Front Page || Main Index || Corpus Christi News || Business || Texas || Sports || Entertainment || Selena
Sunday, Aug. 2, 1998
New government, same worries for Japan
Voters fear prime minister won't be able to make tough economic decisions
By JOSEPH COLEMAN
Associated PressTOKYO -- Japan is a nation thirsting for change. The economy is sinking deeper into recession, its leaders are widely accused of inaction and mismanagement, and the mood is growing gloomier by the day.
But Japan's new government will be anything but revolutionary.
In electing ruling party favorite Keizo Obuchi as prime minister Thursday, lawmakers picked an inconspicuous consensus-builder to try to rouse Japan from its malaise and win the confidence of its allies.
The choice only intensified spreading discontent among reformist lawmakers and urban voters who want to thrust the governing Liberal Democratic Party from power.
While opposition leaders kept up demands for immediate general elections to pick a new Parliament, voters were even less diplomatic.
``The person I least wanted to become prime minister won,'' said Yoshiki Yamaoka, 51, a trading company worker in Tokyo. ``He won't be able to make decisions by himself. He'll just follow the instructions of party elders.''
To be sure, Japan's economic problems seem so deep that no leader could reasonably be expected to roll into office and turn the financial mess around with a few quick reforms.
The government announced Friday that unemployment hit a record-high 4.3 percent in June. The American credit monitoring firm Moody's Investors Service is reconsidering its top rating on Japanese government debt. Bankruptcies are piling up at a record rate.
Banks, meanwhile, are struggling to write off a growing burden of bad loans left over from the real estate market crash of the early 1990s. The government estimates banks' problem loans total $535 billion, but some experts put the figure at nearly twice that.
Obuchi's answer dovetails with what many economists recommend: tax cuts and public works spending to stimulate the economy. He has proposed $42 billion in tax cuts and $70 billion in extra public works spending.
He also is pushing ahead with legislation started by his predecessor, Ryutaro Hashimoto, to liquidate failing financial institutions.
``I hope the economy will recover in around two years,'' he told reporters Friday at his first news conference as prime minister.
Conscious of his image as a status-quo, make-no-waves operator, Obuchi tried to jazz up the new Cabinet by appointing former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa as finance chief, capitalizing on that party elder's credentials as an economics expert. He served as finance minister in the 1980s and prime minister in 1991-93.
The move sparked a rally in the lackluster Tokyo stock market, but it also was tarred by some as a sign of inertia, with critics pointing out Miyazawa had a hand in the policies that led to Japan's economic mess.
Given the political divisions in Japan, it's not at all certain Obuchi will be able to push through his economic program through Parliament.
The Liberal Democratic Party suffered a painful defeat in July 12 elections for seats in Parliament's upper house, a setback that forced Hashimoto to resign. And the party's slim majority in the lawmaking lower house is built on a handful of lawmakers who defected to the LDP after being elected under different banners.
So Obuchi is going to have to deal with the opposition to get things done -- an opposition that has already predicted his government is likely to fail.Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web