Kaifu Confirms Plans to Quit, Blames Reform Failure : Japan: Three party members already declare that they are candidates for prime minister’s job.

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu declared Saturday that he will leave office to accept responsibility for his failure to carry out political reform, and three power brokers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party declared themselves candidates to succeed him.

But the party’s biggest faction, led by former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, failed in an effort to persuade one of its politicians to join the race.

Twenty-four hours after word spread that Kaifu would refrain from seeking a second term as ruling-party president, a post that carries with it the premiership, he told a nationally televised news conference that “killing (three) reform bills was a violation of the people’s expectations.”

Kaifu was referring to a move taken by party leaders last Monday without consulting him. His eyelids fluttered as he recounted the more than 300 meetings of party commissions and two years of efforts that had gone into hammering out the reform bills submitted to Parliament in the summer.

“Political reforms must be carried out by the next leader,” he said.

Kaifu criticized his party for failing to uphold the zeal for reform that prevailed when he took over in the midst of “the greatest crisis in the history of the Liberal Democratic Party” in August, 1989. On the heels of the Recruit stocks-for-favors scandal, the party had just lost its control of the upper house of Parliament for the first time.

However, the 60-year-old prime minister refused to answer repeated questions about a threat he had made to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the people for support of political reform by calling a general election. He also refused to reply when asked about futile efforts he was said to have made Thursday night to persuade his Cabinet ministers to sign an order dissolving the lower house.

Signatures of all Cabinet members are required for dissolution.

Those developments, he said, “are buried in my chest.”

Although he enjoyed high public support ratings, Kaifu’s threat to dissolve Parliament cost him support within the huge Takeshita faction, which had picked him for the post initially and sustained him in office for 26 months.

His impending departure makes him the eighth of Japan’s last nine prime ministers to serve less than three years. Kaifu’s immediate predecessor, Sosuke Uno, was in office only two months.

Not once in the 45-minute news conference did Kaifu say directly that he would not run again. Instead, he spoke on the assumption that his departure already had been accepted as an established fact.

Indeed, it had been.

Earlier, Kiichi Miyazawa, a former finance minister who will be 72 on Tuesday, and Michio Watanabe, 68-year-old former international trade and industry minister, declared their candidacies. Later in Sendai, Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, 64, a former foreign minister, joined the race. All three are leaders of power-oriented factions of the party.

Takeshita faction leaders, meanwhile, tried for a second time to persuade Ichiro Ozawa, 49, who resigned in April as secretary general of the ruling party, to enter the race as its flag bearer. But Ozawa demurred again, saying he has “neither the will nor the strength” at this time. He has not yet resumed full political activities after 42 days in a hospital for coronary treatment.

Top bosses of the king-making faction scheduled a meeting tonight to attempt to decide whom they will support. The faction’s choice has become prime minister in the last seven leadership changes in Japan, dating to 1976.

Takeshita faction followers represent 27% of the party’s members of Parliament. Moreover, Toshio Komoto, who heads the tiny, 31-member faction to which Kaifu belongs, already has declared that his band will support the choice of the Takeshita group.

If two or more candidates formally register Oct. 19, an election will be held Oct. 27 in which the party’s 1.75 million rank-and-file members will choose 101 electors. These will then join the party’s 395 members of Parliament in selecting a new party president, who will replace Kaifu when his terms ends Oct. 30.

Miyazawa and Watanabe--both tainted by the Recruit scandal--and Mitsuzuka are known as advocates of close relations with the United States although they are unlikely to be as accommodating to American requests as Kaifu has been. Critics charged that the push-button phone in Kaifu’s office was his “Bush-button phone.”

President Bush is scheduled to visit Tokyo in late November on a trip that will wind up Dec. 7 in Hawaii, where he will attend a 50th-anniversary commemoration of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Miyazawa--fluent in English and well versed in both economic policy and international affairs--suffers from a reputation as an elitist within the party.

Watanabe is popular among the public for his outspoken ways although is widely considered to lack “dignity.” A statement he made in 1988 that reflected insensitivity to black people got him into trouble internationally.

Mitsuzuka had been overshadowed by his mentor, former Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe, until he assumed leadership of the faction after Abe’s death in May. His candidacy is regarded as a pro forma gesture required of any major faction leader. Yet, his faction has nurtured the closest ties of the three with the key Takeshita group.

So far, the three candidates have not won any support in the party beyond the factions they control.