Word: hatoyamas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Give Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), points for speed. Within hours of the DPJ's historic general-election victory on Aug. 30, Hatoyama was conferencing by phone with the leaders of South Korea and Australia, meeting with journalists and otherwise behaving as Japan's next Prime Minister - which he certainly will become in just a few weeks. "We have finally reached the starting line," Hatoyama told reporters on Aug. 31, leaving little doubt that he was eager to get on with governing. (Read "Japan's Election: Opposition Wins Historic Victory...
...This sense of urgency is well founded. Japanese voters, frightened by the country's sinking economy and fed up with years of feckless political leadership, handed power to the DPJ in a landslide victory that Hatoyama called "the first ever proper change in government in the history of our constitutional politics." Indeed, by electing DPJ members to 308 of 480 seats in the Japanese parliament's lower house, voters ended a half-century of nearly unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - providing an unprecedented rebuke to the country's political élite, at the same time issuing...
...Hatoyama knows this mandate is provisional. In modern times the Japanese have been wary of radical change, and it's unclear to what extent the DPJ's ambitious platform can be implemented by a party criticized for its lack of unity and common ideology, not to mention experience: 46% of the incoming crop of DPJ members are first-time parliamentarians. But public impatience with politics as usual has boiled over; the DPJ's novices would be well advised to follow Hatoyama's lead and start hustling. Below, we've pinpointed five areas on which the new ruling party should focus...
...Budget Under Control In mid-September, the DPJ will take over officially, with the Diet's election of Hatoyama as Prime Minister and the appointment of ministers. That leaves 100 days for the new administration to draft a budget for the next fiscal year that doesn't increase the national deficit - now at 180% of GDP, the highest ratio among developed countries - but still provides funds for costly election-year promises. The deadline is all the more pressing because Japan's still anemic economic recovery could falter without the steady infusion of government spending...
...This does not mean that Japan needs to turn away from its old friend, commercial partner and provider of military security, the U.S. Hatoyama's recent call for a "more equal" relationship with Washington raised concerns that the DPJ might tinker with sensitive issues like the relocation of American military bases in Japan, affecting the two nations' longstanding security pact. But DPJ leaders, who have little experience in international diplomacy, know they can't afford to upset the alliance, the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy...