Ozawa, Ichiro

▪ 1995

      Ichiro Ozawa, architect of Japan's unfolding political realignment, lost his hold on the levers of government with the formation of the new Socialist-led government in June 1994. Most observers expected Ozawa to be back in control following elections in 1995. He was, after all, thought to be the most influential politician Japan had produced in recent years and the only one with a clear-cut vision of where he was headed.

      Ozawa was born into the family of a powerful party politician on May 24, 1942. At 27 he inherited a lower house seat for the Iwate prefecture. After studying economics at Keio University, Tokyo, and law at Nihon University, Tokyo, Ozawa was primed for a political career. When his father died in 1968, he hitched his fortunes to Kakuei Tanaka, a Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) strongman and onetime prime minister. Ozawa stayed close to Tanaka despite his involvement in bribery scandals, then shifted his allegiance to the new king-maker, Shin Kanemaru. Taking his cue from these backroom power brokers, Ozawa became a prodigious fund-raiser.

      In the late 1970s, Ozawa served as vice minister of the Science and Technology Agency and of Construction. He was also minister of home affairs (1985-86) in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. From 1989 to 1991 he held the post of secretary-general of the LDP. After walking out on his own party in the summer of 1993 over the question on political reform, Ozawa put together Shinseito (Japan Renewal Party)—a seven-group coalition that toppled the Liberal Democrats, who had held power for 38 years. Through the subsequent administrations of prime ministers Morihiro Hosokawa and Tsutomu Hata, which passed the electoral reforms he had sought, Ozawa was top policymaker. His dictatorial management came under fire, however, after the Social Democratic Party of Japan left the ruling coalition in April 1994, thereby forcing it to resign. Ozawa then set up the Kaikaku (Reform) parliamentary group in order to launch a major new anti-LDP party. Consequently, Ozawa was a prime mover in organizing Shinshinto (New Frontier Party), a merger of nine political parties, which was formally inaugurated on December 10.

      Ozawa's grand goals, to create "real parliamentary politics" and a new foreign policy, had been taking shape for two decades. He laid out his prescription for national renewal in his best-selling book, Blueprint for a New Japan. It called for Japan to become "a normal nation" and assume responsibilities in the international community, not only as an economic power but also as a political and military one. Ozawa urged Japan to be aggressive in seeking a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and to amend the post-World War II constitution, which prohibited the country from military engagements, so that Japan could participate in UN peacekeeping missions that involved actual or potential conflict. To free Japan from bureaucratic stranglehold, he wanted decentralization and deregulation. He also envisaged new political stability with two big central parties alternating in office and a strengthened presidential-style prime minister heading a British-style Cabinet. Only time would tell how successful Ozawa's plans for Japan would be.

      (GERD LARSSON)

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