From: hiraga@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Yuzuru Hiraga)
Subject: Re: Comments on Politics (Re: Kanemaru's latest stunt)
Keywords: politics, Kanemaru, Takeshita, Miyazawa
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 10:42:45 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.132349.23503@news.uni-stuttgart.de> SHIMOKOSHI@nvdv.e-technik.uni-stuttgart.dbp.de (K. SHIMOKOSHI) writes:
>For the past years The Prime Ministers were changed as follows;
> 
>      Eisaku Sato
>      Kakuei Tanaka       :   Lockheed scandal
>      Takeo Miki
>      Takeo Fukuda
>      Masayoshi Ohira
	Ohira died in office during an election campaign, which resulted
	in a landslide for LDP collecting sympathizing votes.

>      Zenko Suzuki        :   Kyowa scandal (?)
	I don't think so, though I'm not sure.

>      Yasuhiro Nakasone
>      Noboru Takeshita    :   Gang (Boryokudan) scandal
	The immediate cause of the resignation of Takeshita
	was the Recruit scandal (although he is now persecuted
	in relation to the Koumintou affair)

>      Sosuke Uno          :   Scandal with a woman (Geisha)
>      Toshiki Kaifu
>      Kiichi Miyazawa     :   Recruit scandal
	He hasn't quitted (yet! :-)

>Eisaku Sato was a superior Prime Minister who contributed greately to the
>Japan-U.S. Security and was awarded the Nobel prize.

The immediate reason for Sato's Nobel (Peace) prize was his contribution
to the returning of Okinawa.  Many of us thought this to be quite misfitting.
There seems to have been a lot of lobbying going on (but then, who doesn't?).

>It means that in Japan the Prime Minister were
>changed 10 times in past 20 years!

Maybe not so bad, compared with Italy :-)

>BTW, does anybody correct and satisfy my knowledge ?

Let me try (again, this is out of only my memory).

>           ?
>    Sato  ---> Tanaka   ---> Takeshita   --+--> Obuchi (Kajiyama)
>                             (Kanemaru)    | 
>                                           +--> Haneda (Ozawa)
>
>      ?   ---> Miki     ---> Komoto        ---> ?
>                             (Kaifu)
>           ?
>    Ikeda ---> Nakasone ---> Watanabe
>           ?
>    Kishi ---> Ohira    ---> Suzuki        ---> Miyazawa ( ---> Kono?)
> 
>      ?   ---> Fukuda   ---> Abe           ---> Mitsuzuka

The lines after Tanaka/Miki/Nakasone/Ohira/Fukuda are generally correct, but:
* Haneda should be read as Hata, and we are yet to observe the split
  into Obuchi and Hata/Ozawa groups.
* I belive Koumoto (<Komoto) is still in reign.
* So is Miyazawa.  Does Kono mean Kouno-Youhei?  I'm not sure whether
  he belongs there.

Charles Richmond's posts mention five factions, which would correspond
to the above.
There are also other minor groups, inter-factional gatherings,
and also independents who belong to no group.
One of them is the notorious HAMADA Kouichi.  The involvement of yakuza
is being a problem, but Hamada can be said as a yakuza-turned politician
(yuck!).  He appoints himself as the watchdog of the ruling faction.

>    I don't think the fraction based on policy is bad.  Recent fractions,
>    however, are based on money and adhere to only the factional strife.

Agreed.
The plutocratic mentality became explicit with Tanaka Kakuei.
Since then, all the what-nots started gathering under monetary influence.
The worst thing after Tanaka's resignition was that this dominant faction
was not to provide a leader by its own (because Tanaka still held great
influence), so that Japanese politics became a backstage matter, which
had a disastrous effect.  Finally Takeshita took power, but this seems
to be after a long strife and final break-off with Tanaka.

Before Tanaka, the factions had relatively clear political characteristics
(not to say that they were clean).
The political stances can be simply characterized by two dimensions,
by the background of the members (either (higher-level) bureaucrats
or careered parliamentarian), and either liberal (left-wing), conservative,
or nationalistic (right-wing).

The Tanaka and Fukuda factions descended from SATOU Eisaku faction,
which is generally bureaucratic conservative (though Tanaka himself,
had no bureaucratic background -- as well as much of his then followers).
Satou in turn succeeded KISHI Nobusuke (Kishi and Satou are brothers,
and Fukuda is a son-in-law (brother-in-law?) of Kishi).
Oohira is a successor to IKEDA Hayato.  This line is the so called
mainstream conservative (Hoshu-honryuu), also bureaucrat based.
Nakasone seems to have succeeded KOUNO Ichirou (father of Kouno Youhei),
though I'm not sure here.  Kouno faction was a middle-to-right-wing,
parliamentary gathering, mostly by-standing.
Miki is the simplest -- he held his diet seat from before the WWII
and was consistently liberal (and also always in the minority).
However, considering that KOUMOTO Toshio is a shipliner owner,
I'm not sure how much they retain their liberal color.

JSP (SDP?) also has their internal factions and breakdowns as well,
but that's another story.

-Yuzuru Hiraga
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan