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Subject: Japanese Party's Approval Rating Plunges;Infighting, Scandal Charges Leave
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 04:42:06 EST
Message-ID: <15.1992Nov12.044207@AmeriCast.com>

Japanese Party's Approval Rating Plunges;Infighting, Scandal
Charges Leave Public Disillusioned With Miyazawa's Government<By
T. R. Reid=Washington Post Foreign Service=

TOKYO, Nov. 11 - The bad news for Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi
Miyazawa and his scandal-plagued party is that their public ap-
proval rating has plummeted again - down to a meager 14 percent
in the latest national poll.

The good news for Miyazawa is that nobody else in Japanese poli-
tics scores higher.

With voters parading their anger in the streets, a feisty press
dishing out almost daily revelations on the current political
payoff scandal, and the dominant Liberal Democratic Party engaged
in open civil war, neither Miyazawa nor anyone else in politics
gets much respect from a thoroughly disillusioned Japanese pub-
lic.

Business leaders this week called on Miyazawa and opposition
chiefs to assert leadership by bringing order to the current spe-
cial session of the national Diet, or parliament.  The session,
which is scheduled to end in early December, is supposed to ap-
prove a multibillion-dollar supplemental budget to fund the
government's big economic stimulus package.

So far, though, the prime minister and his party have spent the
entire special session trading barbs with opposition parties over
political scandals. Business groups and financial markets are
nervous that the politicking might block passage of the stimulus
funds, which are needed to revive the sagging economy.

Most political observers predict the money will eventually be
provided. The Liberal Democrats could probably ram the budget
bill through in a couple of days, if that became necessary, and
opposition Socialist Party chairman Makoto Tanabe said today that
his party will not hold the budget bill hostage.

With neither the power nor any strong reason to block the supple-
mental budget, the opposition parties seem satisfied to use the
special session as a platform to expose the details of the so-
called "Sagawa scandal."

This case, the subject of a sensational criminal trial now under-
way, involves a mob-related express delivery company called
Sagawa Kyubin that illegally gave millions of dollars to senior
members of the Liberal Democratic Party.

The Sagawa case has already claimed as a victim Shin Kanemaru,
who was until last month the dominant party's most powerful king-
maker. Kanemaru admitted receiving $4 million in illegal funds
from Sagawa - a payoff so big that the cash had to be delivered
in a grocery cart. He was driven into retiring from politics by
an outpouring of public rage.

Despite the political price he paid, Kanemaru got off with a plea
bargain and a minor wrist slap from the federal prosecutors. That
severely undermined public esteem for the prosecutors.

Now, as if to prove their spunk, the prosecutors have begun
releasing new information embarrassing to the Liberal Democrats.
Last week, they publicized a deposition alleging a bizarre ar-
rangement under which the party had paid large sums to buy favor
from a tiny right-wing political group.

This transaction reportedly occurred in 1987, when a top Liberal
Democratic leader, Noboru Takeshita, was a candidate for prime
minister. The Kominto, a conservative group that has roughly the
stature here that the Ku Klux Klan has in America, took to the
streets with sound trucks shouting praises of Takeshita.

According to the information released by prosecutors, this was a
shakedown; the small group was trying to embarrass Takeshita with
a tactic known as homegoroshi, or "praise him to death."

In order to stop this counterproductive demonstration, the
prosecutors said, Takeshita and other Liberal Democratic figures
conferred with organized crime leaders and then paid a large sum
of hush money to the Kominto.

When prosecutors alleged this last week, the party's response was
to attack the messenger; its leadership declared it would sue the
public prosecutor for libel. But that announcement brought on a
whole new flood of ridicule from the press and the public, so the
party dropped the idea.

Opposition leaders are now demanding that a number of top Liberal
Democratic officials appear before the Diet this month for public
interrogation about the "praise-to-death" case and other scan-
dals. Takeshita has already agreed to appear for questioning.
But the party has resisted opposition demands that Kanemaru, 78,
appear for questioning as well. This may be because party members
feel sorry for him, or it could be because they are afraid
Kanemaru could implicate too many other politicians if he
answered questions under oath.

All of this has been severely damaging to Miyazawa and his party,
resulting in a poll by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper last week
that showed Miyazawa's approval rating had fallen to 14 percent.
A similar poll in the Yomiuri Shimbun showed support of 23 per-
cent.

But the prime minister seems to face no immediate challenge, be-
cause there is no likely challenger. The opposition parties are
too weak to pose a serious alternative to the Liberal Democratic
Party, which has governed Japan for 37 years, and no other poli-
tician in the party has any higher stature than Miyazawa.02:16
11-12C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)