Kaifu Opens Campaign, Discredits Opposition : Japan: The premier sounds security and prosperity themes. The Socialist chairwoman criticizes the ruling party’s stand on taxes.

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu told voters in a street-corner speech here Saturday that Japan’s government could not be entrusted to a coalition of four non-Communist opposition parties who disagree about whether to maintain the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.

He made the remark in launching the official campaign for elections Feb. 18 for the lower house of Parliament, which chooses the prime minister.

With his ruling Liberal Democratic Party crippled by a defeat in an upper house election last July, Kaifu said that the structure of Japan’s politics is at stake. He appealed to voters to stick with the party that has led the country to prosperity.

Opening the campaign for the Socialists, Takako Doi, the party’s chairwoman, declared that voters had, in effect, rejected a 3% consumption tax in last July’s election, and she charged that the ruling party’s attempt to maintain the tax is “blasphemy” against democracy. The Socialists advocate unarmed neutralism but promise, if elected, not to unilaterally break Japan’s security pact with the United States.

Citing citizen-led uprisings against Communist governments in Eastern Europe, Doi urged voters to “move one more mountain” in Japan and end the Liberal Democrats’ 35-year control of the lower house.

Although a narrow Liberal Democratic victory is expected, a further strong setback to the party’s strength appears assured--and outright defeat is not being ruled out.

Whatever the outcome, some form of cooperation with the opposition--most likely the neo-Buddhist Komei (Clean Government) Party--will be needed after the election, if only to get legislation passed in the upper house. Loss of a majority in the lower house would require the party to get help to elect a prime minister.

Some political strategists, such as Takayoshi Miyakawa, president of the Center for Political Public Relations, believe that a Liberal Democratic defeat is likely. Miyakawa gives the ruling party only a 50-50 chance of squeezing out a bare majority.

Political uncertainty over the election has been blamed for driving down the value of the yen against the dollar and depressing prices on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It also has created concern about the government’s ability to carry out effective decision-making and legislation.

On the heels of a historic upsurge last July, the Socialists are expected to score major gains from their lowest-ever showing of 86 seats in the last lower house election in 1986. They polled only 11% of the vote then. This time, with 24% support for the Socialists in pre-election public opinion surveys, pollsters give them a chance to win about 130 seats, an increase of 44.

The opposition forces must add 54 seats to their 1986 victories to unseat the Liberal Democrats--and none of the conservative Liberal Democrats’ other foes are expected to gain seats.

Miyakawa, however, thought that the pollsters’ prediction was low. In an interview, he said that the Socialists could win 152 seats, including unaffiliated candidates whom the Socialists are recommending to the voters. Voter dissatisfaction over the 3% consumption tax and a growing “wealth gap” between landowners and the landless has only partially subsided, he said.

“The Liberal Democrats lost more than half of their seats (in the upper house) last summer. It would not be strange if they lost a third of their seats this time,” he said.

Pollsters unanimously forecast that the Liberal Democrats will make their worst showing ever, losing more than the record 31 seats they dropped in a 1983 election. Even Takashi Kon, a ruling party campaign director, said that his party, at best, could win 267 seats, a majority of 11 but a loss of 43 compared with the 310 seats it wound up with in 1986 after embracing unaffiliated winners.

Socialists on Saturday endorsed 148 candidates--far short of a goal of 180 that Doi set last August. Another 12 unaffiliated candidates are running with Socialist endorsement.

Although female candidates--and a rebellion among female voters--spurred the Socialists’ gains last summer, the party this time has fielded only 12 women, including recommended candidates. But that is still better than the Liberal Democrats, who failed to endorse any women among their 325 candidates. Overall, 66 women, the most since 1947, are running.

Among Japan’s 90.6 million eligible voters, women outnumber men by 2.7 million, the Home Affairs Ministry announced Saturday.

All four non-Communist opposition parties, which won 54% of the seats in the upper house election, endorsed only 256 candidates, or one less than needed for a majority in the 512-seat chamber. Another 26 unaffiliated candidates linked to the four non-Communist opposition parties are also running, while 131 Communists signed up.

Disillusionment with the opposition and its failure to work out a framework for a Socialist-led coalition, rather than enthusiasm for the Liberal Democrats, has spurred a moderate resurgence for the ruling party since last July’s debacle, political analysts agreed.

U.S. diplomats here, who asked not to be named, predicted that the upswing would give the Liberal Democrats a comfortable--but not overwhelming--majority.

An Asahi newspaper poll found that support for the ruling party has recovered to 37% from last July’s 26%. Voters also gave Kaifu a 39% rating, compared to a meager 22% last July for former Prime Minister Sosuke Uno, who was tainted by a sex scandal. Kaifu succeeded Uno, who resigned after July’s upper house defeat.

The poll found that 45% of voters are now prepared to accept the controversial consumption tax with revisions that Kaifu’s party has proposed, compared to 40% who still side with the opposition in demanding its abolition.

Kon said in an interview that “a mood of ‘Let’s cauterize them!’ that prevailed last summer” against the consumption tax and a widespread influence-buying scandal “has died out to a great extent.”

“But support has not returned to normal,” the ruling party strategist cautioned.

After promising voters a “radical revision” of the consumption tax, the ruling party’s revision proposals fell far short of “radical,” he said. As a result, he added, the party is being forced to resort to a shopworn appeal to voters to choose between “liberal democracy and socialism.”

“That’s not what’s on the voters’ minds,” Kon acknowledged. “And I don’t think many voters believe that the Socialists are a party that really advocates socialism.”

A defeat would virtually guarantee Kaifu’s resignation. Former Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe, a ruling party factional boss waiting in the wings, declared publicly Jan. 26 that “if we lose, Kaifu will leave.”

Kon indicated that the Liberal Democrats will seek informal cooperation from the Buddhist-backed Komei Party after the election. Such a de facto coalition, he said, would have no effect on policies.