When a year and a half ago the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won an impressive electoral victory and ended the seemingly perennial electoral hegemony of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Japanese public counted on change. Unfortunately, the year and a half has appeared to merely a continuation of the final years of LDP decline. The new ruling party displayed the same factionalism as the party which it ousted. Prime ministers displayed a rapid nosedive in popularity, scandals erased the image of clean government and when the support level reached critical conditions, a new prime minister was ushered in.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan was facing the same fate when he decided on a high-stakes cabinet reshuffle that at least provides a temporary reprieve and if successful might reestablish his leadership credentials. A facelift is usually good for a temporary up in the polls and with a 8.6 percentage point rise, the government is receiving just 32.2% popularity – just enough to keep it temporarily away from the scrap heap.
The masterstroke, or boomerang, as time will prove, was the appointment of Kaoru Yosano, a member of the small opposition Sunrise Party to the post of Minister of Economic and Fiscal Policy. He is a familiar face because in 2009, Yosano held a similar post in the LDP governments and after the LDP suffered a major electoral setback, he set sail for the Sunrise Party (a typical maneuver in Japanese politics when LDP leaders temporarily move into independent parties only to find their way back home when the time is opportune). During his brief stay in the opposition, Yosano authored a book predicting that the DPJ cabinet would lead Japan into economic disaster. Now he is going to be a minister in the same disaster government.
Why would Kan choose to anger members of his own party by reaching outside to appoint Yosano?
Yosano is a deficit hawk, meaning that he is in favor of taking painful steps, such as raising the sales tax (which in Japan is called the consumption tax) in order to rein in the deficit and address problems such as a collapsing Social Security system. Japan is an aging society combining longevity with a fertility rate that falls far below the population replacement rate. Something has to give. However, given the feeble 0.5% growth rate, opponents of new taxation claim that it would bring growth and the economy to a standstill. Kan and Yosano see eye to eye and believe that budget balancing comes first.
Another reason that the 72-year-old Yosano was tapped and the 78-year-old Hirohisa Fujii was named Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary is their membership in what was once known as "Japan Incorporated". Japan was once a tight club linking business, the bureaucracy, and a select group of politicians. This triangle was responsible for Japan's postwar recovery. The system began unraveling during the 1990s, but it is still deeply entrenched. Kan is counting on the 2 new cabinet members to help steer the new policy past the bureaucracy.
Kan believes that Yosano can be a bridge to the opposition to help get the necessary measures past the Diet, especially needed since the opposition controls the upper House of Councilors. At first glance Kan may be mistaken. The first reaction in the LDP to Yosano's crossing the political aisle was anger and betrayal. It is one thing to remain in the opposition in a party that will eventually dissolve back into the LDP; Kosano's moving to the DPJ with a parliamentary seat that he won on the LDP national list is an insult.
"He should remove his Diet lapel pin if he is joining the Democratic Party of the Japan government that he so harshly criticized," fumed LDP Secretary General Nobuteru Ishihara. "I cannot trust him as a person and it would be difficult to forge a relationship of trust."