Hosokawa's failed strategy

Hosokawa's antinuclear drive flops in Tokyo election

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140210p2g00m0dm036000c.html 

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa ran for Tokyo governor with the single focus of preventing Japan from restarting its nuclear power plants -- a strategy that failed as voters were more concerned about his age, past money scandal and lack of attention to other important issues.

The 76-year-old Hosokawa came third behind former health minister Yoichi Masuzoe, 65, and lawyer Kenji Utsunomiya, 67, in Sunday's election, after campaigning -- with the help of another former premier, Junichiro Koizumi -- for a permanent end to nuclear power generation in Japan.

During the 17-day campaign, Hosokawa and Koizumi concentrated on talking about the risks associated with nuclear plants, pointing to the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters.

Hosokawa also stressed that Japan has survived without nuclear power since the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011, although some of its nuclear reactors across the nation continued to operate for a while after the disaster until shut down for safety checkups.

Now is the time to make a shift, like Germany, from "costly and dangerous" nuclear power generation to environmentally friendly renewable energy, Hosokawa said.

But one question was always in the minds of many voters: how big an impact can the governor of Tokyo have on the national government's energy policy?

Senior officials of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which supported Masuzoe, indicated prior to the election that Hosokawa should stay out of national issues.

Among them, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said energy policy is formulated by the national government, not the Tokyo metropolitan government.

"There was nothing wrong with a single-issue campaign by Mr. Hosokawa, but he wasn't ready to respond to expected criticism of his lack of attention to other issues," said Masaru Kohno, professor of politics at Waseda University.

"There is an impression among voters that both Mr. Hosokawa and Mr. Koizumi have passed the peaks of their careers, so Mr. Hosokawa had to show he was prepared with developed game plans right from the start of campaigning."

Hosokawa's entry into the gubernatorial race was a big surprise because he had been out of politics for more than 15 years and was thought to be happy with his life as a potter in the hot spring resort of Yugawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo.

Hosokawa announced his campaign pledges on Jan. 22, just one day before the official start of campaigning, after postponing his press conference twice to avoid contradicting himself about his previous history of borrowing from parcel delivery firm Sagawa Express Co.

Asked at the Jan. 22 press conference to explain about the money scandal that ended his brief premiership in April 1994, Hosokawa said he paid back 100 million yen to Sagawa Express over 10 years after borrowing it in 1982 and did nothing wrong.

Hosokawa refused to engage in a proposed direct debate with other major candidates apparently out of fear that he would be questioned about the Sagawa money and his plans regarding issues other than nuclear energy, according to critics.

In addition, there were calls from many quarters to field just one antinuclear candidate -- either Hosokawa or lawyer Kenji Utsunomiya -- to avoid splitting the antinuclear vote and give the candidate a better chance against the LDP-backed Masuzoe.

But both Hosokawa and Utsunomiya, the former head of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, decided to run separately.

There was also a view that things could be different if Koizumi, four years younger and much more popular than Hosokawa, threw his hat into the ring.

"I have to say Mr. Hosokawa wasn't an appropriate candidate for this election, especially after the previous governor (Naoki Inose) resigned over a money scandal," said Masahiro Iwasaki, professor of political science at Nihon University.

"Mr. Hosokawa also has a record of quitting all of a sudden, once as premier over the Sagawa money and again as a Diet member in May 1998," Iwasaki said. "This election was to choose a leader to also make preparations for the Tokyo Olympics. Mr. Hosokawa would be 82 years old in 2020 after needing to be re-elected (in 2018)."

A Tokyo governor serves a four-year term and can be re-elected.

In 1998, Hosokawa abruptly submitted his resignation from the House of Representatives, saying he had turned 60, the standard retirement age of central and local government officials and at many companies, and had fulfilled his responsibilities with the launch of a new political party.

"What to do about nuclear energy is probably not a pressing issue to people in Tokyo because there is no nuclear plant in the capital," Iwasaki said. "They certainly have other things to worry about that affect their everyday lives, such as the economy and social welfare."