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The Japanese general election of 1993
ElectoralStudies(1994)
13(l) 80-82
Notes on Recent Elections The Japanese General Election of 1993 STEVEN
Faculty
of Policy Sciences,
R.
REED
Chuo University, 742-l Higasbinakano, City, Tokyo 192-03, Japan
Hachioji
After a postwar record of 39 years of continuous rule, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has finally been unseated. The Japanese electorate voted for change, as electorates in other industrial democracies have been doing recently. However, the felling of the LDP was not accomplished by some kind of electoral earthquake. Voting patterns followed trends which have been in place since the 1970s. The 1993 election was a ‘normal scandal election’, similar to other scandal elections of 1976, 1983, and 1990. The difference this time was the defection of 46 LDP incumbents and the creation of three new non-socialist parties. The New Parties The election was precipitated by the decision of 39 members of the LDP to vote in favour of a motion of no confidence against their own government; 18 more abstained by absenting themselves from the vote. The issue was political reform. After the Recruit scandal and the 1990 election, Prime Minister Kaifu promised political reform. Intra-party squabbling prevented him for keeping his promise. After the Sagawa scandal and the revelations concerning Kanemaru Shin’s extraordinary accomplishments in illegal fund-raising, Prime Minister Miyazawa again promised political reform, this time on national television. He also failed to deliver. The inability to enact political reform frustrated the public and the faction led by Hata Tsutomu and Ozawa Ichiro (the latter a close associate of Kanemaru Shin) decided that political reform was important enough, and the electoral prospects bright enough, to risk leaving the LDP. A total of 46 defectors formed two new parties. The Hata-Ozawa faction formed the Renewal party (SbinseiM). Takemura Masayoshi, who had been elected governor of a rural prefecture with the joint support of the LDP and several opposition parties and was currently serving in the House of Representatives in the LDP, started the New Party Harbinger (ShintG Sakigake). The newest of the new parties, however, was the Japan New Party CJNP, Nihon Shinto) started by Hosokawa Morihiro, the governor of a rural prefecture. (The character for ‘new’ is pronounced shin in Japanese.) 0261-3794/94/01/0080-03
0
1994 Butterworth-Heinemann
STEVEN
R.
81
REED
TABLE1. Average change in vote by party*
Average change in votes per seat
Total number of cases
42,001 39,002 32,693 1,126 2,478 - 1,842 -5,141 -39,841
10 30 25 74 271 131
Japan New Party Renewal New Party Harbinger Clean Government Party Democratic Socialist Party Japan Communist Parry Liberal Democratic Party Japan Socialist Party
*Only candidates who ran in both the 1990 and 1993 elections could be used in these calculations. Candidates who ran as independents with the support of a party were included in the calculations.
The Vote The ‘newer’
the party, the better
the change
in vote from the 1990
it fared at the polls. In Table 1, I have calculated to the 1993 election
for all of those who ran in
both elections tabulated by party label in 1993. This gives us an estimate of how many votes a given party label is worth. The JNP label was worth 42,000 votes, while the other two new party labels were both worth 30,000 votes. Only a very few JNP candidates
had run in the previous
is small, but other analyses confirm
election
so the n for this calculation
this result. The JNP had no incumbents and few politicians with experience at the national level but still managed to have 35 candidates elected. The Renewal party and the Harbinger elected almost all of their incumbents who ran and their new candidates also did well. The message was clear: the Japanese electorate wants change. The big loser was the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), losing an average of almost 40,000 votes and almost half its seats. The Socialists had been the symbols of change in the previous 1990 election and they lost all of the change-oriented voters to the new parties. The 1989 House of Councillor election and the 1990 general election were exceptions to the seemingly irreversible decline of the JSP. The party has been losing about 1 percentage point of the electorate at each succeeding election since 1976. A straight-line trend from 1972 through 1986 projected on the 1993 election would lead us to expect a socialist vote of 10.93 percent. Their actual percentage was 10.25. The voters did not reject the JSP; they simply moved to other, more promising agents of change. Similarly, the voters did not abandon the LDP. The LDP label lost a candidate only about 5,000 votes on the average. If the defectors had run under the LDP label and lost 5,000 votes each, the LDP would have finished with 29 per cent of the electorate and 43 per cent of the vote. With no defectors, the LDP would have lost, but the loss would have been only a bit worse than the previous scandal elections of 1976, 1983, and 1990. The Japanese electorate has been increasingly upset by the scandal-ridden politics of the LDP and increasingly willing to vote for an alternative. The 1993 election was a continuation of both trends. The smaller established opposition parties were not much affected by this election. The Clean Government Party (CGP) strategically reduced its number of
82
The Japanese
General Election of 1993
candidates, replaced many of their incumbents, and were thus able to increase their seats from 45 to 51 while maintaining their overall vote. The Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) did the same, though somewhat less successfully, gaining a single seat. The Communists run a candidate in every district, whether they have a chance of winning a seat or not. Their vote total dropped slightly. The only large-scale movement of votes was from the Socialists to the new parties. The most surprising aspect of the election was the low turnout, the lowest in postwar history. There was less excitement about the possibility of change this time than in 1990. Perhaps the voters had been lulled into complacency by the fact that the media had predicted the historic defeat of the LDP several time before. Probably more important was the infighting among the new parties. The new parties failed to offer the electorate a clear non-LDP option. Unlike 1990-when Doi Takako, JSP leader at the time, symbolized the forces of change-this time there was no single non-LDP leader upon whom voters could focus their hopes. The Outcome After the election, independents who won joined parties and a few more defections occurred, leaving the line-up in the new Diet as follows: LDP, 228 seats plus five independent conservatives; JSP, 77 seats; Renewal party, 60 seats; CGP, 52 seats; JNP and Harbinger acting as a single unit within the Diet, 52 seats; DSP, 19 seats; Communists, 15 seats; and three non-LDP independents. The non-LDP, nonCommunist forces had a majority of 260 seats to the LDP’s 233. However, the nonLDP forces were divided into five major groupings and a total of eight parties. In a normal process of coalition formation, one would expect the LDP to be able to fmd a coalition partner. As the largest party it could coalesce with any single party except the DSP. The non-LDP parties were united on few policies except the necessity of political reform, so the LDP could play the role of centre party, necessary to any policy-based coalition. In the event, however, the non-LDP parties were able to form a coalition and establish a government led by the JNP’s Hosokawa. The logic of coalition formation was overpowered by the logic of preparing for the next election. The electorate was demanding change and any party that appeared to deliver more of the same by allying itself with the LDP could expect to face an angry electorate at the next election. If the non-LDP cabinet can now deliver on its promise of political reform, it can rightly claim to have succeeded where the LDP repeatedly failed.
13(l) 80-82
Notes on Recent Elections The Japanese General Election of 1993 STEVEN
Faculty
of Policy Sciences,
R.
REED
Chuo University, 742-l Higasbinakano, City, Tokyo 192-03, Japan
Hachioji
After a postwar record of 39 years of continuous rule, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has finally been unseated. The Japanese electorate voted for change, as electorates in other industrial democracies have been doing recently. However, the felling of the LDP was not accomplished by some kind of electoral earthquake. Voting patterns followed trends which have been in place since the 1970s. The 1993 election was a ‘normal scandal election’, similar to other scandal elections of 1976, 1983, and 1990. The difference this time was the defection of 46 LDP incumbents and the creation of three new non-socialist parties. The New Parties The election was precipitated by the decision of 39 members of the LDP to vote in favour of a motion of no confidence against their own government; 18 more abstained by absenting themselves from the vote. The issue was political reform. After the Recruit scandal and the 1990 election, Prime Minister Kaifu promised political reform. Intra-party squabbling prevented him for keeping his promise. After the Sagawa scandal and the revelations concerning Kanemaru Shin’s extraordinary accomplishments in illegal fund-raising, Prime Minister Miyazawa again promised political reform, this time on national television. He also failed to deliver. The inability to enact political reform frustrated the public and the faction led by Hata Tsutomu and Ozawa Ichiro (the latter a close associate of Kanemaru Shin) decided that political reform was important enough, and the electoral prospects bright enough, to risk leaving the LDP. A total of 46 defectors formed two new parties. The Hata-Ozawa faction formed the Renewal party (SbinseiM). Takemura Masayoshi, who had been elected governor of a rural prefecture with the joint support of the LDP and several opposition parties and was currently serving in the House of Representatives in the LDP, started the New Party Harbinger (ShintG Sakigake). The newest of the new parties, however, was the Japan New Party CJNP, Nihon Shinto) started by Hosokawa Morihiro, the governor of a rural prefecture. (The character for ‘new’ is pronounced shin in Japanese.) 0261-3794/94/01/0080-03
0
1994 Butterworth-Heinemann
STEVEN
R.
81
REED
TABLE1. Average change in vote by party*
Average change in votes per seat
Total number of cases
42,001 39,002 32,693 1,126 2,478 - 1,842 -5,141 -39,841
10 30 25 74 271 131
Japan New Party Renewal New Party Harbinger Clean Government Party Democratic Socialist Party Japan Communist Parry Liberal Democratic Party Japan Socialist Party
*Only candidates who ran in both the 1990 and 1993 elections could be used in these calculations. Candidates who ran as independents with the support of a party were included in the calculations.
The Vote The ‘newer’
the party, the better
the change
in vote from the 1990
it fared at the polls. In Table 1, I have calculated to the 1993 election
for all of those who ran in
both elections tabulated by party label in 1993. This gives us an estimate of how many votes a given party label is worth. The JNP label was worth 42,000 votes, while the other two new party labels were both worth 30,000 votes. Only a very few JNP candidates
had run in the previous
is small, but other analyses confirm
election
so the n for this calculation
this result. The JNP had no incumbents and few politicians with experience at the national level but still managed to have 35 candidates elected. The Renewal party and the Harbinger elected almost all of their incumbents who ran and their new candidates also did well. The message was clear: the Japanese electorate wants change. The big loser was the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), losing an average of almost 40,000 votes and almost half its seats. The Socialists had been the symbols of change in the previous 1990 election and they lost all of the change-oriented voters to the new parties. The 1989 House of Councillor election and the 1990 general election were exceptions to the seemingly irreversible decline of the JSP. The party has been losing about 1 percentage point of the electorate at each succeeding election since 1976. A straight-line trend from 1972 through 1986 projected on the 1993 election would lead us to expect a socialist vote of 10.93 percent. Their actual percentage was 10.25. The voters did not reject the JSP; they simply moved to other, more promising agents of change. Similarly, the voters did not abandon the LDP. The LDP label lost a candidate only about 5,000 votes on the average. If the defectors had run under the LDP label and lost 5,000 votes each, the LDP would have finished with 29 per cent of the electorate and 43 per cent of the vote. With no defectors, the LDP would have lost, but the loss would have been only a bit worse than the previous scandal elections of 1976, 1983, and 1990. The Japanese electorate has been increasingly upset by the scandal-ridden politics of the LDP and increasingly willing to vote for an alternative. The 1993 election was a continuation of both trends. The smaller established opposition parties were not much affected by this election. The Clean Government Party (CGP) strategically reduced its number of
82
The Japanese
General Election of 1993
candidates, replaced many of their incumbents, and were thus able to increase their seats from 45 to 51 while maintaining their overall vote. The Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) did the same, though somewhat less successfully, gaining a single seat. The Communists run a candidate in every district, whether they have a chance of winning a seat or not. Their vote total dropped slightly. The only large-scale movement of votes was from the Socialists to the new parties. The most surprising aspect of the election was the low turnout, the lowest in postwar history. There was less excitement about the possibility of change this time than in 1990. Perhaps the voters had been lulled into complacency by the fact that the media had predicted the historic defeat of the LDP several time before. Probably more important was the infighting among the new parties. The new parties failed to offer the electorate a clear non-LDP option. Unlike 1990-when Doi Takako, JSP leader at the time, symbolized the forces of change-this time there was no single non-LDP leader upon whom voters could focus their hopes. The Outcome After the election, independents who won joined parties and a few more defections occurred, leaving the line-up in the new Diet as follows: LDP, 228 seats plus five independent conservatives; JSP, 77 seats; Renewal party, 60 seats; CGP, 52 seats; JNP and Harbinger acting as a single unit within the Diet, 52 seats; DSP, 19 seats; Communists, 15 seats; and three non-LDP independents. The non-LDP, nonCommunist forces had a majority of 260 seats to the LDP’s 233. However, the nonLDP forces were divided into five major groupings and a total of eight parties. In a normal process of coalition formation, one would expect the LDP to be able to fmd a coalition partner. As the largest party it could coalesce with any single party except the DSP. The non-LDP parties were united on few policies except the necessity of political reform, so the LDP could play the role of centre party, necessary to any policy-based coalition. In the event, however, the non-LDP parties were able to form a coalition and establish a government led by the JNP’s Hosokawa. The logic of coalition formation was overpowered by the logic of preparing for the next election. The electorate was demanding change and any party that appeared to deliver more of the same by allying itself with the LDP could expect to face an angry electorate at the next election. If the non-LDP cabinet can now deliver on its promise of political reform, it can rightly claim to have succeeded where the LDP repeatedly failed.