Japan Coalition Nears Power, Backs Newcomer for Premier

Japan’s political upheavals culminated Thursday in the virtual certainty that its next government will be a coalition of eight opposition parties headed by a prime minister who is a relative newcomer to the national political stage.

Choosing Morihiro Hosokawa, 55, a former governor, as their leader, seven opposition parties agreed to embrace an eighth group from the upper house of Parliament and establish a coalition government pledged to both political reform and retrospection over Japan’s wartime aggression.

If there are no snags, Hosokawa, who launched a lonely rebellion in May, 1992, against the established parties and ended up with the swing vote after the July 18 national election, will be elected prime minister when Parliament convenes Aug. 5. The seven parties hold about 20 more seats in the lower house, which elects the prime minister, than do the long-ruling Liberal Democrat forces.

The outgoing party will elect a new leader today in a battle between factional boss Michio Watanabe, 70, a former foreign minister, and reform-minded Yohei Kono, 56, chief Cabinet secretary.

Hosokawa said he regards the opposition’s choosing him as “the voice of heaven.”

“How greatly I can respond to the people’s trust will depend upon the will of the people here,” he said, gesturing toward the seven other party leaders who flanked him at a news conference. He said he wants this change in government--Japan’s first in nearly 40 years--to meet the expectations of the people.

The coalition government, Japan’s first since 1948, would include the Socialists, traditional foes of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, and exclude the Liberal Democrats, who have ruled Japan since 1955.

It also would put into power Japan’s youngest prime minister since the Liberal Democrats chose Kakuei Tanaka at 54 in 1972.

The coalition is expected to be unstable, bringing together as it does a rainbow of political opinions ranging from ideological pacifism to desires for a larger, more active world role for Japan. There are widespread doubts about its ability to deal with such challenges as reducing Japan’s $49.4-billion trade surplus with the United States and economic stagnation at home. Cynics already have predicted it won’t last six months.

The Socialists, the Buddhist-backed Komei (Clean Government) Party, the middle-of-the-road Democratic Socialist Party, the Japan Renewal Party and the tiny Socialist Democratic Federation agreed Thursday with the New Party Harbinger and Hosokawa’s Japan New Party to add the 11 upper-house members of the Democratic Reform Party to the coalition. That party was created by Rengo, the Japan Trade Union Confederation, as its political wing.

Hosokawa’s relative youth--most Japanese leaders have been in their 70s--and comparative lack of experience in national politics also raised questions about his own leadership potential. He served in the less powerful upper house of Parliament from 1971 to 1983 before being governor of Kumamoto prefecture (state) from 1983 to 1991, but he has never held a Cabinet-level post and has no experience at all in foreign affairs. He founded his grass-roots Japan New Party just over a year ago.

And whereas most Liberal Democratic prime ministers came to office with more than 20 years of experience in the lower house, Hosokawa has been a member only since the July 18 election.

Although former Finance Minister Tsutomu Hata, titular head of the Japan Renewal Party that he formed only last month, had been touted to head the non-Liberal Democrat coalition, he bowed to Hosokawa as a less controversial choice. Hard-line Socialists threatened not to vote for Hata because he and his band of conservative rebels had belonged to the most corrupt faction of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Unconfirmed reports, however, said that the coalition parties offered Hosokawa the prime minister post in exchange for his swing vote support--an offer the Liberal Democrats did not make in their efforts to lure him to their side.

Hata and his chief supporter, Ichiro Ozawa, former ruling party secretary general, are expected to provide Hosokawa with strategy and policy advice.

The Socialists, according to the agreement announced Thursday, are assured of having one of their members elected Speaker of the lower house. Other major posts are to be worked out after the prime minister’s election.

The coalition brings hope for political reform that proved impossible under the scandal-swamped Liberal Democrats. All of the coalition partners agreed to abolish a 70-year-old system of electing representatives to the powerful lower house through multi-seat districts and to establish instead 250 single-member districts combined with proportional representation to choose another 250 legislators.

And political contributions from corporations are to be abolished in stages.

The reforms are to be enacted by the end of the year and put into effect for the next election, which even leaders of the new alliance predict will come within a year.

Failure of the coalition could mean a quick comeback for the Liberal Democrats. They still control more than three times the seats held by the Socialists, the largest party in the coalition, and 40 of their candidates in the July 18 election lost by 10,000 or fewer votes.

Underscoring the historical drama of the day, Sadao Yamahana, the head of the perennial opposition Socialists, made the announcement of the coalition arrangements. The Socialists retain the biggest block of votes--70--within the coalition, despite their devastating defeat in the July 18 election that also cost the Liberal Democrats their majority.

Most unusual in the coalition’s policy agreement was a pledge to “self-reflect on the past war” and work “for peace and development.” Liberal Democrat governments consistently resisted recognizing Japan’s responsibility for World War II.

The policy’s emphasis on measures to raise domestic demand and stimulate a still-stagnant economy was encouraging enough to the Tokyo Stock Exchange to spur the year’s third-biggest rally in late afternoon trading. The parties also pledged to stress improving living standards in compiling the fiscal 1994 budget, a process that will begin in August.

Administrative reform, deregulation, dispersal of central government powers to local governments and opening government information to public scrutiny also were promised.

No specific plan was presented to achieve better balance in trade with the United States and the rest of the world--although that was listed as a goal. Like the Liberal Democrats, the eight parties opposed any opening of Japan’s rice market.

Relations with the United States will remain the “axis” of Japan’s foreign policy, the alliance declared.

Interviewed on TV, Hosokawa refused to comment specifically on most issues. But he admitted that a promise to cut taxes “will be difficult, given (dwindling) revenues.”