A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (80 page)

The 1990s saw a flurry of political activity. Parties formed and unformed, allegiances shifted, intrigues abounded. Brevity of office was commonplace: in the nine years between late 1987 and early 1996 Japan had as many prime ministers, and it had three more by the spring of 2001, at which point the prime ministership started to achieve some stability under the popular Koizumi Junichir
. The one constant factor was the continuing control of the nation by conservatives. Even the socialist Murayama Tomiichi, who was prime minister of a new alliance between June 1994 and January 1996, was very obviously under the thumb of conservatives.
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The Socialist Party – which had changed its name in 1991 to the Social Democratic Party of Japan – abandoned most of its policies, allied with its arch-rivals the LDP, and lost much of its credibility and far more ground than it had gained in the late 1980s. In fact, it was to lose seats in just about every election and, after yet another name change (dropping ‘of Japan’) in 1996, it was to become a very minor party by the late 1990s. By late 1996 the LDP was formally back in power, without even the need for alliance partners.

From this point on the public seems to have given in to a fatalistic sense of resignation, and apathy set in. The 1996 elections saw the lowest voter turnout on record for a Lower House election, at 59 per cent, for amongst other things the result was seen as a foregone conclusion.

In 1991 Nakasone had said that the public had no-one to turn to but the LDP. His comment continued to be valid well into the new millennium. The LDP was returned to power once again in the June 2000 Lower House election, despite the unpopularity of the then prime minister Mori Yoshir
, noted for his gaffes both internationally and domestically.
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It won 233 of the now 480 Lower House seats (reduced from 500), at that time needing for a majority the support of the New K
meit
Party (31 seats), with which it formed a coalition along with the small and newly formed New Conservative Party (7 seats). Through absorption of other members it increased its seats to 247 before going into the November 2003 Lower House election under Koizumi, who had replaced Mori as prime minister in April 2001, winning 244 seats after three independents and the four members of the small New Conservative Party joined the LDP on election day. Its coalition partner New K
meit
won 34 seats.

The main opposition to the LDP in the first decade of the new millennium has been the Democratic Party of Japan, founded in 1998 with leading figures being Kan Naoto and Hatoyama Yukio. The DPJ won 127 seats in the June 2000 Lower House election and, after absorbing Ozawa Ichir
’s Liberal Party, won 177 seats in the November 2003 Lower House election. In September 2005 Koizumi called a snap election over controversial plans to privatise Japan’s postal service, and the LDP won convincingly. They occupied 296 seats, and their partner New K
meit
a further 31, while the DPJ won just 113 seats. At that point it seemed the LDP was firmly back at the helm.

Koizumi stepped down from the position of prime minister in September 2006, the reason given as simply following party protocol after occupying multiple terms in office, but one suspects there was more to his decision. Despite his popularity in Japan, he had upset a number of Asian nations, including China, for persistent visits to pay his respects to the war dead – war criminals amongst them – at Yasukuni Shrine. He also proposed a review of Article IX of the Constitution (the ‘Peace Clause’) with a view to allowing Japan to take a greater role in global security issues. Indeed, in 2004, at America’s request, and following legislative changes (though not to the Constitution itself ), he sent SDF personnel to Iraq, purely for humanitarian and reconstruction work.
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These matters may or may not have been factors in his stepping down. He had served as prime minister for five years, which was a very long time given the rapid turnover of prime ministers before and after him. Moreover, the economy had recovered during his prime ministership.

Koizumi was replaced by Abe Shinz
, who resigned the following September (2007) on health grounds. Abe had also been a somewhat controversial prime minister, as he backed a much-criticised revisionist view of Japan’s history which among other things played down wartime atrocities.
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He too took up Koizumi’s call for a review of the Constitution, though this was deferred.