Koizumi Wins Mandate For Japan Reforms

by Edwin Karmiol

(IPS) TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secured an absolute majority of 296 seats in the 480-member lower house of parliament.

The victory in Sunday's general elections allows Koizumi to pursue planned reforms. If he enrolls his coalition partner, the New Komeito party, he will be working with a 327 seats that could steamroll any opposition in the upper house.

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which fielded several LDP "rebels," saw its seats decline from 177 to 113. Its leader, Katsuya Okada, has taken responsibility for the crushing defeat and stepped down.

"I am happy that Prime Minister Koizumi is back. The LDP is the biggest party in Japan and nobody can change it," said Ayano Ishihara, secretary in a major shipping company. "The only thing I am unhappy about is the presence of Japanese troops in Iraq," she added, reflecting the popular mood.

Taking a gamble, Koizumi dissolved the Lower House on Aug. 8 and called for a snap general election after his pet project to privatize the postal system (Japan Post) by 2007 was voted down in the upper house.

In a fit of anger, the prime minister also expelled 37 lawmakers of his party who opposed the postal reform bills and refused to endorse their candidature. Instead, he selected a team from among loyalists, dubbed "assassins" by the media.

Koizumi portrayed his party as one of young, forward-looking men and women.

He wooed women's votes using 10 handpicked women candidates, starting with the iconic Satsuki Katayama, a former Miss Tokyo University, who became the first woman budget examiner at the Finance Ministry.

Another winning female LDP candidate was Yuriko Koike, who left a high-profile job as television anchor job to become environment minister.

But Koizumi's team also included Takefumi Horie, a 32-year-old university dropout and Internet millionaire, who in spite of huge popularity ratings lost to "rebel" Shizuka Kamei.

Armed with a new mandate, Koizumi is likely to concentrate on revamping Japan Post -- which not only provides one of the best postal services in the world but is also the world's largest financial institution, with savings and other deposits, worth more than $3 trillion.

Of Japan's 24,700 post offices, 19,000 are identified as "special post offices" that are privately owned and managed. When the postal service was established in 1871 on the archipelago, its operations were mostly handed over to the elders of towns and villages and it soon became a family affair.

Even today, these entities are handed down from father to son. The space rental of all post offices and the generous salaries of the 271,000-strong workforce are paid by the government. Employees rank as civil servants, though not all have passed appropriate tests.

Concerned Japanese fear that the privatization of Japan Post could lead to the suppression of post offices in their small localities and cause great inconvenience. But Koizumi's insistence on privatizing Japan Post is aimed at getting hold of its assets and placing them in more rewarding investments that would stimulate overall economic growth.

His next objective is to fight corruption. This involves denying some LDP members access to funds he says are being wasted on useless pork-barrel road and bridge construction.

Despite its vast deposits, Japan Post does not extend loans to the general public and private businesses. The money (mostly people's savings) is often allocated to white elephant projects, initiated by politicians wishing to improve their image in their respective constituencies.

An estimated $370 billion has been lost on projects like building new expressway extensions in low-demand regions.

Yasuo Tanaka, head of the New Party Nippon, said he was not against privatizing the postal service, but Koizumi never explained how exactly it would help resolve the public debt, which stands now at $7.1 trillion.

The coming months are bound to be hectic for Koizumi. Besides the privatization issue, the prime minister will also have to attend to pressing diplomatic tasks, starting with hostility from China over what are seen as attempts to whitewash Japan's wartime record.

Some Japanese citizens too are worried about Koizumi's controversial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and which may have exacerbated worsening relations with China, and also South Korea.

Many believe that ties with these powerful neighboring countries could have improved under DPJ party rule.

Koizumi also has no plans to withdraw the Japan Ground Self Defense Forces (JGSDF) from Samawah, Iraq. Worried Japanese fear that Koizumi has been following a dangerous path by maintaining troops in Iraq and generally leaning over backward to accommodate Washington's polices.

The U.S. has not reciprocated the close relationship by providing enough support for Japan's candidature for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, critics say.

On the domestic front, other than the postal reforms, the public anticipates better answers to pressing pension and welfare solutions to Japan's aging populations. Said homemaker S. Noriko: "Once the euphoria of the election results has died down, we expect that Koizumi will come up with some reasonable pension and welfare solutions."

Another cloud on the horizon is the planned revision of Japan's Constitution. It involves the renunciation of Article 9, which would enable this country to increase its arms buildup and send troops to war-afflicted countries.