The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan

The Realities of ‘Power’

Kōji Nakakita, Stephen Johnson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781032238548
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429624230
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides a thorough analysis of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP), from a variety of perspectives including its factions, party presidential elections, the distribution of posts, national elections, local organisations, the policy making process and partner organisations.

Drawing on comprehensive and up-to-date data, as well as a large number of interviews, internal party documents and quantitative data, The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan explains the machinery of the Japanese government and ruling party, exploring how policies are made. In so doing, the chapters also analyse the strengths and weaknesses of today's LDP through a comparison of Koizumi Juni'ichir? and Abe Shinz?, both having established long-lasting administrations through their strong leadership.

Demonstrating how the LDP has changed significantly over recent years, particularly since the political reforms of 1994, this book will be extremely useful to students and scholars of Japanese and Asian politics.

1 Factions

The ‘parties within a party’ weaken

On the road to retreat

The twilight of the Heiseiken

At one time, faction was a byword for Liberal Democratic Party politics. During the period spanning from the 1980s to the early 1990s, the Thursday Club led by former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei and its descendent factions, reigned as the largest such organisation. The Thursday Club’s successor was the Keiseikai, the faction of Takeshita Noboru. Not only did this faction gather a huge number of Diet members under its protection, but it arranged them as ‘policy tribes’ (zoku-giin in Japanese), the Diet members who specialised in various areas of policy, chief among which were matters relating to construction and the Japan Post. These policy tribes would deal with lobbying and extend their networks into industry organisations. In this way, the Keiseikai once demonstrated overwhelming strength in party presidential elections, playing the role of political kingmaker. It even built a deep connection with the opposition parties, making the management of affairs in the legislature an area of expertise.

The Heisei Kenkyūkai (or Heiseiken) which succeeded the Keiseikai, however has shown none of the potency of earlier years. Measured by its Diet membership, it was still the second largest faction after the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai (Seiwakai), but it had completely lost the ‘iron bonds’ that held it together during the time when its members would ‘line up together at bento box lunches’. Since the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) had won control of the government in 2009, powerful and key faction members were defecting, one after another. The list of leavers was long; Ishiba Shigeru, Kosaka Kenji, Itō Tatsuya, Kamoshita Ichirō, Tamura Norihisa, Sakurada Yoshitaka, Tanahashi Yasufumi, Kawai Katsuyuki and Yoshikawa Takamori.

This faction was unable to hold itself together because of failed leadership. Nukaga Fukushirō, who was appointed faction chair immediately after the 2009 general elections, did have experience as party Policy Research Council (PRC) chair and as finance minister. However, he lacked any record of challenging for the party leadership, having abandoned his candidacy in both the 2006 and 2007 LDP presidential elections. Indeed, Nukaga has not been highly regarded as a faction leader, both on the basis of his ability to raise funds and his skills as a manager of his organisation’s membership. Thus, virtually no voices have been heard advocating him as a candidate for the party leadership and his more likely highest promotion will be to the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives.

In recounting these details, we can see that the Heiseiken’s biggest problem may be the absence of an obvious alternative to Nukaga within its ranks. The faction could muster few members to back deputy chair Motegi Toshimitsu even with his experience of important posts in the party and government, and his accomplishments as a political operator. Another deputy chair, Takeshita Wataru, might have been put forward, although this would have not been a positive choice, there being no reasonable expectation of him sharing in the high political talents of his brother and former prime minister, Takeshita Noboru. Obuchi Yūko, the second daughter of Heseiken founder Obuchi Keizō, was also seen as a rising star in the faction, until she was forced to resign her position as Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, because of problems with ‘money politics’. The Heiseiken has been stuck between a rock and a hard place, ever since.

The Heiseiken’s difficulties did not originate recently and can be traced back to 1992 when the Hata Tsutomu group, led by Ozawa Ichirō, seceded from the faction (then called the Keiseikai). The real turning point for the faction came with the party presidential elections of 2001, when the then faction chair, Hashimoto Ryūtarō, lost to Koizumi Jun’ichirō. From that point onwards, Prime Minister Koizumi, whose slogan was ‘Smash the old LDP’, pushed forward neoliberal policies in areas such as the government’s privatisation of the Japan Highway Public Corporation, and the Japan Post, while promoting cutbacks in public works spending. As Koizumi plotted the dismantling of this faction, he landed successive blows on the Heiseiken, and in doing so, was even able to draw on the support of Aoki Mikio, who was a dominant figure in that same faction and the LDP’s secretary general of the upper house at that time.

In the 2003 party presidential elections, the Heiseiken was unable to rally itself behind Fujii Takao and it tasted another defeat at the hands of Koizumi. The next year, on the discovery of illegal political contributions by the Japan Dental Association, the political organisation of the Japan Dentists Federation, Hashimoto was driven out of his position as faction chair. In the 2005 general elections, after the Heiseiken lost several members who had rebelled against the government’s postal privatisation programme, Tsushima Yūji, someone perhaps never likely to be considered a candidate for the premiership, filled the vacancy at the head of the faction. These developments underlined how far the faction had lost its verve.

Today, the faction’s main office is located on the third floor in the Western Annex of the Zenkoku Chōson Kaikan, a building just behind the LDP Headquarters. At one time, the office of the Keiseikai/Heiseiken used to be in the premises of the Sabō Kaikan, and then the TBR Building, but after it moved, the floor space it occupied halved. Faction staff were reduced from previously four or five people, to just two, and with that, the faction’s capacity to handle lobbying from various constituents and industrial organisations also markedly weakened. Even the ‘Corps of Secretaries’, that had been organised so rigidly as the shock troops of party and national elections, have now come to resemble more of a social club.

The case of the Kōchikai

The Kōchikai (Kōchi Seisaku Kenkyūkai) traces its origins back to Yoshida Shigeru, and like the Heiseiken, it has been considered part of the ‘conservative mainstream’. It is a faction of some renown, and the launching pad for the prime ministerships of Ikeda Hayato, Ōhira Masayoshi, Suzuki Zenkō and Miyazawa Kiichi. Former bureaucrats played a central role in the Kōchikai and Ikeda, Ōhira, and Miyazawa were each former Ministry of Finance officials before joining. It was sometimes called as the ‘Aristocrats’ Club’, because though members of this faction were knowledgeable about policy, they were seen to be timid when faced with the cut and thrust of politics. The Kōchikai has, regardless, come to hold its own as one of the top three LDP factions, alongside the Seiwakai, which traces itself back to Kishi Nobusuke and Fukuda Takeo, and the Keiseikai/Heseiken. In recent years, however, this same Kōchikai has been struggling through its own malaise.

The most significant reason why the Kōchikai has fallen into such difficulties is to be found in the ‘Katō Riot’, which occurred in 2000 when the then faction chair, Katō Kōichi unsuccessfully sided with a vote of no-confidence against the cabinet of Mori Yoshirō, tabled by the opposition parties. It followed that the Kōchikai divided in two, and rather unusually, both factions took on the Kōchikai name.¹ In 2008, these two strands reunited but were unable to dispel the ill-will created by the ‘Katō Riot’. In response to the faction’s handling of the party presidential elections of 2012, the Kōchikai split again, and certain faction members, led by former party president Tanigaki Sadakazu left to form a group called the Yūrinkai.

The loss of faction unity has been undeniable. Since 2009, in addition to the ten or so colleagues who left the faction with Tanigaki, heavy hitters such as Suzuki Shun’ichi, Shiozaki Yasuhisa, Suga Yoshihide have also departed. Even though he was faction chair, Koga Makoto chose to withdraw from frontline politics after deciding not to stand in the 2012 general elections, despite his broad personal connections, fundraising ability and strong skills as a manager of the group. Koga’s influence continued to run through the faction afterwards, but his power declined due to his mishandling of the 2015 party presidential elections, which saw Abe Shinzō re-elected unopposed. Today, the Kōchikai‘s position as the third largest faction is under threat from the Ikōkai, led by Asō Tarō.

This loss of the Kōchikai’s animal spirits resembled the same process in the Heiseiken. Like the Heiseiken, the office of the Kōchikai is located in the Zenkoku Chōson Kaikan, in its Western Annex on the sixth floor. The Kōchikai has occupied a similar amount of office space in terms of meeting rooms and reception rooms as the Heiseiken, but compared to the time when the premises were located in the Nihon Jitensha Kaikan, which were offices appointed with a separate area for the chair and administration each, floor space has shrunk to as little as one-third of that previously. Moreover, at its peak, faction staff headcount was five, but today totals just two.

If we sustain this comparison with the Heiseiken a little further, however, one can suggest things are somewhat more up-beat within the Kōchikai. One reason for this is the presence of Kishida Fumio as faction chair. Of course, it might be pointed out that he has an unpromising position, given he lacks experience in any of the three main party executive roles such as secretary general. Neither has he been a candidate in party presidential elections. He has, however, served for a long period as minister of foreign affairs, an important cabinet post, he is young and well positioned for what happens when Abe is no longer in charge. Elsewhere, inside the Kōchikai, others are watching and waiting for the next LDP regime that is to come. Foremost among them is Hayashi Yoshimasa, who has already stood in party presidential elections. Of course, these factors may be a source of instability in the future also.

One thing that helps hold the faction together is the Kōchikai brand. The faction was created immediately after Japan’s conservative forces united and it is the same Kōchikai that produced Ikeda Hayato, who was appointed prime minister after the US Japan Security Treaty Dispute in 1960, an emergency that defined the legacy of his predecessor, Kishi Nobusuke. In contrast to Kishi, Ikeda chose as his slogan, ‘tolerance and perseverance’. He shelved constitutional revision and gave weight to dialogue with the parties of opposition. Later, from the same faction, Ōhira Masayoshi when foreign minister in the Tanaka cabinet, managed to normalise Sino-Japanese relations while preserving Japan’s pivotal US relationship. The liberal and dovish ideas fostered within this faction along with its history, have served to underpin the Kōchikai’s brand for sure.

Has the Seiwakai’s time come?

Of the three largest factions that have existed from the LDP’s beginnings, it is the Seiwakai which has been most powerful in recent years.² The Seiwakai traces its lineage back to Kishi Nobusuke and Fukuda Takeo. It was the faction that endured continual disappointments during the golden years of the Tanaka faction and its successors the Keiseikai and Heiseiken. However, from its ranks Mori Yoshirō and Koizumi Jun’ichirō were appointed party president. Under these two leaders, the faction achieved its long-held desire to become the largest such LDP grouping. Subsequently, its members Abe Shinzō and Fukuda Yasuo were made party leader in succession and two terms later, Abe was re-appointed LDP president. Consequently, the Seiwakai now seems to hold the same position enjoyed by the Keiseikai in days gone by.

Here it is worth considering how the LDP Diet membership has been divided among its largest factions, namely the Keiseikai/Heiseiken, Kōchikai and Seiwakai, since the mid-1980s (Figure 1.1).³

Figure 1.1 LDP top three factions’ share of membership in both houses of the Diet (1988–2019).

Source: Kokkai binran.

Ever since the Keiseikai was formed in 1987 by Takeshita Noboru, mostly as a successor organisation to the Tanaka faction, it maintained itself as the ruling party’s largest by some margin. The expression, the ‘Keiseikai Dominance’ was coined for this era in the LDP’s history. But this ended once the faction chair Kanemaru Shin was forced to resign from the Diet due to the Tōkyō Sagawa Kyūbin Scandal. Subsequently, the struggle to determine his succession deepened, with the result that the Hata faction led by Ozawa Ichirō split from the Keiseikai in 1992. In line with Takeshita’s wishes, Obuchi Keizō took over control of the Keiseikai, but the grouping retreated to third position within the LDP. By 1993, at the time the LDP found itself out of power, this faction changed its name to the Heiseiken.

After vying with the other factions for a period, what put the Heiseiken back to pole position was the formation of the Hashimoto Ryūtarō cabinet. Obuchi Keizō, the faction boss of this time, forewent his own candidacy as party president in order to support Hashimoto, who was one of the leaders of the Heiseiken and enjoyed popularity with the public, and who then won the party presidential election. As the Heiseiken approached the 1996 general election, it was flourishing once again as the LDP’s largest faction. Even after defeat in the upper house elections of 1998, the Heiseiken’s leader Obuchi took over from Hashimoto as prime minister. During the same period, there were defections from the rival Kōchikai of Kōno Yōhei and his supporters, following a change in that faction’s leadership. At the Seiwakai too, Kamei Shizuka’s group split from the faction, giving the appearance that the ‘Keiseikai Dominance’ had been restored.

In fact, this was the point in time from which a sharp reversal of fortunes took place, with the Seiwakai assuming a leading position in the party. The Mori cabinet was the first Seiwakai-run government in 22 years, and during its term the ‘Katō Riot’ occurred as noted above, with the result that a major split took place in the rival Kōchikai. It followed that the Seiwakai was able to organise party matters in such a way that the LDP presidency was transferred within itself, from Mori to Koizumi. Koizumi was the leader who identified the Heiseiken as the main ‘reactionary forces’, and he directed his attacks onto it to trammel its power. In the 2005 general election, fought on the issue of postal privatisation, a succession of Diet members opposed to this policy left the Heiseiken and Kōchikai, resulting in the Seiwakai leap-frogging them to assume top position in the party.

Later, the Seiwakai dominance, which was derived from the opportunities of the Koizumi government, grew further through the party presidencies and premierships of Abe and Fukuda. Despite this, the Seiwakai’s share of the LDP Diet membership did not rise, stuck at about the level it had been during the mid-1990s. In fact, its membership was never as high a proportion of the parliamentary party as it had been for the Keiseikai and Heiseiken, during that faction’s heyday. This dominance of the Seiwakai was then a relative phenomenon, something that drew its strength from the collapse of the Heiseiken and Kōchikai.

If its membership numbers were not so great, neither was the faction’s pulling power. When Koizumi resigned from the premiership, he did so without r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Series editor preface
• Preface
• Glossary of main terms and abbreviations
• 1 Factions: the ‘parties within a party’ weaken
• 2 Party presidential elections and the distribution of positions: the increasing power of the party president
• 3 The policy making process: the LDP’s system of preliminary review and prime minister-led politics
• 4 National elections: the LDP Diet membership’s underlying two-tier structure
• 5 The partner organisations of the LDP: their votes and money in decline
• 6 The local party and personal support organisations: foundations of LDP’s strength
• Conclusion: the LDP today – shifting organisation and changing ideas
• Chronology of events
• Index