Mori-led coalition clings on to power

It is back to politics as usual in Japan as the Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition clung on to power in yesterday's general…

It is back to politics as usual in Japan as the Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition clung on to power in yesterday's general election, despite suffering significant losses. The LDP saw its seat tally fall to 233 from 271. The party's showing, though poor, was sufficiently short of disastrous to allow Mr Yoshiro Mori to keep his job as Prime Minister.

A relieved looking Mr Mori told a press conference there would be no change in the government. "We must keep the coalition," he said. The party was trounced in Tokyo where its number of seats was halved to eight, though in the countryside its well-oiled party machine once again delivered the votes.

But it was an election without any real winner. There were none of the customary banzai shouts of celebration at any of the party headquarters.

The Komei Party paid the price for entering an unpopular coalition, losing 11 seats to finish with 31. The third ruling party, the recently-formed New Conservative Party led by former screen star Chikage Ogi also suffered, losing more than half of its 18 pre-election seats.

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Though there had been predictions of a high turnout which would benefit opposition parties, the actual poll was estimated at about 63 per cent, only 3 per cent more than the last lower house election four years ago.

The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) made major gains, increasing its seat total by over one quarter, but it fell way short of its aim of driving the LDP from power.

The DPJ strategy of turning the poll into a verdict on the suitability for office of the deeply unpopular Mr Mori failed. Mr Mori has been under sustained attack for a series of ill-chosen remarks, including some which indicated a nostalgia for the days of a militaristic Japan. His blunders dashed LDP hopes that the party would get a huge sympathy vote from non-LDP supporters after the death of Mr Mori's predecessor. Mr Keizo Obuchi, in May. The election, in which Mr Obuchi's 26-year-old daughter Yuko took her father's seat, was held on his birthday.

The Japanese Communist Party lost six of its 26 seats, failing to repeat its impressive results in the upper house polls in 1998. A livid party leader, Mr Tetsuzo Fuwa, last night accused the powerful and controversial lay Buddhist organisation, Soka Gakkai, of running a black propaganda campaign to smear the JCP with the crimes of communist regimes outside Japan. The eight-million strong Soka Gakkai group normally organises an efficient vote machine for the Komei Party.

The Social Democratic Party, which had been battling for its political survival, recovered a little of the ground it lost in the last elections, when it was punished by an electorate for dropping many long-held political principles and going into coalition with the LDP in 1994.

According to political analysts, the LDP will read its poor showing not as a repudiation of Mr Mori's leadership but as an indictment of its failure to inject prolonged life into a struggling economy.

The government is set to redouble its efforts to boost the economy with fiscal spending, which had been a hallmark of the Obuchi government. This is good news for traditional LDP supporters in the building and agricultural sectors.

As a starter, the coalition parties will probably celebrate their return to power by releasing a 500 billion yen budget for public works projects, almost half of which will go on developing transport and agricultural infrastructure. By contrast, only one-fiftieth of that money will go on information technology, an area often trumpeted by Mr Mori as crucial to Japan's future. The fiscal largess and other economic policies are set to continue.

The International Trade and Industry Minister, Mr Takashi Fukaya, lost his seat. He was defeated by Mr Yoshikatsu Nakayama of the DPJ.

Though the government alliance is set to carry on as before, with Mr Mori getting parliamentary approval as prime minister as early as July 4th, the election provoked some strains between the coalition parties. An unnamed Komei Party official was quoted on the financial news website, Nikkei Net Interactive, as partially blaming his party's poor performance on the failure of the LDP to live up to a preelection voting pact.