Japanese Socialists Are Target in Debate : Politics: The attacks show difficulty of forming opposition-led coalition if ruling Liberal Democrats stumble in election.

When Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa was scheduled to appear with opposition leaders in a three-hour, nationally televised election debate Friday, it figured to be a battle of four against one.

And that’s the way it turned out--but it wasn’t the beleaguered prime minister who was ganged up on.

Unexpectedly, Socialist Chairman Sadao Yamahana found himself the target of attacks from both Miyazawa and the leaders of three established opposition parties: the Buddhist-backed Komei (Clean Government) Party, the Communists and the middle-of-the-road Democratic Socialist Party. The attack on Yamahana was so intense that for nearly an hour Miyazawa was a bystander.

The prime minister’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s 38-year grasp on power is threatened in a crucial July 18 lower-house election, which was called when the Liberal Democrats split over Miyazawa’s failure to enact promised political reforms and the party suffered defections that left it 29 seats short of a majority.

But Friday’s debate underscored the difficulty of opposition parties forming a government to replace the Liberal Democrats. It exposed the deep doubts that possible coalition partners still have about the Socialists, who, as the largest opposition party, would be essential to any opposition-led coalition.

Miyazawa said that if the Liberal Democrats fail to win a majority in the voting, they would try to form a coalition. He suggested both the Komei and Democratic Socialist Parties as possible partners. But Koshiro Ishida, chairman of the Komei Party, and Keigo Ouchi, head of the Democratic Socialists, ruled out such an alliance.

The debate also indicated that political upheaval has made foreign issues a remote topic in Japan. Except for questions about the embarrassment that Miyazawa’s government faces as it tries to campaign while hosting next week’s economic summit of industrialized democracies, foreign policy was barely mentioned.

Miyazawa announced for the first time that he favors accepting a key U.S. demand to allow open bidding for public works contracts, as a way to end graft and corruption in Japan’s construction industry. At present, only construction firms designated by the government are eligible to submit bids.

He also said that he has been thinking “for the last two or three days” of a new proposal he wants to make to President Clinton next week to break a deadlock with the United States over setting up a new “framework” for negotiating solutions to economic frictions.

And that was it for foreign policy.

The rest was a bombardment of the Socialists over their insistence that the maintenance of armed forces in Japan is unconstitutional and their vehement opposition to a law passed last year authorizing Japanese troops to participate in U.N. peacekeeping operations.

Miyazawa, the Komei’s Ishida and Democratic Socialist Ouchi all asked Yamahana how his election pledges to uphold current government foreign and security policies could be trusted against the background of such party policies.

Tetsuzo Fuwa, the Communist leader, accused the Socialists of a sellout to the government.

Yamahana’s replies shed little light on just where the Socialists stand. He reiterated his pledge to uphold present security policies but spoke of emphasizing disarmament. He promised to uphold the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty but said its focus should be moved away from military goals.

Ouchi told Yamahana that voters will want to know if “they can have peace of mind with an opposition-led coalition. And (that) means a coalition that espouses policies that can be comprehended internationally.”