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Walking dead evades coup de grāce
By Michael Millett, Herald Correspondent in Tokyo
The author Ryu Murakami has a theory on why Japanese retain a soft spot for their bumbling prime minister - that Yoshiro Mori's performance is so bad, he makes everyone else look good.
"When I am sick, seeing Mori on television makes me feel better," Murakami quips.
Humour like this seems natural when the world's ailing second-biggest economy finds itself with no functioning leader and little sign of a viable one in waiting.
Mori, an error-prone factional boss thrown into the top job less than a year ago, is the ultimate "dead man walking".
No-one is betting on his survival beyond another month.
Mori's popularity has sunk to single-digit levels, his coalition partners are openly demanding his removal, and backbenchers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party say they cannot campaign for vital mid-year Upper House elections with him in control.
The lack of faith in Mori and his administration was made stark yesterday when the stock market sank to a new post-bubble low.
Anywhere else, Mori would have been rudely shown the exit months ago.
But this is Japan. Incredibly, the Prime Minister may be allowed to stagger on for another couple of weeks, frustrating Washington's efforts to cement a new political relationship with Tokyo.
Cynics say it is one-upmanship - Tokyo proving that the US does not have a mortgage on fumbled leadership transitions.
In fact, there are three reasons for this painful Noh play.
First, the Government desperately needs the Budget, with its 80trillion yen ($1.3trillion) cash injection, and a swag of supportive legislation, through the Diet on time. That means leaving Mori at least nominally in charge until March2, when the Budget is supposed to clear the Lower House.
Second, says a political analyst, Shigenori Okazaki, no matter how flawed his leadership, Mori will be allowed the "dignified exit" afforded to all Japanese prime ministers.
"It means linking the departure with a major diplomatic exercise, such as the Japan-Russian summit in late March," Okazaki said. "It could be that Mori attends the talks and then resigns."
This obsession with honourable exits means the LDP does not even have a procedure in place to remove Mori if he digs his heels in. One former prime minister stared down his party for a full year before leaving.
The third problem is that the LDP's factional warlords have failed to prepare a successor.
The Government's coalition partners want Hiromu Nonaka, the aging "shadow shogun" behind the LDP's biggest faction, to take over. The other main candidate is Junichiro Koizumi, head of a smaller LDP faction.
Sydney Morning Herald - Feb 23, 2001
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