The dismal showing of Japan’s Socialist Prime Minster, Tomiichi Murayama, at the weekend’s Upper House election brings into question his ability to continue in office, though he has vowed to make his way through what he said were “rough seas”.
Mr Murayama heads a bizarre coalition with the conservative Liberal-Democrat Party to form a majority in the Lower House. The coalition was always one of convenience and necessity rather than of any sense of pursuing a cohesive policy direction.
Half of the Upper House’s 252 seats were up for re-election. Of the 126 seats the coalition got 65, but the Socialists scored only a fairly dismal 16 of those, down from 41 three years ago. The Liberal-Democratic Party got 46 up from 33 last time.
The upshot is that though the coalition has a clear majority in both Houses, the Socialist element of it is waning, yet it has the Prime Ministership.
The question now is whether the 71-year-old Mr Murayama is the best person to lead Japan at such a difficult time. The nation faces growing trade disputes and an ominous threat of deflation and national
safety worries after the subway nerve-gas attack earlier this year and to a lesser extent the Kobe earthquake.
The trouble is that if Mr Murayama is forced by the Liberal Democrats to stand down, the Socialists would have no reason to stay in coalition. There is certainly no policy reason for them to do so. But the Liberal Democrats would be without a majority in the Lower House and would either have to govern in minority or seek a fresh election. The latter course would be favoured by the Opposition New Frontier Party which has seized on the opportunity to say the election result was a vote of no-confidence in the Government and so there should be fresh elections. It would likely be the biggest beneficiary of that course. The Liberal Democrats are attune to that and so have taken a typically pragmatic course in preferring to deal with a weakened Murayama than the uncertainty of a general election. Though they cited the need for stability after three changes in government in the past two years as a reason for Mr Murayama to stay on, the real reason for putting up with him seems to be the fact that there is no clear successor to take them to an election.
The suggestion that the Upper House vote was one of no-confidence, however, should not be taken too seriously. Voter apathy was rampant. The turnout was only 44 per cent, the lowest ever in a Japanese national election. Rather than a vote against the Government and in favour of New Frontier, the result can rather been seen as a display of a lack of confidence and disillusion with all the parties.
In this environment, the Liberal Democrat Party (the more powerful tail that wags the dog) seems content to wait until the end of the year or early next year for a usual-term election in the hope that something will turn up in the meantime.
It is an unsatisfactory result. With the Prime Minister so weakened and no solid policy consensus in the coalition an election now would at least give the chance of provided a government with a mandate and majority to deal with Japan’s pressing problems which in turn have such a profound affect on the world.
Instead, the best Japan can hope for is merely a Cabinet shuffle _ which brings to mind the obvious cliche.