Japanese Democracy Makes Belated Entrance Into the TV Era

To hear pundits tell it, the newest, most potent political force in Japan these days isn’t the three neoconservative parties that have sprung up to torpedo the Liberal Democratic Party.

It’s television.

In the last two months, the TV camera’s unremitting eye has wrenched open what for decades has been a closed, murky political process.

Japanese democracy notwithstanding, the system’s hallmarks have been kingmakers and back-room dealings, votes traded for patronage and policies secretly hatched in haggling sessions attended by politicians, business people and bureaucrats.

But now television is bypassing that old style of politics and ushering in what many here call unprecedented open political debate.

The camera’s glare is forcing politicians to remain accountable for their utterances; it is allowing younger politicians to break from ironhanded control of party seniors and appeal directly to the public. It also is giving the public an unparalleled chance to air its opinions, influencing policy and political alignments.

Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa’s recent resignation? Chalk it up to a chain of events that began with broadcast journalist Soichiro Tahara, the Mike Wallace of Japan, pinning the prime minister to a pledge that he would achieve political reform this year. Miyazawa’s failure allowed his opponents to browbeat him as a liar, leading to the no-confidence vote against him and the Parliament’s dissolution.

The denouement came last week, when two top LDP officials were televised whispering “Miyazawa’s got to go now,” and his postal minister announced--in a televised press conference--that he was resigning to pressure Miyazawa to quit.

Suddenly, the prime minister gave up his desire to hang on to his post.

Or take policies. The Japan New Party and New Party Harbinger, two reformist groups with the swing vote between the LDP and the opposition, presented their policy demands on TV. Their proposals for a new electoral system, anti-corruption law and ban on corporate donations have been endorsed by both the LDP and opposition.

“This was all done in closed sessions in the past, but now these may be the most open political negotiations in the world,” said Terumasa Nakanishi, a political science professor with Shizuoka University.

Many here say that TV greatly influenced those two reformist groups to align with the opposition rather than the LDP, setting the stage for the first non-LDP Cabinet since World War II. The turning point: an extraordinary six-hour political forum last week by the NHK network with the heads of all nine parties and elaborate operations to convey public opinion.

As the program progressed, viewer sentiment shifted against the LDP and toward an opposition-led coalition government. Public response--18.5 million viewers, 16,000 faxes and phone calls--was the third highest in NHK history.

“Japanese people have always wanted to participate in politics, but the politicians never listened to them in the past so they gave up to a certain extent,” said Tatou Takahama, a longtime political journalist with the Yomiuri newspaper. “But now TV is becoming the intermediary.”

Takahama said the newly active networks may have taken their cue from Ross Perot’s electronic town halls in the 1992 presidential campaign. Never before have so many news stations produced so many political debate shows, documentaries and long interviews. Competition among networks is so fierce that “kidnaping” scheduled political guests from station to station is common, said TV Tokyo’s Nobuo Shinkai.

The ardor appears mutual. After TV ratings showed that many viewers switched the channel at the sight of LDP General Secretary Seiroku Kajiyama, Miyazawa made a personal request to Tokyo Broadcasting Station for his own air time--the first ever by a prime minister, said TBS producer Kazuo Sugisaki.

The most successful tele-politicians are those who grew up in the first TV generation, such as Japan Renewal Party leader Tsutomu Hata and the Japan New Party’s roster of former TV commentators.

But whether the nation’s newly discovered tele-politics will truly transform the system to better reflect public will rather than privileged interests is still an open question.

“Japanese politics have been most unclear, and suddenly they’ve become transparent,” Nakanishi said. “The question is how long it’s going to last.”