Word: hata
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Hata's grasp of political-reform issues is thankfully firmer than his knowledge of anatomy. He chaired the L.D.P.'s special commission to study reform in 1990 and produced widely applauded legislation to revise the system. One typical problem: most districts have several legislators, which means Liberal Democrats from different party factions must compete against one another. Since they cannot slug it out on the basis of policies, they compete in terms of patronage -- which in turn creates pressure to raise yen under the table. Hata's plan was shot down in 1991, however, when many of his colleagues...
What is more, the political engineer behind Hata's insurgency is Ichiro Ozawa, a tough backroom operator who was right-hand man to Shin Kanemaru, the Takeshita faction's Mr. Big until prosecutors caught up with him last March. Kanemaru stands trial next month on charges of failing to pay taxes on the millions he allegedly skimmed off illicit political donations. Largely because of Ozawa's close association with Kanemaru, the national daily Asahi Shimbun is less than impressed with the new group. "They attack the limitations of the L.D.P.," the paper noted last week. "But weren't they...
...Hata's background is typical of the blue-suit mainstream of the Liberal Democrats. The son of a journalist turned L.D.P. legislator, he worked for 10 years as a tour guide and planner for a bus company in Tokyo. His hometown of Ueda, west of Tokyo, is where he likes to claim that he learned his "sensitivity for ordinary people, and what they really want from politics." Like many current L.D.P. legislators, Hata entered politics by taking over his father's seat and rose through the ranks by avoiding mistakes...
Ozawa too followed his father's footsteps into politics. Unlike Hata, he had a taste for the backrooms of the L.D.P., where power was divided among the factions, and where men like Kanemaru allegedly collected huge pay-offs from businessmen grateful for favors. Because there is widespread suspicion of Ozawa's close links to Kanemaru, he tends to stay out of the limelight, while Hata holds the press conferences. Nonetheless, Ozawa has both a stronger intellect and the more forceful personality. "Ozawa is quite rare among Japanese politicians because he speaks clearly and identifies problems," says Kensuke Watanabe, author...
That won't be easy. To win power, Hata's party will have to form a coalition to win a majority in what will be a 511-seat lower house. While several opposition groups, all grasping at the chance to pull down the L.D.P., are promising to support Hata, it will be extremely difficult to reconcile differences. The largest of the parties, the Social Democrats, has tried to ease the way by announcing that it will not argue with traditional L.D.P. economic and foreign policies, but at least in theory it still opposes nuclear power, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty...