Word: hata
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Beneath the heat of TV klieg lights and the crush of security guards at a Tokyo hotel, the structure of Japanese politics began to crumble last week. Tsutomu Hata, three times a Cabinet minister for the Liberal Democratic Party that had ruled the country for 37 uninterrupted years, announced that he and 43 Diet colleagues had quit the L.D.P., forming a new party that would contest parliamentary elections to be held later this month. "Our party has been born to expedite a new wind, a new voice, a new system," said the smooth-talking Hata. "We pledge we will...
...Hata's new party, roughly translated as Japan Renewal, the second group in three days to defect from the Liberal Democrats, is considered the most likely to pull together a coalition able to oust what is left of Japan's unruly and unroyal dynasty. Once the managers of Japan's rise to economic-superpower status under the warm glow of its alliance with the U.S., the Liberal Democrats today are noted for a single, sordid attribute: corruption. Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa sank to a lowly 9% approval rating two weeks ago after he buckled under party pressure and failed...
...fervent hope among most Japanese is that the emerging new order will destroy the powerful interest groups that have dominated the political and business arenas, eventually producing a genuine multiparty democracy of ideas rather than influences. But just how fresh are the new winds swirling around the Diet? Are Hata and company born-again politicians destined to shape the post-cold war era? Or are they rats fleeing a sinking ship? Hata and all his colleagues were members of the Takeshita faction of the L.D.P., which was close to the center of all the corruption scandals in recent years...
...HOURS, IT LOOKED AS IF PRIME MINISTER Kiichi Miyazawa would weaken his political opponents in a shrewdly orchestrated maneuver. When Michio Watanabe, 69, announced he would resign from his post of Foreign Minister owing to poor health, Miyazawa offered the position to former Finance Minister Tsutomu Hata. Hata heads a rebellious faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and has hinted that he might create a new party. Miyazawa apparently thought he could distract Hata from his cause by luring the renegade into his Cabinet with a prestigious post. Hata, however, declined the offer, saying he wanted to "stay...
...Kanemaru scandal has shaken the Liberal Democratic Party as none before. Some popular younger figures are threatening to bolt and form a new party; last week Tsutomu Hata even rejected an offer to become Foreign Minister in order to maintain his freedom of action. Some analysts think a new party might win as many as 40 seats in Diet elections that must be held by next February, possibly costing the Liberal Democrats their majority...