ASIA : Referendums on Rise in Japan

Far from the center of Japan’s ruling elite, local citizens are rising up against the political establishment in a spreading wave of direct democracy reaching from mountain towns to balmy beach areas.

Next month, residents of Makimachi in Niigata prefecture vote on whether to allow a nuclear power plant in their town. In September, Okinawans will vote on whether they support a reduction in the U.S. military presence on their southern island, where half of the 47,000 troops in the nation are stationed.

The two polls will represent the first local referendums to go to a vote in Japan’s history--49 years after Allied occupation authorities introduced a local autonomy law to shift power from the omnipotent central government. With national media attention homed in on the outcome, the referendum process could become a new vehicle to voice voter demands for change reflected in the 1993 government of Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa. His promises of reform won unprecedented public support.

Other local referendums have been approved but remain unscheduled in two cities in Mie prefecture on nuclear power and in Kochi prefecture on a proposed industrial waste site.

The referendum results are nonbinding, but the mere threat to hold one can effect change. In three cases involving nuclear power and a water purification plan, the power company or local government withdrew or postponed plans to avoid a defeat at the polls.

“It’s taken 50 years, but perhaps a democracy in which voters can voice their opposition has finally developed,” said Yoshiaki Kobayashi, a Keio University political science professor.

Citizens are also mounting recall campaigns against local leaders in growing numbers. In Okayama, residents are protesting local leadership over an industrial waste site. In Hiroshima, they objected to the handling of plans for a new hospital.

Residents in other towns have also launched recall campaigns against authorities for failing to conduct audits or hold public hearings, and more towns have adopted public watchdog “ombudsman” systems to monitor public spending.

Kobayashi said Japanese voters are beginning to use referendums to express sharpening discontent with established institutions.

Japanese politics have been in disarray since the conservative Liberal Democratic Party lost majority control in 1993, leading to five prime ministers in three years and shifting coalition governments. The proportion of Japanese who support no political party now surpasses 50%--an all-time high.

And the once almighty bureaucracy is mired in scandals over everything from financial mismanagement to health care incompetence.

But Kobayashi also said two specific events spurred the successful referendum efforts: an accident at the Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor this year and the brutal beating and rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl involving three U.S. servicemen in September. Both incidents galvanized local sentiment against longtime policies.

Should residents of Makimachi reject the power plant, it could spur other areas to do likewise and shake Japan’s entire energy policy, which is heavily based on nuclear energy.

The Okinawa poll will be Japan’s largest referendum and first by a prefecture. Since polls show most people want to reduce the U.S. military presence, the referendum proposal is sure to pass overwhelmingly--especially since it is scheduled almost one year to the date that the 12-year-old girl was raped. An election victory earlier this year that gave Gov. Masahide Ota’s supporters control of the prefectural assembly for the first time paved the way for the referendum. Ota is a strong advocate of reducing the U.S. troop presence.

But it is unclear how much the measure’s passage will influence U.S.-Japan security arrangements. Okinawa cannot order troops off its soil, and both the Japanese and U.S. governments assert they have made major progress in meeting local demands with a base consolidation plan.

In Japan, a referendum can qualify for the ballot by approval of the local council or by citizens who gather 2% of voters’ signatures, then win council approval. But several citizen-led efforts have been blocked by local councils.

“In Japan, local politicians are stubbornly resisting referendums, since they think it’s a challenge to their interpretation of democracy,” said Hajime Imai, author of a book titled “Let’s Decide Important Issues by National Referendum.” “The Makimachi and Okinawa cases will give us Japanese a good opportunity to think about democracy, since we haven’t had public debates on important issues such as the imperial system, U.S. bases in Japan and nuclear power plants in the past 50 years.”

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