Word: ldp
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fairly generous state-sponsored bank rescue plan, while opposition parties (and the West) want to let weak banks and the enterprises they support perish. Somewhere in the middle may be a viable bill, and the latest round of failures may be enough to spur even the often listless LDP to get economic reform out of the hemming-and-hawing phase and into the law books...
...Whoever he is -- and there is a short list of front-runners, none of whom have Hashimoto's dynamic reputation -- he'll come from the ranks of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. And that's part of Japan's conundrum. Traditionally, there has been no serious alternative to the LDP. The Japanese public has been willing to elect members of rival parties into the weak Upper House as a form of protest, as they did on Sunday, but they're still reluctant to put opposition candidates behind the wheel of real power in the dominant Lower House...
...That leaves the LDP's old-boy network, as the Japanese themselves call it, to gather in the back rooms and pick the politico who'll try to restore the world's second largest economy to its former self. Do the Japanese need a better way? Perhaps, and eventually they may vote themselves into a real two-party system. But for now their prime minister will be selected by the leaders of the LDP's numerous factions, using their own private power-and-favor calculus. Meanwhile, voters are displaying little willingness to endure the tough measures -- such as pulling...
...Hashimoto resigned after his party was humiliated at the polls, stalling even the halting steps at economic reform recently launched by Tokyo. "Hashimoto didn't say the policies were flawed or that the LDP was to blame -- he's trying to take the blame for not implementing the reforms quickly and effectively," says Gibney. Hashimoto will stay in office until the LDP appoints a successor. The leading candidate right now is Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi, who's known as a consensus builder rather than a Teddy Roosevelt. "The LDP needs a consensus to govern," says Gibney. "The fact that Hashimoto...
...political campaign. The current Parliament's four-year term doesn't expire until July 1997, but Irene Kunii reports from TIME's Tokyo bureau that Hashimoto's Liberal Democratic Party felt now represented its best chance to pick up seats in the 500-seat lower house. The dominant LDP holds 206 seats in the lower house and shares power with two other parties including, curiously enough, the socialists. Kunii says the LDP, which lost its monopolistic grip on power in the last election more than 3 years ago, would like to recapture a majority or negotiate a new coalition. "There...