Word: ldp
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...remarkable, then, that someone could emerge from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks to become the most powerful politician in Japan. How the 75-year-old Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) elder finessed a heritage that could have been a liability offers insight into what motivates him and how he operates. From his first campaign for a seat on the town council of Sonobe, a rural town west of Kyoto, Nonaka did not deny his burakumin ties. He didn't advertise them, either. Instead, he adroitly brought himself out of the closet, in a pair of speeches early...
...political world as Nonaka, who was chief cabinet secretary under the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. Before resigning in December, Nonaka served current Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in the same job. Having distanced himself from the beleaguered Mori, who is expected to be replaced as chief of the ruling LDP?and thus, as Prime Minister?next month, Nonaka has positioned himself to replace his former boss. "I can't think of anyone else but Nonaka who can be the next Prime Minister," says political analyst Minoru Morita. Party leaders have been promoting his candidacy. Nonaka himself says...
Coordination is Nonaka's stock-in-trade. The son of a rice farmer, he is the consummate power broker, a puppet-master who pulls the strings behind the scenes for the LDP, the party that has run Japan nearly continuously for the past 45 years. Nonaka is an old-fashioned pol, having honed his skills as mayor of small-town Sonobe. He first ran for the town council in 1950, at the age of 25, and was elected mayor eight years later. In 1967, he was elected to the Kyoto prefectural government, and immediately butted heads with the long-time...
...attention to the chatter in the alleys off Showa road in Ginza, where the pols pay $650 a head for dinner (drinks are extra) at places like Kiccho, Mori's favorite, you'll discover just how much like Kabuki Japanese politics is these days. Word is that no senior LDP leader?not Aoki, not Nonaka, not Koizumi?wants to become Prime Minister just now. Forget about the jostling that appears to be going on. Sure, the party wants Mori out because he is such an embarrassment. But there is an election for the Upper House of the Diet scheduled...
...play is winding down for Mori and the LDP big shots. They need to shove an essential budget bill through the lower house of the Diet by March 2. After that, it will be time for Mori to exit the stage. By March 13, when the LDP holds a general meeting, Mori will?somehow, some way?be deposed. And a successor will be selected. But as usual the work will have been done in private, at expensive restaurants?behind those decorative screens. Says Kenji Gato, a senior political reporter in Tokyo: "When the curtain is raised on the LDP meeting...