The Unpredictable Murayama : New Japanese leader waves goodby to socialist ideological icons

Japan’s new Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, a socialist, looks to be full of surprises. Would he disown longstanding national policies that clash with his Socialist Party’s ideology? Or would he put aside that ideology and accept such mainstream policies as the need for “self-defense forces,” the Japanese flag and the national anthem? On Wednesday he told a tense and expectant Parliament in Tokyo that he accepted them all.

That’s quite an about-face for the pacifist, left-leaning Socialist Party that for more than 40 years has maintained that the military, rising-sun flag and “Kimigayo” anthem were unconstitutional. With the policy shift, the unpopular--and now leftist critics are saying unprincipled--Murayama further aligns his politics with the Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP and Socialists, traditionally at odds with each other, joined forces last month to become the odd couple of Japan’s new coalition government.

The image of solidarity may be yet another cynical political move in Tokyo’s ever-changing political scene. Murayama’s startling pronouncements could possibly be fatal to the Socialists if the party now splinters into two groups. That will continue the seemingly endless cycle of realignments of parties and politicians that began last year when the LDP lost power for the first time in 38 years.

Perhaps the responsibility of being prime minister conferred on Murayama a broader view of a modern Japan. Or maybe he just wanted to keep his new job. At any rate, his historic jettisoning of the symbolic underpinnings of the Socialist critique of decades of Japanese policy may help the coalition, even if it undoes his own party. In the last year, Japan has had as many prime ministers as there are seasons. But the newest Japanese leader may just possibly prove the least predictable, and most interesting, of all.