Word: ldp
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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OHIRA and his squabbling LDP cronies have proved themselves incapable of that leadership. Their obsession with power plays and personal revenge, while hardly unusual for professional politicians, has torn their party apart. The LDP's Grand Guignol shocked a Japanese public accustomed to a veneer of unity and discretion...
With his approval rating down to 17 per cent and fellow LDP members licking their wounds, Ohira tried to restore peace by apportioning Cabinet posts among different factions. But some of his chief rivals refused to accept posts and have stated they will cooperate with Ohira only on a "case by case" basis--a precedent shattering break with Japanese traditions of party discipline. Ohira is also bound to Tanaka, who exacted a stiff fee in Cabinet posts for his key support. Among others, Ohira appointed Tadao Kuraishi, a Tanaka crony, as Justice Minister, at Tanaka's insistence...
...bitter political infighting that characterized this election and the LDP's shrinking majority signal several political changes for Japan. The election results confirm that the LDP's salad days of dictating policy and setting the national agenda are over. Ohira needs to forge a new coalition of moderate-centrist opposition groups like the New Liberal Club, the Democratic Socialist Party and the Komeito "clean government" party to get legislation through the Diet. But working in this "period of equal balanced forces" requires wily and forceful leadership...
...leadership vacuum, however, may increase the responsiveness of the traditionally elite dominated Japanese political system. Without a LDP will have to bow to the pressure of opposition parties and local consumer group movements who have sharply criticized the party's emphasis on or environmental integrity. Opposition parties are already clamoring for the abolition of some of the tax breaks the LDP has granted big business...
Although Japan has prospered under the LDP, the nation has neglected some of the evils of rapid industrialization--pollution, increasing comptetition for higher education, overcrowding, inflation, substandard housing and a marked disparity in the economic security of the employees of large and small businesses. The LDP's political Ohira and his wounded party should stop playing Hatfield and McCoy; if not for Japan, for their own self-respect...