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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SAPPORO 000032 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/J 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  4/30/2018 
TAGS: JA
SUBJECT: NOTES ON CURRENT JAPANESE POLITICS: LUNCH WITH LOWER HOUSE 
MEMBER MUNEO SUZUKI AND AIDE AKIRA MIYANO 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Donna Welton, Consul General, U.S. Consulate 
General Sapporo, State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
Infamously brazen lawmaker Muneo Suzuki and aide Akira Miyano 
(his money man), took time to share with us their view of the 
state of politics in Japan during a late April Diet break visit 
to the home district in Hokkaido.  A former Liberal Democratic 
Party lawmaker, Suzuki was forced out of the party in 2002 after 
a series of scandals even the big tent LDP couldn't countenance. 
 He returned to the Diet in 2005 on his own party ticket (Shinto 
Daichi or "New Party Big Earth").  Out on bail, Suzuki is still 
hugely popular in Hokkaido, but his power to influence the 
political scene may wane if his final appeal to the Supreme 
Court fails and he has to return to jail.  With nothing to lose, 
Suzuki was even more frank than usual on the vagaries of 
Japanese politics.  Here's a summary of the monologue: 
 
 #1:  The Near Future, "Nejire" and More Coalition Government 
 
The Democratic Party of Japan cannot take over the Government in 
the upcoming Lower House election, no matter what the timing. 
 
Because the DPJ can secure 150 seats at most in the individual 
districts, for a total of probably 200 with proportional seats 
(there are 480 total seats in the Lower House), the LDP will 
continue to govern for the near future, forming a coalition with 
smaller parties (Kokumin Shinto, the Hiranuma group, and Shinto 
Daichi.)  It is up to the Komeito Party if it wants to stay in 
the coalition or not, but that alliance probably will not last. 
Koizumi will not return this soon to be prime minister, although 
he is quite popular.  [Career pork barrel politician Suzuki] has 
trouble understanding how Koizumi, who drastically reduced the 
public works infusions that kep the Hokkaido economy afloat, can 
still be popular here. 
 
Locally, the Japan Communist Party will concentrate its campaign 
efforts to garner votes for a proportional seat in Hokkaido. 
Similar to the recent Yamaguchi by-election, about half of the 
JCP supporters are likely to vote for DPJ candidates.  Among 
Komeito supporters, there is an internal struggle going on over 
whether it is beneficial for the party to continue to ally 
itself with the LDP.  (This is not lost on the LDP.)  The next 
election is expected to be a difficult one for the Komeito. 
 
But this next coalition government won't break the political 
stalemate ("nejire"), with the Upper House remaining in DPJ 
hands. 
 
 #2:  Political Realignment?  Not for Now 
 
Real political realignment will only happen after three more 
Upper House elections, over the next eight years.  (Half of the 
Upper House is up for election each time.)  Koizumi probably 
wants to wait the current situation out, and will come back when 
change [in his favor] is possible. 
 
As always, "realignment" will be a matter of shifting existing 
groups of personal networks; politicos rule, not ideology.  The 
DPJ Maehara group, openly critical of Ichiro Ozawa, for example, 
will likely partner up with some split of the LDP.  There are no 
real ideological conflicts between LDP members and DPJ members, 
or any other Diet members except those from the JCP and the 
Social Democratic Party. 
 
 #3:  The Next Lower House Election Should be in October 
 
The Diet will be dissolved in September, followed by a Lower 
House election in October.  Although Prime Minister Fukuda and 
former Prime Minister Abe are members of the same faction 
(Machimura), they do not get along.  One of the reasons for the 
fall election timing is that Fukuda wants to remain in power 
longer than Abe and he will not step down a day earlier than the 
length of his predecessor's term in office.  Also, the LDP does 
not want to hold an election after the U.S. presidential 
election, presuming that the global appeal of change if the 
Democrats win will negatively impact on the LDP.  ("We're in the 
Republican brotherhood.") 
 
 #4:  Who Will be the Next Prime Minister?  Only Mori Knows 
 
Kiro Mori [who apparently makes all these decisions for the LDP] 
does not get along well with Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka 
Machimura.  Although Machimura wanted to run for the LDP 
presidency last time, he could not gather the necessary twenty 
party members to support him, lacking Mori's cooperation. 
 
Although they are members of different factions, Mori gets along 
well with LDP Secretary General Bunmei Ibuki ("a politician with 
good political sense") and Makoto Koga, Election Strategy 
 
SAPPORO 00000032  002 OF 003 
 
 
Council Chairman.  Koga supports policy chief Sadakazu Tanigaki 
as a future Prime Minister.  Unfortunately, Tanigaki has zero 
charisma ("lacks political color") and it is difficult for the 
voters to understand him. 
 
Yuriko Koike is often talked about as a candidate for Prime 
Minister, but she doesn't stand a chance.  Her political 
networks are too shallow because she has moved between parties 
too many times and she has the image of someone "with no 
political beliefs of her own."  She is very good about reading 
the immediate politial situation in front of her but she lacks 
the ability to work for the future. 
 
Taro Aso and Toshihiro Nikai also are in well with Mori, but if 
Aso misses his chance this time, he will be too old for 
subsequent tries.  In the last LDP presidential election, Mori 
supported Fukuda, of course, but a surprising number [like 
Suzuki] supported Aso, especially in Hokkaido, partly because 
they do not care for Fukuda and wanted him to know that, even as 
Prime Minister, he has to work for their support. 
 
 #5:  Counting the Districts in Hokkaido 
 
Young Taizo Sugimura could run in District 8 (Southern Hokkaido) 
and solve the stand-off with the Hokkaido LDP chapter who wants 
to put up local son Gaku Hasegawa in Sapporo, but so far 
Sugimura isn't backing down.  But it really doesn't matter 
because neither of them can beat DPJ leader and former Hokkaido 
governor Takahiro Yokomichi.  This is his last election and he 
will get a lot of sympathy vote. 
 
[Suzuki] will not support LDP members who favor urban 
constituencies over rural development.  But it is also hard to 
support DPJ members who want to cut taxes that fund road 
construction and maintenance. 
 
 #6:  Young Politicians are Not What They Used to Be 
 
It is hard to recruit young people into politics.  Party loyalty 
is fungible, too.  Young politicians who want to run on the LDP 
ticket but do not win the LDP party endorsement just go over to 
the DPJ, and vice versa.  Not a single potential statesman among 
them.  Unlike now, the old mid-sized electoral district system 
improved the quality of politicians as there had to be debate 
not only between the parties but also among candidates from the 
same party. 
 
 #7:  ~and on the Subject of Bureaucrats and Politicians 
 
Regarding the Bank of Japan governorship, they should have put 
up Eisuke Sakakibara.  He was the best choice acceptable to both 
parties.  Actually, Ozawa started off unopposed to the Ministry 
of Finance candidate, Toshiro Muto, but reconsidered at the last 
minute given negative public opinion and existing DPJ policy 
opposing the "amakudari" system (giving retiring senior 
bureaucrats high profile positions in quasi-government 
institutions and the private sector.)  It was a big mistake to 
leave the initial negotiations to former MOF vice minister Jiro 
Saito, although he is close to Ozawa, and his counterpart 
Yasuda, also a former MOF vice minister who was a secretary to 
Fukuda's father. 
 
Although Koizumi is known as a man who fought against the 
bureaucrats, in fact he is the one who made them stronger, 
particularly the Ministry of Finance.  Koizumi's postal reform 
was something that the MOF wanted to do in the first place.  So 
the MOF supported him.  Fukuda supports the MOF in the same way 
-- to his detriment as the Bank of Japan fiasco showed.  Koizumi 
opposed the amakudari system, but he looked the other way on the 
Ministry of Finance. 
 
 #8:  Come to Think of It, Koizumi was Pretty Savvy in Some Ways 
 
The LDP suffers from the way the Japanese media are structured. 
All the major companies own both print and broadcast media and 
there is no diversity of coverage.  Yomiuri, Asahi, Nikkei, 
Sankei, Mainichi, etc. all have their own TV stations.  If you 
are subject to their criticism, it comes at you from all 
directions. 
 
Japanese young people, though, read the sports dailies more than 
any other newspapers.  Koizumi (or his secretary Iijima) used 
these papers to get his policy across to younger voters and 
boost his popularity.  He was always on page 2.  Fukuda does not 
do this, "he is too clean." 
 
 
SAPPORO 00000032  003 OF 003 
 
 
 #9:  Foreign Policy Lacks Vision 
 
Japan has lost the opportunity to solve the Northern Territories 
issue by sticking to its all or none stance.  [This statement 
was followed by a very long, predictable riff on the miserable 
"nasakenai" stupidity of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka.] 
 
Nakagawa and Machimura are strongly one-sided against China. 
They lack a sense of balance in foreign policy.  And no one at 
any level of government can keep any intelligence matter or 
information confidential.  They tell everything to the press. 
 
 
Listener's Comment:  Although he has greatly benefitted from his 
own personal appeal to the voters, Suzuki doesn't see political 
change as coming from the ballot box any time soon.  In his 
experience, Japan has a two-party system -- only the two parties 
aren't the LDP and the DPJ, they're the bureaucrats and the 
mainstream politicians.  Public opinion is merely tangential to 
the process.  Japanese politics as usual. 
WELTON