In Japan, Voter Loyalty Withstands the Winds of Change

If ever there was a politician whose days seemed numbered, it would be Kishiro Nakamura.

The 51-year-old former construction minister has been convicted of accepting a bribe of nearly $100,000 in exchange for political favors. He was forced to resign from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which had served as the launch pad for seven of his eight previous elections. He tops the “dump list” compiled by citizens’ groups that are targeting tainted candidates for defeat. And his leading opponent is an earnest Harvard and Tokyo University graduate with a political resume to drool over and a reputation as squeaky clean.

Nevertheless, when voters cast their ballots Sunday, Nakamura is expected to win a ninth term in parliament, according to polls, pundits and many constituents. This outcome would not be extraordinary by Japanese political standards. It reflects the deeper forces of inertia--fueled by the traditional values of gratitude and obligation--that prevent the changes that have swept other Asian democracies.

Elsewhere across Japan, the status quo is also expected to triumph. Polls predict that, despite a decade-long economic slump, record unemployment and rising social anxiety, the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP--which has dominated Japanese politics for 45 years--will land a majority of the 480 seats in the powerful lower house of parliament.

Japanese surveys have erred--spectacularly--before. Sunday’s outcome will depend on the uncommitted voters who make up roughly half the electorate. When these “floating voters” go to the polls, it is usually to punish the LDP. But many rarely vote.

Low turnout favors the well-organized LDP and its coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed and well-disciplined New Komeito party. High turnout is seen as favoring the divided and inarticulate opposition.

Unless political lightning strikes, the farmers and owners of small businesses in rural Ibaraki prefecture who have supported Nakamura--and his politician parents before him--for nearly five decades are expected to get up early and vote to send the convicted felon back to parliament.

“Japanese politics in the year 2000 is pretty much like American politics in the year 1915,” the Tammany Hall era of populist but corrupt machines, said Gerald Curtis of Columbia University, who specializes in Japanese electoral politics. “Machines are collapsing in Japan, but you can find these dinosaurs everywhere.”

Nakamura was arrested in 1994 and convicted of bribery in 1997. He maintains that he is innocent. Under the law, if he is reelected, he can be seated in parliament and avoid serving his 1 1/2-year sentence until his appeals are decided by the Supreme Court.

The tale of how Nakamura has survived this long is a lesson in Japanese realpolitik. In Tokyo, talk of reform has dominated political debate for more than a decade. But here in rural Ibaraki prefecture, just 38 miles northeast of Tokyo, loyalty, gratitude and personal relationships still count far more than policies, programs, campaign promises or legal niceties.

“My family has been supporting Nakamura for a long time,” explained Noriko Fukuda, a 29-year-old mother who was out in the fields this week helping her elderly parents tend the family pumpkin patch. “There are a lot of other people running, but Nakamura seems to be the only one I can trust.”

Fukuda said she isn’t sure whether Nakamura is guilty, but she feels certain that plenty of other politicians are doing the same thing. Other Nakamura backers believe that their man was just unlucky to have been caught.

“I feel conflicted,” said a small-business owner who comes from Sakai, Nakamura’s hometown, and can’t decide whether to vote for him again.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be influenced by hometown sentiment, but actually, I am,” he confessed. “I know I should think about the future, but I can’t quite forget what Nakamura-san has done for us in the past.”

What Nakamura has done for them, observers said, is bring home oodles of public works projects that have boosted the living standards of the vegetable-growing farmers of Ibaraki, as well as the fortunes of the construction companies that form the LDP’s traditional power base.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that this prefecture is eating thanks to public works projects,” said Tomoaki Iwai, a political scientist at Tokiwa University in Ibaraki. “Nakamura is the boss. He’s had a powerful political machine inherited from his father.”

Nakamura’s parents served in parliament. Their son, who once belonged to a motorcycle gang, according to Iwai and local residents, was apprenticed to learn the family business as secretary to the legendary late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, the king of Japanese pork-barrel politics.

Nakamura evidently was a talented pupil. The total length of the roads in Ibaraki is now 63% of the total in Hokkaido, a prefecture nearly 13 times larger in size. The three-lane freeways that help rush Ibaraki vegetables to market are testaments to Nakamura’s clout, Iwai said. The wealth gets spread around, he said, because the construction companies hire local farmers to do the roadwork in the winter.

Nakamura was reelected in 1996, even after his arrest. He was convicted of bribery after attempting to pressure the Fair Trade Commission to drop a bid-rigging prosecution against Kajima Corp., one of Japan’s largest construction companies. Kajima’s former vice president was convicted of paying Nakamura a bribe of nearly $100,000 in return. Nakamura insists that the money was a campaign contribution.

After Nakamura’s 1997 conviction, the Ibaraki branch of the LDP decided that it was time for fresh blood. It endorsed Yoji Nagaoka, a 21-year veteran of the Agriculture Ministry with a graduate degree from Harvard who has served as an international trade negotiator for Japan.

But the national LDP headquarters declined to endorse the 49-year-old Nagaoka, who blames factional politics for the rift. Nakamura belonged to the largest LDP group, while Nagaoka is tied to a smaller and less powerful faction. Now both men are running as independents.

Without the national endorsement--and the campaign funds and name recognition that come with it--Nagaoka faces an uphill struggle against a powerful incumbent and three other candidates.

Ibaraki residents interviewed this week said they are most worried about Japan’s feeble economy, the underfunded pension and health systems, and possible tax increases. But many said they do not know where the five candidates stand on those issues.

Japan’s election campaign laws are so restrictive that candidates can barely communicate their policies to voters. Candidates are not allowed to canvass door to door. They may hand out only a limited number of one-page leaflets describing their views and may not post campaign literature on the Internet. Debates are unheard of, and even round-table discussions among candidates are permitted only if every candidate agrees to participate--which means that they are virtually impossible to hold in practice.

“The basic reason why democracy has always been stillborn in this country is the ultra-tight rules governing electoral campaigning,” said longtime Japan watcher and author Eamonn Fingleton.

Campaigns Based on Name Recognition

The result is that most campaigns are little more than a fight over name recognition--and that gives incumbents a titanic advantage. In Japan’s past three elections, nearly 69% of all incumbent candidates were reelected. In comparison, about 90% of U.S. incumbents seeking another term in Congress win.

This election, the Japanese media is focusing on “hereditary politicians” who are launched into elected office on the strength of their parents’ famous names. According to Yomiuri Shimbun, a leading newspaper, 177 of the 1,404 candidates running for parliament in Sunday’s election are the sons or daughters of present or former lawmakers. In Ibaraki prefecture, three-quarters of the LDP candidates are the progeny of politicians.

The most famous “hereditary politician” running is Yuko Obuchi. She is the 26-year-old daughter of Keizo Obuchi, the prime minister who died May 14. Residents of Obuchi’s native Gunma prefecture have been lining up to shake her hand, and she is expected to win easily.

Candidates whose names lack such luster are reduced primarily to bleating their names 12 hours a day from loudspeaker trucks.

“This is Nagaoka, Nagaoka, Yoji Nagaoka, please send him to parliament, we need your support,” cried a voice from the sound truck this week as it wound its way through cabbage and rice fields. “This is Nagaoka, Nagaoka, Nagaoka.”

Negative campaigning is frowned upon in Japan, and the voice from the sound truck doesn’t come out and criticize Nakamura--though it does drop a few hints. “Send a proper person to parliament,” the speaker wailed. “Let’s pursue clean politics.”

The sound trucks merely exasperate many voters, who rank among the world’s most alienated.

“We have to follow what is decided for us,” said Kayo Terasaki, a 24-year-old Ibaraki homemaker who said she won’t bother to vote. “Even if I give my opinion, I don’t think it will be listened to. . . . I don’t think that if politics changes, anything in my life will change.”

Convicted Lawmaker Keeps a Low Profile

Apathy benefits incumbents such as Nakamura, who is keeping a low profile. His campaign workers declined interview requests, closed almost all of his speeches to the media and even declined to fax a one-page campaign leaflet describing his policies.

“We don’t disclose information to people who don’t have the right to vote in Japan,” said a man who answered the phone at campaign headquarters. He refused to give his name.

Nagaoka’s friend and campaign manager, Hisao Koyama, remembers that his childhood home had gifts that bore the Nakamura name--a mirror, ashtray and other objects from the days when candidates frequently garnered votes with presents or cash.

The rules have become far stricter, particularly after a political reform bill in 1994. In rural areas such as Ibaraki, however, the patronage relationships between the people and their politicians are little changed.

Local newspapers reported that 10,000 people attended Nakamura’s campaign kickoff ceremony. Nagaoka, on the other hand, drew only 26 people for a noon stump speech in the parking lot of a convenience store in the town of Sowa.

Afterward, Nagaoka stripped off the election headband that declared “Inevitable Victory” and the white gloves that symbolize political purity, and acknowledged that his race looks tough.

“Japan is not a democratic country,” he said. “The individual is not [politically] independent. . . . When I decided to run, I didn’t realize it was this terrible. It’s worse than I thought.”