KIMIMASA MAYAMA/REUTERS

Can Koizumi finally translate his promises into lasting reforms?

Unfinished Business
	Even with his popularity waning, Junichiro Koizumi might get one last chance to leave a good mark on Japan
	By Jim Frederick | Tokyo

Posted Monday, July 5, 2004; 20:00 HKT
Yasuko Imatomi feels like she has heard this song before, and she's not singing along anymore. The 41-year-old Tokyo homemaker has been a longtime supporter of Japan's dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and until fairly recently she counted herself as a fan of its silver-maned, silver-tongued leader, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. But here in the city's Shibuya neighborhood, as Koizumi and other party members begin campaigning for the July 11 Upper House election, Imatomi is a lot more cynical than she was three years ago when Koizumi first took office. As "Jun-chan" and company promise, yet again, to enact broad structural reforms that will overhaul Japan's calcified political and social systems, Imatomi says Koizumi has been making the same pledges for years and has far too little to show for it. "I'm having doubts about just how far he is willing to push his promises," she says. "I'm planning on voting for a different party this time."

In the past few weeks, people like Imatomi have turned into a big, unforeseen headache for the Prime Minister. As little as a month ago, Koizumi was flying high and seemingly unassailable. In rapid succession this spring, he made a bold dash to North Korea to fetch family members of repatriated Japanese citizens abducted by the Hermit Kingdom in the 1970s; deftly sidestepped a pension scandal that had crippled the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the nation's primary opposition party, by taking down its two most senior members; and headed off to the G-8 summit on Sea Island in the U.S. state of Georgia, where he was lavishly fêted at a private breakfast with American President George W. Bush. His burst of statesmanlike coups led many pundits in the Japanese media to declare that this week's election was over before the campaigning had even begun. The polling, they opined, would be just another formality as Koizumi, alone atop the Japanese political landscape, would lead his LDP to a runaway victory and begin his final two years in office with a clear mandate to pursue his most important initiatives and secure his place in history.

But something happened on the way to the landslide. Once boasting an approval rating of 87%, Koizumi's power base has always been his overwhelming public mandate. But popular support has suddenly dissipated at a crucial juncture in his career. Due to two critical missteps, Koizumi's approval rating has fallen from 54% to 40% (one of his lowest scores ever) in the past five weeks. According to recent opinion polls, voters have taken a dim view of his surprising declaration at the G-8 summit that he had decided without consulting (or even informing) the Diet to keep Japanese troops in Iraq indefinitely. They are likewise annoyed by the way the LDP rammed through a pension-reform bill last month that raised citizens' premiums and lowered their payouts while doing little to solve the system's fundamental flaws. Many see the pension bill as an underhanded and secretive move reminiscent of Japan's behind-closed-doors political tradition, one not in keeping with Koizumi's new era of openness and transparency. And others have called the Iraq decision slavish toadying to American dictates that puts Japanese lives at unwarranted risk. "These things have made people lose confidence in Koizumi fast," says Takao Toshikawa, a veteran political commentator and the editor in chief of the newsletter Tokyo Insideline.

The election that was supposed to be a Koizumi walkover has thus become a hotly contested battle, one that has breathed signs of life into the DPJ, which most commentators had declared all but dead. Rather than a rubber stamp for a Koizumi mandate, July 11 has now become a key measure of public confidence (or lack thereof) in the Prime Minister's performance and an important indicator of how the final years of his term may play out. With 121 seats up for grabs, the LDP's declared goal is to capture at least 51. While outright control of the government is not at stake even if it falls well short of that objective (the LDP-led coalition still retains a handsome majority in the far larger and more powerful Lower House), a disappointing performance could embolden some of Koizumi's bitterest enemies from within the LDP to call for a change of leadership. There is a precedent for this, if not a tradition: after four out of five of the most recent Upper House elections, the Prime Minister has been forced out within 54 weeks. As campaigning heats up, most politicians and observers say the chances of a catastrophic LDP drubbing followed by Koizumi's ouster are remote. But there is no doubt now that the LDP's performance will set the tone for the duration of Koizumi's tenure.

Unfinished business: it's the cloud that continues to hang over Koizumi's government. While he is already one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers since 1945, there can be little doubt that a man who has repeatedly vowed to "change Japan"—even if it requires destroying his own party—aspires to be remembered as a pivotal figure in Japanese history. And while Koizumi has made significant strides in areas such as banking reform and foreign affairs, if his administration were to end tomorrow, he would be remembered mostly for his charisma—and for a litany of promises unfulfilled. Will Koizumi go down in history as a leader who, like Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, invigorated and modernized the government and, for better or worse, reoriented the attitudes and expectations of its citizens about the role the state plays in their lives? Koizumi has a daunting task ahead of him in the next two years if he is to secure that kind of stature. Most experts point to three primary areas—Japan's political structure, long overdue economic structural reforms, and the country's dysfunctional relationship with China—where he must devote his efforts if he is to be noted not just as one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers but as one of the best.

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