Mori’s Leaky Vessel Stays Afloat

Japan’s lackluster Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in parliament Tuesday, but the challenge, backed by members of his own party, could have a significant impact on the future of governing in Japan. The split within the Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan for much of the last 45 years, signals a deep, and welcome, dissatisfaction with pork-barrel, scandal-ridden politics dominated by the interests of big business, farmers and the construction industry.

Not much was expected of Mori when he took office seven months ago. He offered no imaginative plan to revive Japan’s moribund economy, just more government spending, mainly on rural construction projects to keep the party’s constituency happy and the economy from sinking. The government’s accumulated debt now has reached a sorry 130% of the nation’s gross domestic product, the highest among industrialized countries.

The challenge to Mori’s rule, led by an LDP stalwart, Koichi Kato, uncovered a rift within the entrenched political establishment. Kato was openly critical of the government’s business-as-usual policies, calling for radical reforms and greater accountability to the mostly disenchanted public. Although Kato changed his mind before the no-confidence vote and asked his faction to abstain, helping Mori to survive this time, there are many inside the LDP who also would like to see the prime minister go. His government gets an approval rating of less than 20%, and voters showed their disaffection by routing longtime incumbents in two recent gubernatorial elections. Mori is sitting on an increasingly precarious perch.

Kato and his followers are convinced that if the LDP wants to hold on to power it must deal with the country’s economic problems by deregulating industries, reforming the tax laws and cutting public spending. Those are measures that appeal to the enterprising young, mostly urban population rather than the rural districts that benefit most from the government largess. It will take courage, perhaps greater courage than Kato’s, to implement such policies. But implemented they will have to be if Japan is to shed the burden of vested interests and emerge from its economic doldrums.