Change in the air for Japanese
THE most significant result of the fall of the Miyazawa cabinet is that it could mark the first vital step towards a healthier, two-party system, to replace the 38-year dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Another important result is that, as the once-cohesive LDP displayed an unparalleled degree of disunity, a generation gap between younger politicians favouring change and old men wanting to keep things as they were came more clearly into view.
To a striking extent, much comment and analysis on this week's crisis has implicitly taken the side of the old LDP conservatives, without perhaps meaning to.
Too easily it has been assumed that the LDP will not change, that it will continue to dominate, and that the corrupt ways of Japanese factional politics are incapable of being reformed.
While it is always unwise to underestimate the fundamental Japanese resistance to social or political change, it is also wrong to exaggerate it.
But this week's turmoil clearly illustrates that change is at work, and too much pessimism about the future of Japanese politics is a mistake.
First, the unending and ever-worsening tales of money politics have provoked a strong reaction from the public, in the press and even among some politicians.
Second, the longtime dominance of the LDP by one huge faction led by former prime ministers Kakuei Tanaka and then Noboru Takeshita has ended.
Third, illness and death have broken the regular progression of LDP factional leaders to the prime ministership, leaving the prospect of more lacklustre leadership if seniority remains the main criterion.
Fourth, younger men still in their late 40s or early 50s getting very impatient with this status quo. Former LDP secretary-general Ichiro Ozawa is the key figure in this regard.
Once Mr Ozawa planned to make the Takeshita faction even larger than it was. Now he schemes to create a new party capable of giving the LDP a tough contest. He has picked a talented ally and front-man in former finance minister Tsutomo Hata.
In view of these and other factors, those sure that Japanese politics will never change should have seen a recent seminar in Washington, televised over the information channel C-Span.
Several younger LDP politicians asserted that they would rebel against the LDP and they would set up a new political party. Last night they were as good as their word. They voted down their own Government and many had actually resigned from the LDP.
At long last, change is in the Japanese political air. Since, for many Japanese, reform has become necessary for sustaining their national pride, the prospects for progress should not be cynically dismissed.
