How Ohira Failed

...Nonetheless, the "middle-of-the-roaders" remain hope-ul that they will eventually edge out the Socialists, perhaps by recruiting followers from within the LDP...

...His other opponents similarly concentrated on the domestic scene, for this was where Ohira had made what was rightly seen as his most serious blunder: His political experience, his skill at avoiding controversy, and his image as a dull but trustworthy conciliator notwithstanding, the Prime Minister had suggested higher taxes as a cure for the government's perpetual budget deficit...

...The scene later that day, at the height of the evening rush hour, was even more indicative...

...No, the reason the LDP failed to achieve its goal of a stable majority" in Parliament is that beyond restricting themselves largely to domestic issues, the opposition parties confined their energies to the critical races...

...Between them, the two Left parties had delayed passage of the budget for agonizing weeks in the spring...

...Appealing to the electorate's respect for tradition and stability, he pointed out that he and the candidate from the district were the same age, both born in 1910, and graduates "of the same school of politics...

...At 69, however, he may have learned too late-and opened the way for new leaders to guide Japan through the next decade...

...This was a far cry from the 271 seats Ohira hoped to capture, and still makes control possible only with the support of a handful of independents...

...Although the Communists ended up with the same 10 per cent of the popular vote that they won in 1976, they more than doubled their number of seats, from 17 to 39...

...Instead, they decided that the wisest course would be to sublimate their pro-Soviet sympathies and focus on local issues...

...True, only 68 per cent of the nation's 80 million eligible voters participated in the elections-the lowest turnout for a national election since 1947...

...Further evidence refuting the rainfall theory is that 44 per cent of the voters cast their ballots for the LDP-an increase of 3 per cent over the previous national contest in 1976...

...Overall, the self-styled "middle-of-the-road," albeit essentially conservative, grouping of four parties also held its own...

...Of the 10 "independents" crucial to his majority, three are former LDP members who technically "resigned" from the party after their indictments in the Lockheed aircraft bribery scandal two years ago...

...After all, he noted with eminent common sense, the government relies upon public bonds for an incredible 40 per cent of its financing and would have to find another source of revenue in the next few years...

...He spoke confidently of the role he would play in the next decade as the nation confronted a Donald Kirk, a longtime NL contributor, is a freelance journalist currently reporting from the Far East...

...But the psychological climate created by the LDP's failure to improve its position may bring down Ohira's Administration...

...In fact, many observers regarded this bid for total power as a grim reminder of a bygone era, a throwback to the 1920s...

...Ohira's bland assumption of an electoral landslide, however, proved to be a monumental case of hubris...

...That oil again had emerged as a critical issue was all the more unnerving, since Japan's quest for crude, all of which must be imported, was chiefly behind its attack on Pearl Harbor...

...The Democratic Socialists improved dramatically, from 28 to 35 seats...

...In addition, the Soviet build-up in the Far East was likely to prove a boon to Ohira's election plans, if not to Japanese security...

...Too deeply divided and disorganized to retain all their 117 seats, they nevertheless did take 107 seats...

...The situation illustrates the kind of corruption that permeates the LDP and that upset many voters...

...Thus, when the Japanese government protested the presence of what was now a full division of 10,000 Soviet soldiers a week before the balloting, the country seemed to rally behind the protest...

...But NLC, which broke away from the LDP three years ago, disappointed its potential allies by winning only three seats, a loss of 10...

...He was particularly anxious to pass the crucial budget bill without being hassled by the Socialists, a distant second before the elections with 117 seats, and the Communists, who held 17 seats...

...Even if he survives the demands for his resignation being made at this writing, he will be considerably weakened...

...Although it managed to stay in power, the LDP actually lost one seat in the 511-member Lower House, emerging with a total of 249...

...It seemed to them that the citizens were reliving history in their passive acceptance of one party, one leader, one outlook...

...Nor could Ohira be blamed for believing that he had chosen exactly the right moment to make his move...

...The Prime Minister had hoped for a "stable majority" that would enable him to ram through just about any kind of legislation he wished...

...Together, they would guide Japan "through crisis and storm in the 1980s...

...And no one except the flag-waving faithful bothered to cheer him when he arrived just as an LDP politician was droning through a long recitation of the virtues of a local party candidate voters had been sending to the Lower House of the Diet, or Parliament, for 30 years-a thin, balding man in a dark suit with red and white ribbon in his lapel...

...All the polls predicted that the LDP would capture at least 265 and perhaps 280 seats...

...The Socialist chairman, Ichio Asukata, warned during the campaign of a "fascist dictatorship" if the LDP successfully swamped the opposition...

...SURPRISE IN JAPAN How Ohira Failed BY DONALD KIRK Tokyo The apathy of the crowds along the campaign trail marked out by Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira two days before Japan's national elections last October 7 should have provided a clue...

...Theoretically, Ohira could govern just as effectively now as before the elections...

...These two parties would have been able to form the nucleus of a united opposition exceeding the Socialists in numbers, if the other two parties-the New Liberal Club and a tiny Socialist splinter group-had done well...

...range of problems, notably energy...

...For a time it seemed that it would...

...Across from the train station-the last stop on one of the main local lines running out of the capital-a crowd of around 1,000 people stood waiting for their buses home, unaware that the Prime Minister was coming...

...The Socialists and Communists, nearly everyone agreed, had lost their most saleable issues with the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese authority in 1972, the American withdrawal from Vietnam the next year and the South Vietnamese defeat in 1975...

...Contritely, the Prime Minister pledged after the elections to "judge people's intentions more seriously and learn a lesson for the future management of politics...

...This evoked a mass outcry, prompting him to say shortly afterward that he had proposed the levy merely as one item on a general list of ways to solve the budget problem...

...The Socialists campaigned on the tax issue as well...

...Attired in precisely the same style, Ohira picked up the litany...

...This was more than some of the pollsters had predicted and enough to retain their status as the leading "minority" party, with power over the budget...

...Moreover, one of the three, Kakuei Tanaka, who had to quit as prime minister in still another scandal in 1974, continues to control the biggest LDP faction from outside the party and is the source of much of Ohira's power...

...No matter that the crowd was restive-or at least unenthused...

...Yet a mere 61 per cent voted in last spring's local elections, when the conservatives knocked the Socialists and Communists from top positions in such strongholds as Tokyo and Osaka (and it rained on that election day, too...

...To eliminate such obstacles, the LDP had to gain enough seats to win control of the budget committee...

...the Buddhist-backed Komeito, involved in a leadership struggle, defied forecasts of falling popularity and won 57 seats, one above its previous total...

...The folks in the five crowded commuter communities north of Tokyo selected for a final push responded coolly to the spectacle of the country's leader smiling and waving a white-gloved hand from the platform of a truck festooned with green Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) banners...

...They simply were not very interested...

...Ohira's strategists, foreign diplomats and some commentators have claimed that a horrendous rainfall also hurt the LDP because many people, assuming the party would win, did not bother to go to the polls in the downpour...

...They harped on taxes, warning against the menace of a Lower House with no power to prevent the LDP from enacting legislation that favored its traditional big-business supporters at the expense of anyone else...

...Americans have forgotten, I discovered on a summer's trip to the U.S., that Japan opted for a Pacific war after the cutoff of oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies...

...When campaign workers showed up carrying little paper flags to signal his arrival, the majority elected to board their buses before traffic was stopped rather than wait for the chance to glimpse Ohira...

...As the campaign was getting under way, Washington informed the Japan Defense Agency that Moscow had just stationed 2,000-3,000 troops on Shiko, one of four small northern islands overrun by Soviet forces in the closing days of World War II and claimed by Japan...

...No matter that buses were honking as their drivers insisted on hewing to schedules...

...Even the Communists were so intimidated by the anti-Soviet furor in the press that they issued no plea for accommodation or understanding-despite having just patched up their own long-running dispute with the Kremlin during the summer...

...He mentioned, among other ideas, the same type of value-added tax that has raised political havoc in Great Britain and elsewhere-and would hit hardest at the middle class...

...The Prime Minister had come to insure the total allegiance of this virtually guaranteed winner and thereby add to the solidity of the victory he was certain the LDP would score at the polls...

...To the Japanese, the encircling powers before World War 11 were ABCD-america, Britain, China and the Dutch...

...Indeed, some were clearly annoyed by the little caravan, including a minibus reserved for the foreign press: The loudspeakers obnoxiously squawked greetings and appeals, and the disregard for red lights disrupted traffic...

...Scarcely a year earlier, the Kremlin had introduced the first of 7,000-8,000 troops on two of the other islands-etorofu and Kunashiri—under the guise of a training exercise that Japanese and American military analysts believed would end before last winter...

...Practical as Ohira's approach might appear to a bureaucrat or a businessman, it probably made the margin of difference on election day...

...The Communists, exercising the greatest discipline, had party volunteers blanket the districts where they thought they had a realistic chance of victory...

...Once the waters of the nearest Russian ports had frozen over and the troops were not gone, it became obvious that they were there to stay...