TOKYO, July 12 (UPI) -- Sunday's House of Councilors elections offered Japanese voters a chance to express their anger at their government's foreign and economic policies over the past year, and the result was a major blow to the country's leading political party.
The elections also marked the end of the public's love affair with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who upon taking office in April 2001 enjoyed unprecedented support from voters who had been disgruntled by Japan's continued economic slide since the burst of the bubble economy in the early 1990s.
Voter turnout was just over 56 percent for the Upper House elections. It was the people's first chance to react to the government's troop deployment to Iraq, to its daily struggle over the question of nationals abducted by North Korea, and to its response to media hounding over a lackluster economy and rapidly aging population.
As a result, of 121 seats up for grabs in the Upper House, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party won only 49 seats, while the opposition Democratic Party won 50. The Buddhist-influenced Komei Party won 11 seats. Granted, the LDP remained the biggest party in the Upper House, occupying 115 of the 242 seats compared to 82 for the Democrats and 24 for Komei. The LDP is also the biggest party in the Lower House, which wields more power than the House of Councilors.
Nevertheless, Sunday's election results demonstrated just how far the pendulum of public opinion has swung away from faith in Koizumi's promise to bolster the Japanese economy and make the political system more transparent and responsive to the peoples' needs.
Such hopes for Koizumi are now effectively gone. The LDP's survival depends on forming a coalition government with a religious party, while the Democratic Party remains strong as the opposition, with a real chance of forming a government when elections must be called within the next two years. In the meantime, it will become increasingly difficult for the LDP to get legislation passed, with the opposition wielding power with greater confidence.
The silver-maned Koizumi was a breath of fresh air when he took office, from his distinctive, photogenic good looks, to his rallying cries to weaken the power of the bureaucracy and his calls for sweeping structural reforms to jump-start the economy. But three years on, his promises have not materialized.
"This has been a very difficult judgment (of the LDP by the voters) ... Compared to the Upper House election three years ago and the Lower House election last year, it's been very harsh," admitted Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda at a press briefing shortly after the final results came in.
Koizumi said he would reshuffle his Cabinet by September to reflect the latest election results. LDP Secretary-General Shinzo Abe is expected to resign at the end of the month due to his party's poor performance. Koizumi, however, emphasized that he would remain prime minister.
"This is not an election that decides the government; it's a midterm poll that measures the public mood. Koizumi does not have to take responsibility," Abe told state-owned NHK television.
That may well be, but it is clear that public disgruntlement toward the prime minister has intensified since his government decided to deploy Japanese troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing." According to opinion polls conducted by major local dailies, only about one-third of voters supported Japan's decision to join the coalition. But in spite of such low public support, Koizumi decided to send the country's self-defense forces to Iraq, even though Japan's post-World War II constitution prohibits deploying Japanese troops abroad except for self-defense purposes. Granted, the Japanese troops in the Middle East are acting only in non-combat roles, but the decision to send armed military personnel abroad to help reconstruction efforts following an unpopular war has been a major strike against Koizumi's government.
"We will make every effort ... to call for the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Iraq," said Democratic Party leader Katsuya Okada soon after it was announced that his party won more seats than the LDP. So far, Japan has sent about 600 troops to southern Iraq.
Another source of public outrage against Koizumi's Cabinet has been Japan's dealings with North Korea. Koizumi became Japan's first prime minister to visit Pyongyang in November 2002, but public goodwill toward that country evaporated when North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il revealed to him that North Korea had in fact abducted a number of Japanese nationals to train them as North Korean spies over the past three decades.
Five of those abducted have since returned to Japan, but it is widely believed that nearly 100 were kidnapped over the years, and while most are believed to have died, some are thought to still be alive in North Korea. Many voters have objected vehemently to Japan continuing to provide food aid and technological support to the impoverished nation, even as the government continues to engage in talks along with the United States, Russia, China, and South Korea to persuade North Korea to discontinue its nuclear program.
On the domestic front, concern over the economy has lessened with a recent upturn in consumer sentiment and industrial output. But increasing concerns over a rapidly aging population and constraints on public funds continue to rattle the government. Koizumi proposed to reform the state pension system by increasing salaried workers' contributions to the state fund to 18.3 percent of their paycheck, up from 13.58 percent, in October. That plan proved unpopular with many voters, causing them to turn to the Democratic Party, which has promised not to proceed with the plan, even though it has yet to offer a firm alternative means of meeting growing government expenses.
"We just didn't have enough time to win the people's understanding over our policies on pensions and Iraq," said the leader of the LDP's Upper House members, Mikio Aoki.
