THE TEMASEK REVIEW

By Yukia Hayashi from Wall Street Journal

The election victory of Japan’s main opposition party will bring many new faces to a long-staid political scene, a change that will give considerable clout to a familiar figure: Ichiro Ozawa, who led the party until May and helped to orchestrate its rise.

The Democratic Party of Japan captured the lower house of parliament Sunday in part because of the strategies of Mr. Ozawa, 67 years old, who now works as a top aide to party leader and likely new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama.

“In effect, this is going to be an Ozawa administration,” says Eiken Itagaki, a political analyst who has written several books on the DPJ and Mr. Ozawa. “Mr. Hatoyama and other leaders will be obliged to listen to what he wants.”

Mr. Ozawa’s aide referred questions to a DPJ spokesman, who said he had no comment.

With the backing of many DPJ loyalists, Mr. Ozawa will have a strong chance of implementing policies he has long promoted, including lessening Japan’s traditional reliance on the U.S. and implementing costly social programs such as an allowance to all families with children.

Some analysts say Mr. Ozawa should be given an important cabinet position to dispel any impression that he is running the show from behind the scenes.

He may prefer to stay offstage, however. “Mr. Ozawa will probably want to forgo a formal position in the cabinet and focus on preparations for the upper-house elections [in July],” says Fusao Ushiro, a political-science professor at Nagoya University. “Becoming a prime minister isn’t his ambition, even down the road.”

Mr. Ozawa stepped down as DPJ president in May after his top aide was indicted for violating political fund-raising rules, though he denied wrongdoing. But he has remained key to the party’s election planning. He picked a number of Sunday’s victorious candidates, trained them and matched them with opponents in ways that played up their strengths and stirred voter interest, political analysts said.

Young social activists often were thrown after incumbents. In a Tokyo district, Ai Aoki, a 44-year-old former day-care teacher, successfully took on Akihiro Ota, the 63-year-old head of New Party Komei, the coalition partner of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. In Gifu, in central Japan, Masanao Shibahashi, a 30-year-old former bank loan officer, ran against with Seiko Noda, 48, one of the two female ministers in outgoing Prime Minister Taro Aso’s cabinet.

The DPJ was already expected to perform strongly against the LDP, which has dominated Japanese politics for decades and presided over a long economic decline and suffered from a number of political scandals. Still, analysts said about 70 of the 193 seats it gained in the lower house came in part from Mr. Ozawa’s guidance.

“When it comes to election strategies, no one in Japanese politics comes even close to Mr. Ozawa,” said Hirotada Asakawa, an analyst who has written books about Mr. Ozawa.

Takatane Kiuchi, who defeated an LDP incumbent in Tokyo Sunday, prepared for the elections under Mr. Ozawa’s guidance. “People call him ‘god of elections’ but a lot of what he says is quite basic,” says the 43-year-old former investment banker who once worked for Merrill Lynch. “He tells you to greet voters at train stations every morning and visit community leaders frequently.”

Mr. Kiuchi said his goal as a politician is to help rebuild Japan’s semiconductor industry through public funds and restructuring. “When you are a newcomer with no baggage on your back, you can do a whole lot,” he says.

The Japanese media have nicknamed the newly elected lawmakers “Ozawa children,” a reference to “Koizumi children,” a group of young politicians mentored by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who were swept to office in the last lower-house election in 2005. Most of them were defeated by DPJ candidates in the latest elections.

Mr. Ozawa started out as a conservative politician who over decades gained influence within the LDP. He left the party in 1993 amid an internal power struggle, and helped form a coalition government made up of small parties. That government lasted only 11 months before the LDP returned to power.

In 2003, Mr. Ozawa joined the DPJ and soon became its leader. He led the party to a victory in upper-house elections in 2007, accelerating the LDP’s decline.

Source: Wall Street Journal

EDITORS’ NOTE:

The Temasek Review is a paid subscriber of the Wall Street Journal

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