It simultaneously represents a calculated bet that the suspension of Ozawa’s rights will not precipitate a breakdown of party discipline or a breakup of the party itself.
The suspension of Ozawa’s party rights is the result of a long struggle between due process of law and the public’s right to know. Ever since the DPJ seized power in August 2009, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito have been demanding that Ozawa testify in the Diet about his involvement in political funding activities that led to prosecutors filing criminal indictments against his former political aides. The party fought off these demands, preferring to allow the legal authorities to proceed with their investigation of Ozawa. That Ozawa himself was widely credited with having engineered the DPJ’s smashing electoral victory in August 2009 and as a consequence had many in the party beholden to him played no small part in the party’s willingness to shelter him from appearing before the Diet or the Diet’s Deliberative Council on Political Ethics.
The hard shell protecting Ozawa began to crack in June 2010, when he was forced to step down from the position of party secretary general in the leadership reshuffle that installed Naoto Kan as prime minister. The new leadership group composed of veteran lawmakers not beholden to Ozawa began to apply pressure in private and in public for Ozawa to come forward in some way and explain his role in the events that precipitated the indictments of his former aides. These efforts were unsuccessful as Ozawa avoided even meeting with the new party secretary-general, much less discussing his giving testimony in the Diet. Outwardly the party still defended Ozawa’s right to speak about his involvement only with legal authorities investigating the cases against his aides. Inwardly, they were growing more and more angry with Ozawa for his unwillingness to speak in public about his finances, a position that was costing the party support.
Ozawa’s close-mouthed stance seemed to win out as prosecutors not once but twice declared that, after thorough investigation, there were no grounds for Ozawa to be indicted for any violations of any law. When a special panel of lawyers appointed to investigate Ozawa’s case came back with an indictment on 31 January of this year, Ozawa’s resistance to submit himself to questioning in the Diet became a burden the party leadership could no longer bear. After one final effort to allow Ozawa to resolve the matter through a Diet appearance, the party leadership finally chose to formally suspend his party privileges, the least severe form of punishment it could mete out (the leadership could have voted to ask Ozawa to leave the party or even to expel him from the party).
In suspending Ozawa, the party leadership has truly made a sacrificial lamb of him. First the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty is being trampled upon. Furthermore, Ozawa is almost certain to be acquitted of the charges against him, since teams of professional investigators were unable to come back with indictments against him.
With Ozawa now suspended, and thus incapable of challenging the present leadership himself, the question becomes how Ozawa’s allies within the party will respond to the actions taken against their leader and colleague. A team of 16 party members, all elected from the lower ranks of the party proportional lists, have committed the equivalent of political self-immolation in trying to form a new political caucus, one that will not necessarily vote along party lines on upcoming bills in the Diet. Their one certain reward for their defiant action is their being dropped from the party’s list of candidates in the next House of Representatives election. Kenko Matsuki, a very vocal ally of Ozawa, has resigned his position of parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. A group of 58 lawmakers, most with ties to Ozawa, met on 23 February to establish a Diet group that will attempt to forge links with regional political movements, a move that is seen as a stalking horse for a group that will later on openly defy the current leadership’s policies.
These moves come at an awkward time for the party leadership and the cabinet of Naoto Kan. The cabinet is attempting to push through its 92 trillion yen budget bill and the ancillary bills needed to put it into practice. The leadership is fairly certain that it has the votes to pass the budget, which needs only a simple majority in the House of Representatives for passage into law. However, with the House of Councillors under the control of the opposition, the government lacks the votes to pass the ancillary legislation. Instead, it must cobble together a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives to override a rejection of the legislation by the House of Councillors.
This process, which was already complicated by the demands of the Social Democratic Party, the only reasonable collaborator on an override effort, is now in jeopardy thanks to these nascent resistance movements within the DPJ itself. While the would-be rebels might be browbeaten into voting for the budget and its ancillary bills, they will certainly represent a potent countervailing force against the Kan government’s plans to reform the nation’s tax system and prepare the country for entry into talks on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Despite the severe and probably unmerited punishment meted out to Ozawa, the likelihood of a large group of lawmakers breaking away with Ozawa to form a new party is relatively small. No party with Ozawa in it would survive a House of Representatives election. Small also is the likelihood that prime minister Naoto Kan will be forced to step down following a group of DPJ lawmakers breaking ranks and voting with the opposition in a vote of no confidence against the cabinet. Prime Minister Kan would simply dissolve the Diet, triggering a general election. With the current support for the DPJ far below that of its main rival the LDP, the party would likely suffer shattering losses, with most of those losing their seats being DPJ members beholden to Ozawa.
This threat of an electoral annihilation of the pro-Ozawa forces within the DPJ is a limiting factor on the spread of any rebellion against prime minister Kan and the current party leadership, no matter how low the Cabinet’s support numbers drift downward. Ozawa may be getting a raw deal in having his party privileges trimmed down to a nub over what are likely spurious charges against him. However, given his unpopularity with the general public and the precarious electoral positions of his most loyal supporters, there is only a small threat that the leadership’s actions will break up the party or seriously endanger their positions.
Michael Cucek is a research associate at the MIT Centre for International Studies.
Great piece.
I wonder though, going forward, if Kazuhiro Haraguchi is going to be the stalking horse behind whom the Ozawa folks congregate so that they can bide time during the post-Kan interregnum, i.e. till Ozawa manages to get himself acquitted.
Wonder though if Haraguchi – ambitious as he is – is of a more populist economic bent (or not), which will be crucial if he is to have a meeting of minds with the Ozawa and Hatoyama folks. But I cannot see him running a frontal challenge against the prevailing DPJ dispensation without the populists (and DPJ-manifesto loyalists) on his side.
Either way, I don’t think Ozawa’s career is a done deal. At this time, his preference is manuevering from within the party (though behind the curtain), given the party’s substantial parliamentary numbers – rather than be enterprising and yet-again create a new cross-party political formation.
Best, Sourabh
It is always a pleasure to read Mr Cucek’s pieces.
I would like to nitpick a bit though. The argument that Ozawa’s unpopularity will prevent a new party containing him from splitting from the DPJ i think is sound. However, will there not be a point where the motives of the junior lawmakers and of Mssrs Haraguchi and Matsuki will morph from their dissatisfaction with the way the party handles the Ozawa case into outright generalized conflict with the Kan-Okada-Maehara-Edano-Sengoku core of the DPJ? Consequently:
1. Even if there is no split, is the ability of the DPJ to act not already crippled? Party splits make for spectacular fireworks as bridges are burnt and enmities are made, but in a practical sense is it not the business of a governing party to make laws and pass budgets? When you have that kind of animosity crippling the most elementary functions of government, you do not really need a split to guesstimate that grand design type policies such as the TPP (or what have you) are toast. If the DPJ suffers heavy losses in the spring local elections, we might be in for some legislative doldrums for a while – and _that_ is ultimately what matters.
2. Does a split _need_ Ozawa at this point? What exactly would prevent a splinter-group _without_ Mr Ozawa from leaving the DPJ? Tanaka Kakuei managed to hold on to power just fine for years even when he was no longer formally PM. I do not know enough about Japanese political history to know how Tanaka did it but, would it not be possible for the “shadow shogun” (after all, a Tanaka disciple) to simply manipulate a new party from afar?
Thank you.