be paid. I intend to carry out my conviction. Until now economic policy has focused on macroeconomic and corporate theories, but from now, the focus must be put on the people’s livelihood.”

Mayumi Moriyama, a member of the same party faction to which Kaifu belongs, was named director of the Environmental Agency. Before being elected to the upper house of Parliament, she had been an official of the Labor Ministry.

Another member of this faction, Tokuo Yamashita, was named chief Cabinet secretary and will be in charge of coordinating Cabinet decision-making.

Named to three major posts involved in foreign affairs were Taro Nakayama, foreign minister; Ryutaro Hashimoto, finance minister, and Hikaru Matsunaga, minister of international trade and industry. All three are novices in the posts.

Hashimoto, the outgoing secretary general of the ruling party, who rejected appeals to run against Kaifu, was given the post of finance minister to deal with a controversy over a 3% consumption tax that was imposed April 1.

An unprecedented defeat in an upper-house election July 23 induced Kaifu and other party leaders to agree to revising provisions of the tax, which has aroused the anger of housewives. But they all have made it clear they will not bow to opposition demands for eliminating the tax.

The one attempt Kaifu made to give priority to diplomatic over domestic considerations failed when Nobuo Matsunaga, Japan’s ambassador to the United States, rejected repeated entreaties to become foreign minister. Matsunaga has argued in favor of settling economic disputes with the United States.

Foreign Minister Moved

Outgoing Foreign Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka was moved to the post of chairman of the ruling party’s policy board, which makes trade-related decisions.

Mitsuzuka was named as a representative of the party faction headed by former Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe. Ichio Ozawa, a lieutenant of the faction of former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, got the No. 2 party post, as secretary-general, and Shunjiro Karasawa, a follower of former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, was picked to head the party’s executive board.

Representatives of the party’s third-largest faction, which is headed by former Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, were excluded from the party leadership and lost one Cabinet post.

Kaifu made the appointments after being elected prime minister by the lower house of Parliament. The vote in the upper house, which by law is not binding if in conflict with that in the lower house, was in favor of the Socialist Doi. It was the first time in 41 years that the opposition candidate has won an upper-house vote, and Doi called it a historic turning point.

“The events of today, Aug. 9, represent the first day of the beginning of the end of the long--the very long--one-party rule of the Liberal Democratic Party,” she said. “There is no mistake about this fact. We renew our resolve to strive, together with the other opposition parties, to open wide the door of history.”