NEWS ANALYSIS : First Indications of ‘New Politics’ Appear in Japan

For years, politicians and scholars have been talking about the need for “new politics” in Japan.

On Saturday, the first signs of its arrival took shape as both houses of Parliament committed themselves to launching an overhaul of Japan’s electoral system and implementing new controls on political funds to eradicate corruption.

Even as the Japanese themselves had become convinced that their scandal-ridden political system was incapable of cleansing itself, each chamber of Parliament approved a last-minute compromise designed to uproot the causes of corruption.

And they did it without tactics used so many times in the past: shouting, brawling, pushing or resorting to the now famous “cow walk,” a slow shuffle that prolongs by hours the trip to the parliamentary ballot box.

Just nine days ago, when the upper house defeated an initial reform package, Tetsundo Iwakuni, mayor of the city of Izumo and a former Merrill Lynch executive, declared that Japan had proved it could not reform itself. And just two days ago, Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, hinting that he might resign, warned that the country was about to lose its last chance for reform.

A penchant for finding legal loopholes may yet turn the grand experiment to eradicate corruption into a failure. And the effect of a new electoral system of single-seat (instead of multiple-seat) lower-house districts, which Japan has not experienced in the last 75 years, remains to be tested.

But whatever the outcome, at least the attempt at reform is now an established fact.

And it was carried out by a breed of politicians never before seen in the post-World War II era, in which factional powerbrokers have nearly always made the deals.

On one side was Hosokawa, 56, a son of aristocrats. He began his career in the Liberal Democratic Party that dominated politics until a mass of defectors walked out last summer and deprived it of its majority in the lower house.

But it was not as a factional kingpin that he rose to power. Rather, it was as head of a still-fragile grass-roots political party dedicated solely to change, which he founded just two years ago. When the Liberal Democrats fell, seven parties patched together a coalition and offered him the mantle.

On the other side was Yohei Kono, 57, the Liberal Democrats’ leader. Although the son of a deceased Liberal Democratic powerbroker himself, Kono lost patience with the party’s inability to uproot corruption nearly two decades ago. He walked out to establish his own reform party in 1976, in the aftermath of the Lockheed bribery scandal. Ten years later, however, he admitted failure and rejoined the conservative Liberal Democrats.

Last summer, the Liberal Democrats picked Kono over a traditional powerbroker as their leader. And early Saturday, memories of his reform-minded youth came back as he and Hosokawa averted a political crisis by hammering out a 10-point agreement on reform.

Later in the day, Parliament sealed the agreement by acting to keep the political reform bills alive as its extraordinary session ended. Final revisions--possibly in February--may be enacted in a new session that starts Monday.

Kono acted despite the fact that an estimated 70% of his party’s Parliament representatives remained unenthusiastic about reforms.

In the past, the opposition usually opposed by rote, without offering realistic alternatives, but this time the Liberal Democrats had presented detailed proposals of their own--a turn of events that made the compromise possible.

Although Parliament failed to break the stalemate--once again leaving the real decision-making to an arena outside its chambers--four months of deliberations on the reform package gave air to the opinions of its members as seldom before.

Coming after more than five years of haggling over reform that brought about the resignations of two prime ministers, the debate precipitated a new phenomenon in Japanese politics: the intraparty rebellion.

No longer can Japan’s leaders count on party discipline or powerbrokers’ orders to whip supporters into line. Dozens of representatives on both sides of the aisle served notice that from now on, they will act on their own convictions--a dramatic turnabout from the days when individual politicians dared not speak out against the opinions of the powerbroker bosses.

Indeed, 21 Liberal Democrats and 28 Socialists in both houses again rebelled against party orders in the vote Saturday. Earlier, a Liberal Democratic uprising helped pass the original package in the lower house, while a Socialist protest brought about its defeat in the upper house.

More changes appeared virtually certain. With the multi-seat districts that nurtured a plethora of small parties about to disappear, a political structure dominated by two parties, both capable of assuming control of the government, is expected to emerge.

NEXT STEP

Following its eleventh-hour passage of a package of political reforms, Japan’s Parliament will recess for just one day before beginning a new session Monday. Final revisions to the package could come as early as February. But legislators are expected to move beyond reform issues and concentrate on both short-term economic stimulus measures and the state budget bill for the 1994 fiscal year beginning April 1. An economic stimulus package could be unveiled as early as this week. Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, meanwhile, has cleared the decks at home before a scheduled trip to Washington, where he will hold trade talks on Feb. 11 with President Clinton.