LDP dynasty crumbles as desertions build
From its founding in 1955, until its resounding defeat in the general election in August last year, the Liberal Democratic Party was the force to be reckoned with in Japanese politics. It was the wealthiest party, and it had the support of the captains of industry, construction firms that benefited from its largesse, bureaucrats who disliked change and even the powerful doctors' lobby, who added legitimacy as well as funds.
Even when it was not nominally in power - a few brief months in the mid-1990s - it was still effectively pulling the strings of government. Now, eight months after its humiliating loss to the Democratic Party of Japan, when it went from 300 seats in the 480-seat House of Representatives to a mere 119, the party that effectively ruled Japan as a dynasty appears to be tearing itself apart.
Five members of the LDP had already left by mid-March, when Kunio Hatoyama, the conservative younger brother of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, declared that he was leaving because, 'the current LDP cannot alone bring about a major political change in Japanese politics'.
'This country is setting out on a path of collapse,' he said, vowing to set up a party that would take on the mantle of opposition to his brother's government.
In recent days, the number of defectors has become a flood, with Yoshitada Konoike submitting a letter of resignation and expressing his intention to join forces with former finance minister Kaoru Yosano and Takeo Hiranuma, who served as trade minister before leaving the party in 2005. Other senior members of the LDP who have recently left include Hiroyuki Sonoda, a former party secretary general, and Takeo Fujii, who served as transport minister. Even Shintaro Ishihara, the ultra-conservative mayor of Tokyo, is apparently getting in on the action and has held talks with the malcontents.
With five sitting politicians required to start a political party, the Konoike-Hiranuma alliance is likely to be formalised, perhaps as soon as today.
Speaking on a television chat show on Sunday, Ishihara described the break-away group as 'an extremely positive development for conservative politics in Japan'.
'This will ignite a nuclear fusion reaction that will lead to realignment of the political world,' he said.
All of which spells disaster for the LDP and its embattled leader, Sadakazu Tanigaki.
'Simply put, the party is falling apart,' said Noriko Hama, a professor of economics at Kyoto's Doshisha University. 'But to be honest, this has been waiting to happen for some time and it really needed the LDP to lose power in an election to bring it about.'
Hama believes that the implosion of the party after 55 years of almost unchallenged authority is less a result of a fundamental disagreement over policy or future direction than it is about self-serving politicians.
'They're politicians and survivalists first and foremost,' she said. 'They don't want to be the last ones on the boat as it slides under, and they have decided that it is no longer gallant to remain.'
Go Ito, a professor of political science at Tokyo's Meiji University, agrees that Japan is witnessing a group of older-generation LDP politicians running for cover, and he believes their plans to start a party are an effort to capture the glory days of the organisation they have just abandoned.
'I predicted before the election that if the LDP fared very badly at the polls then it could dissolve along factional lines, which is what we're seeing,' he said. 'There is a good deal of discontent among the veteran politicians about the party's leadership and they have now apparently realised that without the power of government, there is no longer a need for the LDP to remain united.
'I think we can also regard this as a divide between the generations in the party as the 'old guard' see that they have lost their influence.'
And with the defections - and the possibility of more as the party is set up - Ito believes the ultimate fate of the LDP will be decided before the end of the month. If party president Tanigaki is unable to keep a core of politicians loyal to him, then the three key factions may decide they are better off on their own.
Ironically, the crumbling of the LDP comes at a time when it should have been driving home a recent political advantage that it has over the ruling DPJ, which has struggled since it came to power to keep the manifesto promises that it made and to play down a series of political-funding scandals swirling around Hatoyama and Ichiro Ozawa, the party's secretary general.
It has not helped that Hatoyama has been shown to be something of a dithering leader who is unable to make a decision and stick with it.
'If the LDP had been able to get its act together as soon as the election was over and act as a strong opposition then they would have been in a much better position going into the summer elections,' Hama said. 'The government has given them every opportunity to take advantage because they keep scoring so many own goals, but the LDP keeps failing to take them.
'I can only see that as a sign that the LDP spent too long in power, as an opposition should be able to take advantage of these situations,' she added.
The support rate for Hatoyama's cabinet stands at a mere 33 per cent - a far cry from 75 per cent when it was inaugurated in September. 'But the LDP is too busy fighting with each other to do an effective job of highlighting the government's failings,' Ito said.
The mooted Konoike-Hiranuma party would appear to be a fairly conservative association that will be positioned to the right of the LDP and will espouse opinions and policies close to those of Ishihara - who has never been afraid to speak out against religious or ethnic minorities, China, women's groups or others who do not toe his personal political line.
National elections for the lower house of the Japanese Diet are scheduled for July 11, giving the parties - the DPJ, LDP and any new entity - a little more than three months to get their houses in order and policies lined up. Whether all three organisations are still in existence come polling day remains to be seen.