Koizumi's Second Act
	Japan's Premier looks set for re-election, but will he be a real revolutionary or just another failed reformer?
	By Jim Frederick | Tokyo

	KIMIMASA MAYAMA/REUTERS Riding High: Koizumi's deft touch with the public keeps his political foes at bay

Posted Monday, September 15, 2003; 21:00 HKT
It's 4:15 p.m. as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi approaches the podium, about to begin the most important chapter of his career. He's here before a crowd of 5,000 in Tokyo's Shinjuku district to kick off his campaign for re-election as the president of Japan's dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and thus retain his position as Prime Minister. The stakes are high, not just for Japan but for Koizumi's reputation. He needs another term, one more successful than his first, if he is to be remembered, as he desperately desires, as the reformer who set Japan back on track.

But on this blistering hot day, Koizumi does not look like a desperate man. Maybe it's the casual ease with which he delivers his lines, the confident gestures he uses to punctuate a point or the way his jokes, scripted or not, seem to come to him spontaneously. Whatever it is, Koizumi radiates an aura of inevitability, as if he himself is convinced that his return to office is assured. "Pessimism seems to prevail these days," he says. "But we are still a country ... where peace and prosperity have prevailed for half a century." If, on election day this Saturday, Koizumi does succeed against his three challengers—who are also gathered here for a day of speechifying—and if he can lead the LDP to victory in the parliamentary general elections that must take place before next summer, he stands a good chance of remaining Prime Minister until 2006. That, in itself, would be an achievement, making him the longest-serving Japanese head of state in three decades. But Koizumi, ever the dreamer, wants more than simple longevity: he wants nothing less than to build a new Japan.

Despite numerous setbacks over the past few years and frequent accusations that he pathologically promises more than he delivers, Koizumi's popularity and his power are soaring again. Thanks to his public appeal, a suddenly resurgent economy and his virtuosic manipulation of some of the LDP's most formidable mandarins over the past two months, Koizumi's re-election looks virtually guaranteed. Now, the more relevant question is how big his mandate from within the party will be. For that will signal how well Koizumi can fend off a newly ascendant opposition spearheaded by an alliance of longtime LDP foes Naoto Kan and Ichiro Ozawa in the upcoming general parliamentary elections.

In many ways, the Koizumi era heralds the beginning of image politics in Japan. Even now, as Koizumi sews up what had promised to be a fractious party election, the LDP Old Guard is only beginning to fathom what the media and others realized long ago: that Koizumi represents a new breed of Japanese politician, one who derives power from his image, and the popular support it generates, rather than from favors curried with party insiders. Says Norihiko Narita, a professor of political science at Surugadai University in Saitama prefecture: "These days, voters support candidates not for their policies but for their style. Take (Tokyo governor) Shintaro Ishihara, who should be much too right wing for the Tokyo voters' tastes. He enjoys a high approval rating."

This, then, is the secret of the Koizumi longevity paradox: his relationship with the public has allowed him to remain in office far longer than many had expected, especially considering that most of his own party hates him. What's more, this popular approval has enabled Koizumi to gain control of the political agenda in an unprecedented fashion. Ordinarily, party insiders and career bureaucrats make most major decisions and dominate the entire political debate. In just the past few months, however, Koizumi has seized the initiative in significant areas, not least in his own re-election campaign. "He may not have been as successful yet at changing Japan as he would have liked, but he is changing the LDP," says veteran political commentator Takao Toshikawa. "He is bent on destroying the way the party operates, and in that he is succeeding."

Right here, in Shinjuku among the people, Koizumi is in his element, reveling in applause that is palpably more enthusiastic for him than for anyone else. Although he may never recapture the charmed aura he possessed in 2001 as Japan's anointed savior, he still retains an almost Clintonian ability to seduce a crowd, a gift for compelling listeners to drink in and—sometimes despite themselves—believe his every word. That's amply on display today when compared with the lukewarm reception garnered by his three competitors: little-known Takao Fujii, Old Guard stalwart Shizuka Kamei and late entrant Masahiko Komura. During their speeches, his opponents trot out the same old whistle-stop bromides: Japan needs a more self-sufficient food supply, increased government spending is the only solution to the nation's economic woes, most foreigners are either criminals or vultures. Koizumi aims instead for the poetic and the aspirational. "Takeshi Kitano just won an award in the Venice Film Festival," he declares. "We have athletes—swimmers, runners, baseball and soccer players—doing incredibly well all over the world. What's important is to find ways to expose our latent talent." Frustrated, all three challengers take shots at Koizumi's broken pledges, calling him everything from an empty suit to a lackey of the U.S. But the vitriol has little effect. The gathered listeners barely respond to such strikes. And Koizumi? He's not even paying attention, too busy laughing and waving at busloads of tourists to register what his opponents are saying. The crowd seems to agree. Twenty-six-year-old airline employee Satomi Yamada says: "He has leadership. He's the only one who can pull the country together."

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