No change in policies
In the July election for the lower house of the Japanese parliament, voters clearly revealed their disillusionment with the longruling Liberal Democratic Party. They were removed from power after thirty-eight years. There was not, however, a swing to the left. On the contrary, and as our correspondent explains, conservative forces achieved their best result since 1955. JUN'ICHI HIRAI* - Tokyo, August 13, 1993
THE Liberal-Democratic Party was denied a simple majority, the Social Democratic Party sustained a crushing defeat, while new parties scored remarkable gains in Sunday's general election." "The most outstand-ing result is that the nation handed down a 'no' verdict on the LDP's 38-year-old one-party rule. We now see the effective collapse of the so-called regime of 1955, in which the LDP, a conservative conglomerate, has single-handedly managed the affairs of state in confrontation and collusion with weak opposition forces led by the SDP in the Cold War framework.")
The results of the Japanese general election, held on July 18, represent the end of the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) absolutemajority rule. The LDP gained 223 seats out of total 511, while Shinseito (Renewal Party) and Sakigake (Pioneer Party) gained 55 and 13 seats respectively. Both parties were formed as split-off groups from the LDP immediately after the dissolution of the Lower House on June 18 when the house adopted a no-confidence motion against the Miyazawa LDP cabinet. The Japan New Party (JNP) gained 35 seats; this party had been set up by Morihiro Hosokawa, former governor of the Kumamoto prefecture and also a former LDP Upper House member, last year.
The LDP defeat is as a direct result of the emergence of these new conservative parties. Discredited through a series of financial scandals, the LDP has lost its long-time govermental power at last. But the general election has also brought about a spectacular decline of the Social Democratic Party
Election Results
Seats won LDP. 223 SDP 70 Shinseito... 55 Komeito. 51 JNP 35 JCP. 15 DSP 15 Sakigake. 13 USDP. 4 Others. 0 Independents. 30 Total. 511 (SDP).2 The SDP, which had been the major opposition party in parliament, took only 70 seats, losing nearly half of its previous representation.
Thus, in spite of the LDP defeat, bourgeois conservative forces as a whole - the LDP, Shinseito, Sakigake and the JNP -control nearly two thirds of the Lower House seats. This is the strongest parliamentary representaion the bourgeois conservative forces have ever had since the 1950s.
### Coalition
Following the election, non-LDP forces - except the Communist Party (CP) - formed a coalition against the the LDP. The new governemnt, inaugurated on August 9 and headed by JNP leader Hosokawa, is composed of seven parties - three nonLDP conservertive parties (Shinseito, Sakigake and the JNP) and four other long-time opposition forces (the SDP, Komeito, the Democratic Socialist Party [DSP] and the United Social Democratic Party [USDPI).3
The agreement for the coallition states that they will continue the previous LDP goverment's foreign and defence policies. This means that the SDP, which is still the largest party in the coalition, has clearly abandoned its previous pacifist stance.
During the Gulf war, Japanese imperialism began to play a military role under the auspices of the United Nations in the name of making an "international contribution". In this context, the tendency toward revision of the pacifist aspects of the Japanese constitution has been gaining ground amongst the
Pre-election Candidates strength 227 285 135 142 36 69 45 54 0 57 16 129 13 28 10 16 4 4 2 62 109 497 955
(15 vacancies) parliamentary parties, including the opposition. Detachments of the Japanese Self Defence Force, to Cambodia in 1992 and to Mozambique in 1993, represent the first steps for Japanese imperialism in expanding its military involvement in "regional conflicts" all over the world.
The SDP's participation in the coalition goverment will facilitate its rightwing turn to "realism". During the election campaign, the leadership of the rightist "Rengo" (Japan General Federation of Trade Unions) publicly stated that they would not support those SDP candidates who still stuck to the traditional pacifist stance, defending "Article 9" of the constitution which bans the government from holding any military forces. Under pressure from "Rengo", which represents big company-unions, the SDP has definitively turned to the politics of "national interest".
The new coalition's real leadership is in the hands of Shinseito. Before they split from the LDP, they were members of a sub-faction of the LDP's biggest and dominant faction, and they had powerful links with leading capitalist circles and the administrative
* The author is a supporter of the Fourth International in Japan.
1. Mainichi Daily News, 20 July 1993
2. In Japan the SDP is still known by its previous title, Socialist Party.
3. Komeito - this party was established by the Buddhist sect "Sohka-Gakkai" in the early 1960s. They are now seeking the possibility of fusing with Shinseito.
DSP — a split from the SDP in 1960 they represent the far rightwing of Japanese social democracy.
USDP — a split from the SDP in the late 1970s. Their aim is to unite all the "social democratic" forces.
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International Viewpoint #248 September 1993
bureaucracy. They too had been involved in various grave corruption scandals. But now, they present themselves as "political reformers". ". In fact, their political project is more aggressive than that of the LDP. The Shinseito leader, Ichiro Ozawa, has openly stated that Japan should play a more active political and military role in maintaining the current world order. Even the new LDP president Yohei Kohno warned against Shinseito's "extreme nationalist view". Nonetheless, all the coalition parties, including the SDP, are now seeking a common position with Shinseito.
"Political reforms"
The political stability of the Japanese parliamentary system has clearly come to an end. The LDP, the coalition parties and all end. The LDP the coalition narties and all the mass media consider the non-LDP coalition government as a temporary stage in a transition towards a new Japanese-style twomajor-parties system. In the name of "political reforms" to stop corruption, all the parties, except the CP, have agreed to introduce a new electoral system. This will be a combination of the single-member constituency system and proportional representation. The electoral reform will bring about a further realignment of parliamentary forces. Given the weakness of the SDP and the trade union movement, the "political reform" may result in a system of two-major conservative parties, where the SDP will actually disapear.
Under the new coalition goverment, the only non-LDP opposition party is the CP. Having got fifteen seats and 7.7 percent of the total votes, the CP has maintained its presence in parliament. But their monolithic Stalinist structure (they ban any dissident current) deprives it of any real possibility of attracting active support from working people. On the contrary, many circles and individuals, including certain activists of the peace movement and ecology movement, who have been disillusioned with the SDP, are increasingly supporting the "new parties", especially the JNP.
Almost all the political forces are competing with each other to get hold of the power structure of Japanese imperialism. But the parliamentary system itself has been deeply discredited among the population. There is an economic depression and Japanese capitalism will not be able to produce another decade of dynamic expansion as in the 1980s. In this context, the real problem is the absence of left alternative forces which can bring together various elements of the democratic and progressive mass movements. We will, however, see continuous efforts to organise people; around the demand for peace, enviromental protection, equal rights for immigrant workers... We will also see various struggles against the Japanese emperor system, military bases, and discrimination. Independent trade-unionists and small leftist trade unions have kept their influence. The social base for a fight against the capitalist offensive exists and it is growing. But these movements suffer from fragmentation.