A Big Shokku for Yasu

By James Kelly

The Liberal Democrats just hang on

He is a polite Prime Minister. He is a humble Prime Minister. He is a grave and austere Prime Minister.

--Takao Fujinami, deputy secretary-general, Liberal Democratic Party

Above all, he is very lucky even to be Prime Minister. Pundits and polls alike had predicted a respectable victory for Yasuhiro Nakasone and his Liberal Democrats, so the news last week sent a shokku from the southern tip of Kyushu to northern Hokkaido. When the ballots were counted for the 511-member lower house of parliament, the L.D.P. had failed to win a majority, only the third time that has happened since the party came to power in 1955. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats' loss of 36 seats, from 286 to 250, was the largest they had ever suffered. Only by swiftly securing the support of nine independent deputies did Nakasone emerge with a perilously slim working majority of 259 seats. That should allow him to continue his domestic and foreign policies, albeit at a considerably slower pace.

The voters' rejection shocked no one so much as Nakasone, who is halfway through his two-year term as party leader. "It was a severe result for me," said the weary Prime Minister. "I have to take cautious steps."

The first of those steps was to quell unhappiness among the five often cantankerous political blocs that make up the L.D.P. As head of the party's fourth largest faction, Nakasone, 65, depends on the approval of fellow powerbrokers to stay on as both party leader and Prime Minister. Thus Nakasone devoted most of his energies last week to greeting delegation after delegation of supporters at his official residence in downtown Tokyo and venturing forth to the offices of L.D.P. leaders to pay his respects. Much of the time he was bargaining with his backers and appeasing his critics; throughout, the sometimes haughty Nakasone acted like a man transformed.

Those labors paid off. After he promised to reform the party and eliminate the influence in it of tainted former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, the L.D.P. elders agreed to back Nakasone for Prime Minister when the new Diet convenes this week. But choosing a Cabinet and awarding committee posts will be more difficult and time consuming as each L.D.P. faction makes its deal with him in return for its support. Nakasone must then cope with the opposition. The Socialist Party, under its energetic new leader, Masashi Ishibashi, 59, strengthened its position as the mam opposition party by picking up eleven seats, for a total of 112. In its best showing ever, the Komeito (Clean Government) Party won 58 seats, up from 31. The Democratic Socialists elected 38 deputies, a gain of six, while the New Liberal Club, an L.D.P. offshoot, lost two of its ten seats.

Ironically, one of the big winners was Tanaka, 65, leader of the largest faction within the L.D.P., whose bribery conviction last October had forced Nakasone to call the election. Despite the guilty verdict and opposition charges of "money politics," Tanaka's constituents in the northwestern prefecture of Niigata re-elected him with 221,000 votes, his most resounding victory since he first won the seat 36 years ago.

Once the new government is formed, Japan's domestic and foreign policies are not likely to change drastically. The Liberal Democrats' setback was traceable to a number of reasons: disgust over political corruption, a poor turnout, a lackadaisical campaign strategy. But disenchantment with Nakasone did not seem to have been a major factor. At home, the party will be forced to compromise more with the opposition, which favors larger tax cuts, greater welfare spending and smaller defense outlays than the Liberal Democrats. Foreign policy will stay on course. In Washington, the expectation is that the Prime Minister will still be willing to curb his country's exports, loosen import restrictions and boost Japan's defenses, although, given his slim majority, he will have to proceed more cautiously. For example, an agreement to allow greater imports of American beef and citrus products, once expected in early 1984, will now take longer to wrap up.

Nakasone had no choice but to hold the elections. In early October, after a 6 1/2-year trial, Tanaka was found guilty of accepting a payoff of 500 million yen (about $2.2 million at current exchange rates) from Lockheed Corp. in return for persuading the country's largest domestic airline, All Nippon Airways, to buy the firm's TriStar jets. Vowing to appeal, Tanaka refused to resign his Diet seat. When the L.D.P. blocked a resolution demanding Tanaka's ouster, opposition members boycotted Diet sessions. Faced with a parliamentary stalemate, Nakasone dissolved the lower house in late November.

Throughout the 15-day campaign, the opposition focused on Tanaka and the whiff of corruption in high places. A Socialist poster showed a baseball umpire yelling ALMIGHTY MONEY POLITICS--OUT!, while the Buddhist-backed Komeito displayed placards reading CLEAN POLITICS. The L.D.P. generally evaded the issue with bland appeals for stability and patriotism. The opposition parties proved far more united than expected. In 58 of the country's 130 districts, for example, the main opposition groups fielded a joint candidate.

No one could fault Nakasone for not giving his all: wearing the white gloves that symbolize clean hands in Japanese politics, the Prime Minister made more than 100 campaign stops. On one especially hectic day, he pledged to cut taxes, raise wages, burnish Japan's image abroad and personally lead the search for a cancer cure. Lulled by the sunny polls, however, many other L.D.P. hopefuls campaigned sluggishly. The party, moreover, miscalculated by running too many candidates. Under the Japanese electoral system, a party can put up as many contenders as it likes in a district, which elects from three to five representatives each. In some areas, there were more Liberal Democrats running than there were seats, which served to split the L.D.P. vote and allow opposition candidates to squeeze into office.

Even the weather conspired against the ruling party, which was not as well organized to muster the vote as were the smaller groups, notably Komeito. Snow in the north and subzero temperatures elsewhere helped produce a dismal turnout of 68%, the lowest since World War II.

On election day, an optimistic Nakasone posed for pictures performing the traditional tea ceremony, then awaited results at his official residence in Tokyo. At party headquarters, smiles soon dissolved into frowns: returns from the countryside, where the L.D.P. is strongest, were not as favorable as expected. By the time the ballots from the cities had been counted Monday afternoon, the leaders knew the worst. Said Nakasone: "It was a great criticism from the people."

As it turned out, the popular vote was not so damning. The L.D.P. drew 45.8%, down from a record 47.9% in the last election in 1980 but still about the average percentage for the party over the past five elections. The Komeito picked up 10.1%, only a slight improvement over its 1980 total of 9%, while the Socialists bettered their performance by an even smaller margin (19.5% to 19.3%). Nakasone, on the other hand, did not even come in first in his own Gumma prefecture, north of Tokyo: for the fifth straight election, he finished second in the three-seat district to former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, a rival L.D.P. boss.

The Prime Minister's first major test is likely to come from within his own party. The problem: how to handle Tanaka. While many L.D.P. members believe that Tanaka deserves blame for the party's poor showing, the "Shadow Shogun" lost little of his strength. His faction, now 62 members, lost only four seats, and his support is crucial if Nakasone is to remain in office. So far, Nakasone's only concrete concession to anti-Tanaka forces has been a promise to establish a political-ethics committee in the lower house. But since Tanaka insists that he will take his seat in the new Diet, pressures to deal with the problem could build in coming weeks. Says a Fukuda lieutenant: "We went into the campaign without solving the Tanaka question. We now have to decide within the party what to do about it."

At week's end, Nakasone issued a statement, approved by other L.D.P. leaders, in which he promised to "eliminate completely" Tanaka's influence in the party. The opposition dismissed the gesture as cosmetic. Yet even if Nakasone survives the political sharpshooting within his party, he still faces an election next November to retain the L.D.P. leadership. Last week's defeat may return to haunt him then--as Nakasone well knows. In 1979, when the L.D.P. lost only one seat, several members loudly demanded the resignation of then Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira. Among the most vociferous: Yasuhiro Nakasone.

--By James Kelly. Reported by Edwin M. Reingold/Tokyo and Barrett Seaman/Washington

With reporting by Edwin M. Reingold, Barrett Seaman