Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 19, 1993 TAG: 9307190027
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Baltimore Sun and Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: TOKYO LENGTH: Medium
The election left neither Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's Liberal Democratic Party nor any existing coalition in a position to name the next prime minister of the world's No. 2 economic power alone.
But it gave seats to a new wave of young, reform-minded conservatives who want to clean up a political system weighed down by corruption, business influence and bureaucrats who protect the LDP's corporate backers from foreign competitors.
Because the reformers focused their rhetoric during the two-week campaign on "money politics" and the seemingly endless barrage of scandals involving senior LDP leaders, they will not easily be lured into partnerships. As a result, another month of tumult almost certainly lies ahead as the parties jockey for position and try to extract promises from the former ruling party.
The LDP may still be able to form a coalition government with other parties, but whatever shape Japan's power structure ultimately takes, the nation will shift from the one-party rule that engineered Japan's economic success.
Surveying the destruction voters wrought on the 38-year rule of the LDP, political commentators agreed on only one thought: At least one more election will be needed, perhaps within a year, to bring order out of the carnage.
Until then, Japan will be so preoccupied with its own political transformation that U.S. and European officials are likely to find it even harder to get attention to their complaints about Japan's unprecedented $110 billion annual trade surplus.
Initial reaction from top LDP officials indicated that the party would dump Miyazawa as a sign of making amends to the public for not adopting reform legislation, as he had repeatedly promised.
"Miyazawa should decide for himself on whether he steps down from the prime ministership," said former Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe.
The LDP won 223 seats in the key 511-seat lower house of the Diet, or Parliament. It would have required 256 to hold the majority and govern single-handedly. Previously, it held a solid majority of 275.
by CNB