Maneuvering Begins Over a Successor to Kaifu : Japan: His party prepares to pick a new leader. Prime Minister reportedly confirms that he is bowing out.

Without awaiting the formal announcement that Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu will step down, members of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party began maneuvering Friday to pick a new, stronger successor.

Kaifu confirmed early today that he will not seek another term, Reuters news service reported. Kaifu told a news conference at his official residence: “I want to end my duty after serving the remaining days until the end of the month.”

Kaifu, 60, was chosen in August, 1989, to head his powerful party--and, thus, to become Japan’s prime minister--not for his own political strength but because so many of his more formidable colleagues were tainted by the Recruit stocks-for-favors scandal.

Two years ago, after the ruling party’s first-ever defeat in the upper house of Parliament, the party’s largest faction, which pledges its loyalty to former Prime Minister Noburu Takeshita, took the lead in plucking Kaifu from obscurity to head the party and assume the prime minister’s job.

On Friday, Toshio Komoto, head of the tiny, 31-member wing to which Kaifu belongs, met with Shin Kanemaru, a conservative kingpin who is the titular chairman of the Takeshita faction. They agreed that the alliance that kept Kaifu in office should continue--but with a different leader.

Any candidate backed by a united Takeshita faction would be regarded as a front-runner because the faction’s 101 supporters represent 27% of the Liberal Democrats in Parliament.

Moves were reported under way Friday night in the Takeshita faction to support Ichiro Ozawa, 49, the party’s former secretary general, as its candidate.

Although highly regarded for shepherding bills through Parliament to finance a major donation that Japan ultimately made to the U.S.-led multinational forces in the Gulf War, Ozawa remains a question mark for Japan’s top political office because of his health. In June, he was hospitalized for a month and a half to recover from coronary insufficiency, and he has not resumed a full political schedule. Ozawa, moreover, rebuffed initial entreaties.

Finance Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, 54, and Tsutomu Hata, 56, a former agriculture minister, also were touted as possible Takeshita-faction candidates--with Takeshita, 67, mentioned as an outside possibility for a political comeback.

Three other factional leaders of the party were scheduled to announce their candidacies today. They are: Kiichi Miyazawa, a former finance minister who will be 72 on Tuesday; Michio Watanabe, 68, a former international trade and industry minister; and Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, 64, a former foreign minister.

If two or more candidates file Oct. 19 for the party presidency, an election among rank-and-file members would be conducted Oct. 27. But a decision by consensus--in the traditional Japanese political manner--is rated as a strong possibility.

Takeshita-faction lieutenants said Friday night that their wing, which has not yet decided whether it would support one of its own members, would decide whom to support by early next week.

Despite Kaifu’s often-shaky leadership, the conservatives scored a major victory in a February, 1990, election for the powerful lower house of Parliament and recovered from a wave of public distrust that had crippled them two years ago. In an opinion poll released Wednesday, Kyodo News Service reported that support for the party had climbed to a record 64.8%. Apparently because of his scandal-free image, Kaifu scored a 56.7% rating.

But among Liberal Democrats, irritation over Kaifu’s repeated indecisiveness began to grow after Iraq invaded Kuwait last year.

Although Kaifu quickly condemned the Iraqi invasion, he first reportedly considered offering a minuscule $10 million to support the U.S.-led effort against Baghdad. Kaifu also declared publicly that Japan would send no armed forces of its own to the Persian Gulf.

But five months later, he succumbed to intense global pressure and criticism, moving then to support a total Gulf War contribution by Japan of $13 billion. That sum included economic aid to front-line states. He also approved the overseas dispatch of noncombat troops for the first time since the end of World War II.

Despite irritation in Washington over Kaifu’s handling of the Gulf crisis, a series of thorny bilateral trade issues was resolved while he was in office. Moreover, Japan’s trade surplus with the United States fell to $41 billion last year from $48 billion in 1989.

But Kaifu left many key policy decisions to party leaders--particularly to politicians in the Takeshita faction. On occasion, he even divulged that he had not been informed of decisions they made without consulting him. For example, when scandal-tainted former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone regained his party membership last April, Kaifu was so surprised that he blurted out to reporters, “What? Where was that decided?”

Only last Monday, party leaders killed three political-reform bills, also without informing him. Kaifu was expected to cite responsibility for failing to carry out political reform, which he called the “supreme goal” of his administration, as the reason for his decision.

But political analysts agreed that the decisive blow to Kaifu came when he lost the support of Takeshita’s faction of the party. On Thursday, Kanemaru publicly criticized Kaifu for “irresponsibility” in threatening to dissolve Parliament and call a general election over the failure of Kaifu’s political reform bills.

Kaifu’s replacement is expected to bring stronger leadership at the top, regardless of whom the party might choose. By virtue of its majority in the lower house, which elects the prime minister, the Liberal Democrats’ choice as party president effectively takes over Japan’s premiership.