Hot Spots: Japan--Revisited.(Junichiro Koizumi's economic reforms)

When Junichiro Koizumi became Prime Minister in April, his rise to the helm kindled ardent hopes in the local and international business and financial communities that he would, like a fresh breeze, blow the cobwebs out of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and would set in motion the deregulation and pro-market change that the Japanese economy needs, to pull itself swiftly out of its seemingly interminable stagnation! recession. But it seemed improbable then, and appears unlikely now, that he will be able to pull off such a feat. Under the best of circumstances, the economy will remain in the doldrums for quite some time. A strong and sustained recovery may still be years away.

In the past four months, Mr. Koizumi has succeeded in establishing a remarkable rapport with Japan's voters. He has scored popular approval ratings of over 80 percent and has developed a following akin to that of a pop star. His personal charisma proved to be instrumental in gaining the LDP an impressive victory in the Upper House elections of July 29. As a result, the LDP and its two junior coalition partners are now firmly in charge of both houses of Parliament. PM Koizumi has good reason to view the victory as a strong mandate to pursue reforms seeking to restore Japan's economic and social vitality. But his real political and economic battles have not even begun yet.

Up until now, the PM has never spelled out clearly what his intentions are. The vagueness of his game plan has made it easy for the old barons in his party to voice tepid support. The fact that no one is sure yet where the pain of the adjustment will be concentrated has allowed the general public to back what it thinks he has in mind. The economy has been going from bad to worse, but the lifestyles of most Japanese have, to date, not been seriously eroded. Indeed, falling prices make many feel wealthier today than they felt a few years ago.

As Mr. Koizumi clarifies his program and makes it more specific, the social costs will become apparent, and political opposition will become much more intense and nastier. For instance, the PM wants to halt many of the public works projects that are blatant pork-barrel schemes--roads that lead nowhere, bridges that nobody crosses, airports that lie idle--which were designed mainly to benefit core supporters of the LDP, such as farmers and the construction industry. He wants to use the money, instead, to build a safety net (providing job retraining, better unemployment benefits and other programs) for the social dislocations that will have to occur in order for the broader reforms to succeed. Such a reallocation of resources, however, would stomp heavily on the vested interests that are accustomed to Looking to the LDP's powerful dinosaurs for patronage.

There can be little doubt that when the debate about the still foggy budget guidelines gets narrowed down to details, political feathers will fly. The Prime Minister is already having difficulties maintaining the cohesion of his Cabinet, selected on the basis of merit rather than factional politics. Were the centrifugal forces to get worse, Mr. Koizumi could probably resolve them with a vigorous reshuffling of portfolios. But no such Gordian-Knot solution offers itself for the battles with the powerful hard-line LDP conservatives that the Prime Minister still faces. The party's elders will fight tooth and nail for the privileges and authorities they have become accustomed to. This includes control over government outlays that can be used to buy the loyalty of their supporters. For the most part, the LDP remains a loose conglomeration of factions dedicated to a wide range of special interests. And there is no way to implement any meaningful reform without running into fierce resistance from one or the other, o f these interests.

Before long, the PM and his Cabinet will probably also have to deal with a marked decline in their popularity, since the Japanese electorate has a tendency to hail change when it is promised, but to turn ...