No Great Reversal in Japan: Elections for the House of Representatives in 1990

Abstract

A SIGNIFICANT FEATURE of public life in Japan during recent decades of extraordinary economic growth and associated social change has been continuity in politics. Government power has been in the hands of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 1955. While other democratic countries in the industrial world have experienced long periods of one-party domination, in none has the possibility of change in government seemed more unlikely.' Or at least it appeared so untilJuly 1989 when voters in the Upper House (House of Councillors) elections handed the ruling party its biggest defeat ever with the LDP's comfortable 142-seat majority in the 252-seat chamber being reduced to 109 seats. In a dramatic reversal of waning power, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) increased its strength from 43 to 68 seats. While other parties declined a bit, the newly formed Japan Trade Union Confederation (RENGO) went from 1 to 12 seats. Together, then, the nation's political opposition parties, invariably described as a permanent opposition, gained a majority, although in a body significantly inferior in constitutional power to the Lower House (House of Representatives) in which the LDP continued to command an absolute majority. Voters, upset by the LDP's four-point set of evils (introduction of a 3 percent consumption tax; the Recruit Cosmos influence-peddling affair that developed into the most far-reaching scandal in the postwar period; rejection of domestic agriculture's demands for continued protection from foreign imports; and alleged sexual peccadilloes of the incumbent prime minister)2 issued a sharp rebuke to the nation's conservatives. Many political commentators quickly pronounced that a long-awaited Great Reversal could very well take place when elections for the Lower House were held next. The LDP's days in power were in doubt, enfeebled it seemed by unpopular policy choices, discredited political leaders, dubious political ethics, and rejection at the polls. Speculation about a potential Great Reversal marked general political discussions for months just as it continued to haunt the LDP.3