Like a patient who denies the seriousness of his complaint until it becomes a matter of life and death, the Japanese electorate has shown itself willing to submit to the scalpel of their iconoclastic new Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, regardless of the suffering involved. Or at least until the pain begins.
Mr Koizumi has been called in to treat a comatose patient after the usual medicine has failed. He will have to be something of a miracle worker to effect a cure in such a serious case. But first he has to lead the Liberal Democratic Party coalition to victory in July's upper house elections.
If he can do that - and with a reformist cabinet of his own choosing it may just be possible - he has the support of the majority of the population for his package of reforms. Monday's speech to parliament spelled out the difficulties ahead, but did not go deeply into detail, except for a capping of new debt issuance at 30 trillion yen (HK$1.9 trillion) up to April 2003.
According to the Ministry of Finance, that means the Government must find three trillion yen in budget cuts or new revenue sources.
Many analysts doubt the economy is in a state to sustain cutbacks and spending curbs on such a scale, even though Mr Koizumi's policies signal the only realistic way out of years of stagnation and decline. Perhaps more significantly, Japan's financial crisis may have gone beyond the point at which the treatment can be applied. The half-yearly report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published last week suggests there may be no alternative to bailing out the banks because the level of bad loans is probably larger than the Government admits, and some may not have sufficient capital to write off their bad debts.
The good news for the Prime Minister, however, is that the stock exchange has reacted positively to his plans. That is important because much of the banking system's capital is tied up in the shares of corporate clients, and if investors can be convinced that the economy is in safe hands, his job will be that much easier.
