Euphoria Begins to Fade for Japan’s Socialists

TOKYO — Two months after voters handed Japan’s Socialists the biggest election gains they have ever enjoyed, the party that once declared “American imperialism” to be the “common enemy of mankind” stands closer to a share in running the government than at any time since it headed a coalition in 1947-48.

Analysts in foreign countries pour forth speculation about what a Socialist-led coalition would mean to U.S. relations with Japan. The charismatic Socialist chairwoman, Takako Doi, finds herself swamped with requests for interviews. And Japanese voters, more than ever, say they are fed up with governments that have been run solely by the Liberal Democratic Party since 1955.

The outlook remains strong for another setback for the Liberal Democrats and major gains for the Socialists in a crucial forthcoming election for the lower house of Parliament, which elects the prime minister. It must be held by next July but could come as early as the end of this year.

However, the euphoria that set in at Socialist headquarters after voters handed the Liberal Democrats their first-ever defeat in the upper house July 23 is beginning to fade.

The party remains woefully short of candidates for the election. Inner-party squabbles have re-emerged. Fearing their own demise in the shadows of the Socialist upsurge, potential coalition partners in the non-Communist opposition have stepped up their criticism of the Socialists.

Polls are showing that the beleaguered Liberal Democrats and their new and younger “Mr. Clean,” Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, 58, have recovered some of the support they dissipated through an influence-buying scandal and their high-handed enactment of a widely opposed 3% consumption task.

Last Sunday, voters in Ibaraki prefecture (state) adjacent to Tokyo handed the Socialists a convincing defeat in a by-election for the upper house, the first parliamentary ballot since July.

Three major polls found that fewer than 20% of the voters want to see the Liberal Democrats emerge from the forthcoming general election with a solid majority. But only about the same percentage want a Socialist-led coalition.

The bulk of the voters said they favor a coalition headed by the Liberal Democrats.

Change in Mood

Worse yet for Doi, the voters’ mood on the consumption tax that gave the Socialists their biggest boost in the July election appears to be changing. Polls now show a slight majority supporting Kaifu’s pledge to revise inequities of the tax instead of Doi’s insistence that it be abolished.

With victories for 257 representatives needed to gain a majority in the 512-seat lower house, the Socialists now hold only 85 seats and have endorsed only 135 candidates. Despite the boost that the party got from its so-called Madonna strategy of running a host of women candidates in the upper house election, only two of the party’s lower house hopefuls are women--Doi herself one of them.

Indeed, the combined candidates presently endorsed by the Socialists and their three potential opposition partners still don’t add up to a majority. Yet, a decision by Doi to add another 50 candidates to the Socialist slate for the lower house election has met resistance both from within the party and from its would-be opposition partners.

‘Egoistic Belief’

Masashi Ishibashi, Doi’s predecessor, announced he will refrain from running in the next lower house election and retire from politics to protest Doi’s decision.

“We should run about 150 candidates, and then join the other parties in co-sponsoring 40 or 50 more,” he told the Asahi newspaper. “That strategy would firm up trust among the opposition parties as partners.

“I do not share the egoistic belief that the mood that prevailed during the upper house election will continue, intact, into the lower house election,” Ishibashi said. “Our boom was a passing phenomenon. The upper house election results are not a reflection of Socialist strength.”

Ishibashi’s criticism marked the first attack on Doi’s leadership by her own party since she took over in 1986.

He also criticized the party for not going far enough to make its policies on the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and Japan’s own armed forces acceptable to voters and to its potential coalition allies.

Announcing what was dubbed the “Doi Vision,” the party’s chairwoman declared that a Socialist-led coalition would retain the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty--the abrogation of which the Socialists still advocate in their party platform.

But she added that such a coalition would demand that the United States clarify whether its ships and aircraft bear nuclear weapons when they enter or pass over Japanese territory. It also would demand that joint military exercises with the United States be ended, that U.S. bases in Japan be reduced and ultimately eliminated and that there be no increases in financial support for U.S. armed forces stationed there.

Duties of Japan’s own Self-Defense Forces, moreover, would be limited to Japanese territory--wiping out a promise Japan made to the United States in 1981 to defend its sea lanes out to a distance of 1,000 miles. Japan also would reduce its defense spending “in line with international disarmament.”

As a package, the new policy amounted to the Socialists passing the initiative for abrogating the treaty from themselves to the United States.

Both of the major would-be coalition partners--the neo-Buddhist Komei (Clean Government) Party and the middle-of-the-road Democratic Socialist Party--condemned the new security policy.

Even Takeshi Kurokawa, chairman of Sohyo, the labor federation that provides the Socialists their chief organizational support, urged Doi to clarify whether a Socialist-led coalition would retain Japan’s position as an ally of the United States.

Coalition Government

Japan may, indeed, wind up with a coalition government--whether in name or only in substance--after the lower house election, but it isn’t likely to be headed by the Socialists.

With their defeat in the upper house, the Liberal Democrats already need help from the opposition to enact legislation. Only treaties and the national budget can be enacted without approval by the upper house.

As the Asahi newspaper, commenting on its opinion poll, put it, “The feeling of the people for a change in politics is strong, but they are hesitating to hand over power to the opposition in one fell swoop.”