Word: ldp
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...Know first that Koizumi the maverick is very much a product of the Establishment. His father, Junya, was a member of parliament and Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) stalwart who helped draft Japan's security agreement with the U.S. When he died in 1969, Junichiro was studying in London. He hurried back home and, while sorting through Junya's papers, discovered that his future had been laid out for him. "Certain victory, Junichiro-kun," read a note written in his father's script. In Japan, political inheritance is common: about a third of the seats in parliament are passed from...
...After that electoral defeat, Koizumi signed up as an assistant to an LDP heavyweight, Takeo Fukuda. The job involved answering the phone, greeting guests, running errands and even dusting Fukuda's shoes. It was Koizumi's political boot camp. His antiestablishment streak developed under Fukuda, himself a bright, squeaky-clean policy wonk who frequently took on the LDP's most powerful clique, headed by Kakuei Tanaka and filled with politicians with cozy ties to special interest groups like construction bosses, farmers and war veterans. This is the faction most dependent on pork-barrel politics, campaign war chests and the obtaining...
...Being a maverick and an iconoclast in an ossified political culture helped Koizumi's career. But being a loner can be a huge handicap when you're trying to tear down that culture?and have powerful, entrenched forces fighting you every step of the way. The LDP conservatives, led by the formidable Ryutaro Hashiimoto, want no part of Koizumi's reform agenda and are determined to preserve the business-politics relationships the Prime Minister has sworn to destroy. They are waiting to pounce: at the first sign of vulnerability, they will surely come after Koizumi as they did with previous...
...What Koizumi needs to do is win himself some allies in parliament?from among younger LDP legislators, perhaps, or even from the opposition. He was smart to sign up the young, hard-charging Nobuteru Ishihara to head up administrative reform in his Cabinet, and there are dozens of other younger pols, inside and out of the LDP, that he would be wise to court. But his natural aloofness makes it hard for him to reach out. And the few friends he has in politics are more likely to get him into trouble than out of it. Koizumi is close...
...Just how much are Japanese willing to suffer? Yukinobu Karasawa, a 27-year-old salaryman, mulls over the question as he shops for Koizumi goods?posters, T-shirts, cell-phone straps?at the Tokyo LDP headquarters. "I support his reforms," he says, "but if they begin to hurt me, I might have to reconsider." Then it will be the Prime Minister who feels the pain...