Word: mori
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Mori's most damaging bungle occurred Feb. 10 when he blithely continued his Saturday round of golf after being informed that nine people, including four teenage students, had been lost when an American submarine collided with a Japanese fishing boat off the coast of Hawaii. He still isn't repentant. "How can you consider it a situation requiring crisis management?" he says. "It was an accident. I feel I properly demonstrated the required leadership...
Nearly everyone else in Japan, including members of Mori's party, disagrees. An Asahi Shimbun poll shows his approval rating has plunged to a rock-bottom 9%. Comments Makoto Tanaka, a 49-year-old construction worker, "Mori needs to resign. Quit. Get out of there...
...even if Mori is somehow bundled off stage, there is still a problem with the last act. Who would succeed him? The LDP sorely lacks a powerful shogun like the late Noburu Takeshita who not only served as Prime Minister but was a master at misshitsu seiji, the behind-the-screen politics of grooming new leaders and smoothing over intra-party squabbles...
...offstage plots, subplots and counterplots are so intricate that no one can be sure who's on top. Or even that some new actor isn't ready to steal the spotlight. "Anybody could be chosen," concludes LDP Diet member Katsuei Hirasawa. For example, Junichiro Koizumi, head of the Mori faction and radical reformer, could jump in once his boss fizzles out. Or Chikage Ogi, a former actress who is now head of the New Conservative Party, could emerge as a candidate...
...close 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...