Concern rising over Ozawa's clout

TOKYO —

The Democratic Party of Japan won a crushing victory in Sunday’s general election—something that Ichiro Ozawa has been hoping for in many ways.

Having been forced to retreat to the backseat, Ozawa will not be able to celebrate Sunday’s victory in the lower house election as the DPJ’s frontman but he continues to wield considerable influence within the party, which is set to end the dominance of his old party.

Some DPJ colleagues, however, are wary of the power that the 67-year-old could potentially exercise in the new political framework.

If not for a fundraising scandal that forced him from the party’s top spot more than three months ago, Ozawa would have been on track to become Japan’s next prime minister instead of incumbent DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama.

But assuming the premiership may be a matter of little concern for Ozawa, who has staked much of his political career on an even greater goal—to end the Liberal Democratic Party’s almost uninterrupted control of Japanese politics since 1955 and to introduce a sound two-party system.

In announcing his resignation on May 11, Ozawa said his decision was solely for the DPJ’s sake and for the party to achieve a change of government in the election for the powerful House of Representatives.

Ever since retreating from the front of the stage, Ozawa has been focusing on battles with the LDP.

He toured districts across the country, handpicked election candidates and passed on to them his experience of election campaigning—such as making door-to-door visits from town to town to woo voters.

Thanks to his well-calculated campaign strategy, which he learned from the late former prime minister and kingmaker Kakuei Tanaka, the DPJ racked up more than 300 seats in the 480-member lower chamber, way more than its pre-election strength of 115.

Ozawa is the one who delivered ‘‘this big win for the party,’’ said Eiken Itagaki, a political analyst who has written books on the DPJ.

Of the DPJ’s 271 candidates for the 300 single-seat constituencies, 114 are political novices. Ozawa directly invited most of them to run in the election, trained them and even offered them campaign funds.

Given his charisma, some DPJ members are becoming cautious that his influence within the party could grow and that the DPJ may have to remain in a dual power structure revolving around Ozawa and Hatoyama, one of the party’s founders who is often described as Ozawa’s ‘‘puppet.’‘

The current strength of the Ozawa group in the DPJ comes to around 50. The number could easily top 150 after the election and even 200 if he leads the campaign for next year’s House of Councillors election, analysts said.

Ozawa retained his seat for a 14th term, capturing the most votes of his political career since the single-seat electoral system was introduced in the 1996 election.

‘‘With the presence of ‘Ozawa’s children’ growing, he would be able to control them in any way he wants,’’ Itagaki said, adding that Ozawa may even try to run in the party leadership race again if the Hatoyama administration is short-lived.

Harumi Arima, another political analyst, also predicts that Ozawa’s clout could grow to a level where he could leave the DPJ along with his proteges for a possible overhaul of Japan’s entire political landscape.

‘‘While having Mr Hatoyama go on the campaign trail, Mr Ozawa was working hard behind the scenes to get closer to his own political goal,’’ Arima said, adding that he believes Ozawa wants to realign the nation’s politics into parties that bring together politicians who truly share ideologies.

Ozawa was so serious and fully geared up for this election out of a belief that the time is ripe for a change of government in Japan and the election could be his last chance for accomplishing that goal.

But his quest to wrest power from the LDP started years before.

The Keio University-educated son of a lower house lawmaker from Iwate Prefecture, Ozawa won his first seat in 1969 at the age of 27.

The protege of Tanaka served in prominent LDP and government posts until June 1993, when he left the party as a result of a furious factional feud stemming from a corruption scandal involving Shin Kanemaru, another legendary kingmaker who looked after Ozawa.

He then helped to expel the LDP from power in 1993, removing the conservative party from government for the first time in its 38-year history, but the multiparty, non-LDP administration did not last long, allowing the LDP to make a comeback only 11 months later.

In his 1993 book ‘‘Nippon Kaizo Keikaku’’ (Project to Reform Japan), Ozawa played up the need for the creation of a two-party system so that governments act more responsibly.

In an interview with Kyodo News, DPJ Supreme Adviser Hirohisa Fujii, a close ally of Ozawa, said Ozawa had advocated a two-party system since the 1980s.

As a step to lay the groundwork for nurturing an opposition party to challenge the dominance of the LDP, Ozawa proposed in the book that Japan’s electoral system should change to one in which a single candidate won in each constituency from one in which multiple people were selected.

In a single-seat constituency, the winner can be predicted easily so that the prospective winner obtains more votes, meaning that a change of government could happen more easily.

He succeeded in enacting a law to introduce the winner-take-all system under the administration led by Morihiro Hosokawa in 1994.

It was his first task toward toppling an LDP-led government.

Ozawa then went through twists and turns until he merged his Liberal Party with the DPJ in September 2003 and kept a low profile until he was elected to lead the party in April 2006 and in earnest started forging ahead with his plan to bring about a power shift.

But Ozawa wavers from time to time—when he faces a choice between ‘‘a change of power’’ or ‘‘seizing power,’’ observers say.

In one conspicuous instance, Ozawa agreed to entertain an overture from then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to form a grand coalition despite his successful efforts to lead the DPJ to a landslide win in the 2007 upper house election—a move that touched a fierce firestorm among DPJ colleagues and ended in a fiasco.

Ozawa looks to have succeeded in driving the LDP from power for a second time in Sunday’s historic rout.

Analysts say that Ozawa will continue to act as a ‘‘backroom fixer’’ for months or years to come and he will be able to exercise influence in what is set to become the nation’s new ruling party.

› Login to comment

3 Comments

sydenham at 10:41 AM JST - 31st August

Already people are worried about Hatoyama's ability to lead. Funny how the DPJ didn't sort this out better during the recent leadership race. Or was that all part of Ozawa's master plan???? OOH OOH AH AH AAAAHH...Pretty smart, actually. By the next election, people will already have forgiven Ozawa's fund-raising problems.

This all depends on whether the DPJ can actually do anything, apart from just be slightly different from the LDP. If not, Ozawa's dream and the DPJ leadership may go the same way it did before.

Best to at least give them a chance anyway, and to have finally really kicked the bums out.
timorborder at 01:17 PM JST - 31st August

Payback is a bxtch. As an old LDP hand, brought up on a solid diet of Tanaka/Takeshita political realism, Osawa-san has been waiting for this day for a long, long time. Those of the LDP who took potshots at him in the past could be in for a difficult couple of years. Osawa-san does not want to become Prime Minister (or leader of the party). He is much more comfortable controlling things from the shadows.
onewrldoneppl at 04:40 PM JST - 31st August

is he a crook? only time will tell.