Vote Puts Japan’s Former Ruling Party Back at Helm

After more than two years in the political shadows, Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party roared back to prominence Thursday as prickly trade minister Ryutaro Hashimoto was sworn in as prime minister and named a Cabinet anchored by the party’s Old Guard.

Hashimoto, the LDP’s president, became Japan’s eighth premier in seven years, succeeding outgoing Socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, by capturing 288 of 489 votes cast in a special parliamentary poll. Hashimoto betrayed no emotion as he bowed deeply upon announcement of his victory--the culmination of a 32-year political career in which he has distinguished himself as one of Japan’s most seasoned leaders and sharpest policy minds.

“I feel a great amount of responsibility,” Hashimoto said. “I’d like to run a government that is not only reformist but also creative.”

Hashimoto’s ascension had been hailed as a blow for firm leadership in a nation adrift, but he baffled many analysts by appointing a Cabinet conspicuously lacking in political heavyweights and public appeal.

Delicately balanced among the coalition’s three partners, the lineup appears short on political chieftains or policy wizards able to push through solutions to such pressing problems as Japan’s lingering recession, financial scandals, tax reform and demands to relocate some of the U.S. military bases from Okinawa, analysts said.

In two notable choices, Hashimoto named as chief Cabinet secretary Seiroku Kajiyama, an ace at back-room power politics whose staunch opposition to political reform triggered the LDP’s demise in 1993. Although Kajiyama told reporters that the Cabinet’s motto would be “let’s create something new,” he represents a throwback to the days of factional struggles and money politics championed by the late LDP godfather, Kakuei Tanaka.

If Kajiyama lacks fresh appeal, however, he is endowed with the parliamentary skills and brute political muscle Hashimoto will need to take on formidable opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa, analysts said. The three men all mastered the rough-and-tumble politics of their common mentor, Tanaka, promising a dramatic clash of longtime blood feuds between Japan’s most powerful political figures.

Hashimoto entrusted the financial portfolio--in a nation now battered by money scandals and spiraling bad debts--to a man with little knowledge or experience in the field, veteran Socialist legislator Wataru Kubo.

With 16 of 20 ministers being first-time Cabinet members, analysts said Hashimoto’s lineup appeared less designed for serious statecraft than for gearing up for general elections expected sometime this year.

“This is not a Cabinet that will do something,” said Gerald Curtis, a Columbia University political science professor who spoke by phone from New York. “It is a weak Cabinet with the Old Guard LDP in the co-pilot’s chair. Powerful people don’t want to be in a Cabinet that won’t last long and who want to prepare for elections instead.”

But Yukio Okamoto, a political consultant and former Foreign Ministry official, said the lackluster Cabinet means the formidable team of Hashimoto and Kajiyama could dominate policy and this would lead to quick resolution of problems.

“In a sense, Mr. Hashimoto has no stumbling blocks in front of him,” Okamoto said.

Fukashi Horiye, a Keio University political analyst and law professor, said the Cabinet was skillfully crafted to dodge opposition attacks and minimize conflict among the Liberal Democrats, Socialists and New Party Harbinger. The appointment of a Socialist finance minister may neutralize opposition to a consumption tax hike, scheduled for debate this fall, and deflect attacks on the coalition’s proposed $6.2-billion bailout of housing-loan firms. That is because the Socialists were removed from the center of power that created the financial mess in the late 1980s, while Hashimoto, as finance minister at the time, represented it.

The LDP’s stronger sway in the new Cabinet could hasten resolution of the Okinawa problem; Murayama was sympathetic to the simmering resentment there against U.S. military bases and showed reluctance to ram through orders to accept them. But the appointment of relatively junior politicians to the posts of foreign and trade minister indicated that no major U.S.-Japan initiatives would be proposed.

New Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda, 58, has served as Japan Defense Agency chief but is best known for his more illustrious father-in-law, the late Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda. The new trade minister, Shupei Tsukahara, 48, is a nondescript lower house member delicately described by the Yomiuri Shimbun as needing to “explore his political capabilities further.”

Hashimoto named one woman and political outsider, health bureaucrat Ritsuko Nagao, as justice minister. He parceled out 11 posts to the LDP, six to the Socialists and two to the New Party Harbinger.

Around Tokyo, expectations of the new government appeared low, and some criticized it for passing around the prime ministership without seeking a mandate from voters, as Ozawa is demanding.

“Now I’m lost because you can’t distinguish one party from the other,” said Chie Fujimaki, a homemaker in her 50s. “Whichever party takes leadership, there won’t be much difference. I’ve given up.”

“This Cabinet was born of politics, and the public had nothing to do with it, so the public has lost expectations of political reform,” said Akira Fujita, 37, a patent lawyer. “Unless everything is destroyed, Japan won’t change.”

Chiaki Kitada and Megumi Shimizu of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.