Profile : Japan’s Warlord for Reform : Hosokawa’s enemies are the bureaucrats. His weapon is a new political party.

A century ago, the overlords of Japan’s outlying provinces overthrew the crumbling, 250-year-old Tokugawa shogunate and ushered Japan into the modern age.

Today, a descendant of one of those overlords and a two-time governor of the distant southern prefecture of Kumamoto says it is once again time for outsiders to shake up Tokyo politics.

Calling for an end to the hijacking of government policy by bureaucrats, Morihiro Hosokawa, 54, broke off from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to establish his own New Japan Party.

The new party isn’t expected to win more than half a dozen seats at most in upper house elections scheduled for this coming Sunday. But Hosokawa’s rebellion, which reflects widespread dissatisfaction among younger politicians in the LDP, could presage a broader realignment in Japanese politics.

One wellspring of support Hosokawa hopes to tap is the women’s vote, which was critical three years ago in sweeping nearly two dozen women into office. Of the New Japan Party’s 16 candidates, five are women. They include a well-known television newscaster, Yuriko Koike, and Yuriko Madoka, a writer and founder of “The Happy Divorce Research Center.”

For all his populist efforts, however, Hosokawa is as close as you can get in Japan to aristocracy. He is the 18th-generation descendant of feudal lords on his father’s side, and his maternal grandfather was Prince Fumimaro Konoye, the prime minister who tried but failed to stop Japan from sliding into war with the United States.

Born into a family of politicians, Hosokawa says he always wanted to go into politics. He first took a job as a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest newspapers, but says he saw the job as a steppingstone to politics.

In 1971, at age 33, he ran for the upper house on the LDP ticket and became that chamber’s youngest member. Twelve years later, he was elected to head Kumamoto prefecture, becoming the youngest man ever to serve as a governor. Newspapers at the time reported that Hosokawa’s wife, Kayoko, campaigned more vigorously than the candidate himself--a rarity in a country where politicians’ wives seldom take an active public role in their husbands’ careers.

Under Hosokawa, Kumamoto pursued an aggressive policy of economic development. The new governor also strengthened environmental laws and was more forthcoming in dealing with victims of a famous mercury poisoning case, many of whom still had not been compensated for disfigurements they suffered from eating tainted fish in the 1950s and 1960s.

Hosokawa is the leading advocate here of the need to decentralize authority in order to improve living conditions. Everywhere he goes, he talks about how in his distant hometown, local authorities had to get approval from Ministry of Transport officials in Tokyo to move a bus stop by a few yards.

In an effort to promote his vision, Hosokawa became the chairman of the “Affluent Lifestyle” section of an Administrative Reform Council established a decade ago to make policy recommendations to the prime minister on how to improve living standards in Japan.

But Hosokawa says the recommendations of the council, including one requiring bureaucrats to put in writing and publicize their “administrative guidance” to industry, have been sabotaged by bureaucrats who fear the measures will reduce their discretionary decision-making power.

“The central bureaucrats have taken control over policy-making in this government,” Hosokawa said. “We have to win it back.”

The difficulty of getting change passed through conventional channels convinced him to start his own party, Hosokawa said.

The New Japan Party’s biggest challenge will be collecting money for his campaign. Hosokawa won’t reveal the sources of his funds, other than to cite citizens’ groups as one source of cash.

That may not be enough.

“If you want votes, the party has to give money to the people,” argues Shigezo Hayasaka, a former senior aide to ex-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, in an article in the intellectual monthly Bungei Shunju. Hayasaka is referring to such common practices as slipping money into gifts distributed to constituents. “Japanese are realistic, so nobody will give big money to politicians unless they think they can get something concrete in return,” Hayasaka said.

The need for money and the existing system of patronage based on old-line parties make it difficult for a new party to break in.

“The whole system of (patron-client politics) won’t easily collapse,” said Satsuki Eda , a member of a labor-supported group that broke from the Socialist opposition.

So tough is it to raise independent money that some commentators see Hosokawa as no more than a front for back-room politicians vying for greater control of the ruling LDP. Even if that’s not true, many are skeptical that he can remain independent.

In 1976, a splinter group of the LDP broke off to create the New Liberal Club, calling for a reform of politics. The group had little impact on policy and was absorbed back into the party a decade later.

Others note, however, that big business has a stake in seeing weaker bureaucratic control of the machinery of government and could back Hosokawa to realize their goals. Toshiaki Yamaguchi, president of chemical producer Toso Corp., said he likes Hosokawa’s proposals for decentralization but wonders how Hosokawa will actually implement them.

Hosokawa insists that in spite of the obstacles, he intends to go all the way and bring the party to power. “It seemed like a Don Quixote effort at first, but now students and businessmen are responding,” Hosokawa said.

If Hosokawa believes his party will someday be ruling Japan, then he really is fighting windmills. But he could nevertheless have an important impact on the power balance in the ruling elite.

The primary weakness of the ruling LDP is that it is a coalition of discrete, independently managed factions. Hosokawa believes that once his party can achieve some success, politicians from other parties will jump ship to join him. With the LDP continuing to lack a majority in the upper house, Hosokawa would not have to win many seats to become a swing vote.

Some believe that younger leaders of the LDP such as Ryutaro Hashimoto, former minister of finance, and Tsutomu Hata, current minister of finance, could join with Hosokawa to form a stronger coalition separate from the ruling party. Hosokawa says he would not object to such an alliance.

Although Hosokawa is regarded as a reformer, none of his proposals are particularly radical. In addition to pushing power more toward local government, he would create a separate organization to contribute to U.N. peacekeeping so Japan’s Self-Defense Forces would not be sent overseas, a move the government recently legalized.

He also favors more open agricultural markets--including such sensitive areas as rice--to spur greater efficiency among Japanese farmers, reduce food costs to consumers and respond to U.S. demands. But he says a decentralized Japan, where more people live in larger homes outside Tokyo, is the key to boosting domestic consumption and cutting the country’s huge and controversial trade surplus.

Hosokawa wins quick respect and admiration as a result of his aristocratic background, but commentators say he lacks the ability to motivate his supporters--to roll up his sleeves and get into the campaign trenches.

Also working against him is the general apathy toward politics among the young people who would be his biggest support group.

“There is no way to get anger and reaction from the young to bring about change,” said Tatsuo Inamasu, a Hosei University professor, in a recent article in the monthly Bungei Shunju. “There is just widening apathy.”

Admits Hosokawa: “Unless living conditions get worse, revolutionary fervor won’t come out.” But Hosokawa sees tough economic times ahead and thinks that is good news for his party. “I expect things to get much, much worse.”

Biography

Name: Morihiro Hosokawa

Title: Head of New Japan Party

Age: 54

Personal: Born into a family of politicians. 18th-generation descendant of feudal lords. Grandson of Prince Fumimaro Konoye, prime minister who tried but failed to stop Japan from sliding into war with the United States. Leading advocate of the need to decentralize authority in order to improve living conditions.

Quote: “The central bureaucrats have taken control over policy-making in this government. We have to win it back.”