Tokyo – When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi came to power four years ago, he boldly pledged to sacrifice his long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party for the sake of enacting reform.
But with the approach of Sunday’s elections for the powerful lower house of Parliament, it seems as if the silver-haired leader has only strengthened the LDP’s grip on power.
Two newspaper polls Friday showed the LDP, which has ruled Japan for nearly all of the past half-century, with a hefty lead over top opposition group, the Democratic Party of Japan.
Triumph for the LDP on Sunday would mark a major turnaround for a party that only four years ago was widely considered too riddled with corruption and bankrupt ideas to last much longer in power.
Much of the credit goes to Koizumi.
“I believe if Koizumi had not become prime minister in 2001, the DPJ would have booted the LDP from office by now,” said Yoshiaki Kobayashi, a politics professor at Keio University in Tokyo. “Now, that’s very unlikely.”
Indeed, Koizumi’s persona – his styled mane, his love of opera, his enjoyment of the limelight – has become synonymous with “reform” in Japan, where voters have suffered under wheeler-dealers more adept at doling out payoffs than charming an audience.
The 63-year-old prime minister has also talked a good game, promising to battle the powers that be while skillfully using the media to drag Japan into an era of populist politics.
“By choosing Koizumi as prime minister, the LDP beat the opposition at its own game,” Kobayashi said.
