Junichiro Koizumi, who served as prime minister for more than five years between 2001 and 2006, was an exception. Japan’s post-war prime ministers have averaged roughly two years in office.
Kan could have been long gone too, since he has skated on thin political ice ever since he became prime minister in June last year. Toward the end of last year his support rate began to plummet. In fact, many believe that the March triple disaster was a kamikaze (divine wind) that gave Kan a little more time in office. But now it looks like Kan’s time is almost up, well before reaching the average two years. His popularity has declined, support from his own party is eroding, and the opposition parties are actively working to force him to resign sooner rather than later.
Although the DPJ that he leads enjoys a solid majority in the lower house of parliament as a result of the 2009 landslide electoral victory, the party is not cohesive. It seems unbelievable that a party that was able to eject the long-ruling LDP from power so convincingly through the electoral process less than two years ago is now struggling to survive as a united party. It is an indictment on the party’s organisational capacity that its first prime minister resigned within a year and his successor, Kan, will soon have to respond to pressure to resign, which will weaken the party further.
One of the founders of the DPJ is the former LDP political heavyweight often referred to as the ‘shadow shogun’, Ichiro Ozawa. He continues to be a divisive element within the DPJ and to solicit Kan’s resignation. Instead of throwing his weight behind the prime minister who was elected DPJ leader last September defeating Ichiro Ozawa through a transparent process to lead the party and the nation, Ozawa and his group often threaten the prime minister. At times they intimidate the prime minister by announcing to vote with the opposition parties in parliament and often side with opposition forces in blaming Kan for managing reconstruction and rehabilitation work ineffectively following the tsunami and nuclear crisis in March.
Early this week it looked as though Kan would be ousted just a few days short of his first anniversary as the Ozawa group joined opposition forces led by the LDP to unseat the prime minister through a vote of no-confidence in the lower house. However, Kan survived the motion as the rebel DPJ members, including former DPJ Prime Minister Hatoyama, did not vote with the opposition as they had earlier planned. They changed their mind at the last minute when Kan announced just before the votes were taken that he would resign from the leadership at an appropriate time in the near future once he achieves tangible progress in bringing the nuclear crisis under control and in rebuilding the disaster-affected areas.
Some party members, including Ozawa, abstained from voting and the DPJ did not split. Significantly, Kan kept his hold on the national reigns. Even so, politics in Japan reached another very public crisis point. The nation knows that Kan’s tenure as national leader is likely to be short lived since he will find it very difficult to carry out his duty without the undivided support of his own party, especially while his own popularity appears to have disintegrated.
Much less clear is who might become the next prime minister of Japan and more importantly what difference that could make to the nation, its people and the world community. At this historic moment Japan faces intense economic pressure after two decades of recession, sluggish growth, rising national debt and huge social as well as economic challenges from the March triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.
Today Japan very much needs to overcome political instability and uncertainty. It needs a leader who can unify the governing party, the people and the nation and truly lead them through a period of uncertainty, confusion and apparent power shift regionally and internationally.
It is time for Japanese politicians to rise above their narrow personal ambitions, to drop their old political mindset ingrained through the long reign of the LDP and nurture a new political culture for their nation at a crossroads. Their country was once the world’s second-largest economy, a regional leader, a shining example for many emerging nations, and a powerful force in both regional and global organisations. A lame duck prime minister is not what Japan needs to deal with the enormous national challenges already confronting it in a turbulent 21st century global landscape.
Purnendra Jain is Professor in Asian Studies at the University of Adelaide.