Hatoyama admits money flow caused his downfall

Yukio Hatoyama says he began thinking about resigning as prime minister late last year when his Cabinet's public support ratings slipped to around 50 percent.

In an exclusive interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Hatoyama talked about the lead-up to his resignation earlier this month and how his government reached its decision on the contentious issue of relocating the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Question: You resigned quite suddenly. What caused you to quit?

Answer: From the time I left the Liberal Democratic Party in 1993, I have stressed the need to be clean in terms of money in politics. That was my starting point.

That is why, even after my Cabinet won high support ratings, the issues of my aide submitting false political fund reports and my mother giving me funds weighed heavily in my heart. I felt a certain sense of guilt.

Even after the decision was made not to indict me, the public found it hard to believe that I was not aware that my mother was providing me with 15 million yen ($165,000) a month. They probably thought, "Can we leave national politics up to someone who lives in a totally different dimension from us?"

No matter how many policies we presented that we thought were right, the public was in no mood to hear what we had to say, so I felt that sooner or later, I would have to resign.

While the timing of my resignation coincided with the resolution of the Futenma issue, that was not the main reason. I decided on my own fate based on the issue of money in politics.

Q: Does that mean you began thinking about resigning quite a while ago?

A: Because of the political fund issue, from the very beginning I was concerned about how long I could stay in control of the government. In December, our public support ratings fell to around 50 percent and there was no sign it would end its decline.

The public support rating that had peaked at 70 percent shrank to half and then one-third of that level. This was unimaginable, so I was always thinking about resigning.

However, I made my final decision about a week to 10 days before my resignation was announced.

Q: Did the coming Upper House election sway your decision to resign?

A: If the Cabinet support ratings or party support ratings were to fall right before the Upper House election, it would have caused problems for the candidates. I wanted to avoid that.

I felt I had to resign if it meant the party could survive. I felt that the energy of the expectations held by the public after the change of government, as well as their weariness with the bureaucrat-led politics of the LDP, had not disappeared. I was confident that if a cleaner individual became prime minister, the public would once again listen to what this government had to say.

Q: Did you not consider resolving the Futenma issue late last year by reverting to the 2006 agreement?

A: It is a fact that there was a time when I thought about going back to the 2006 agreement. However, I also promised to move Futenma out of Okinawa, at the least. I could not very easily accept a move to Henoko.

That was when the Tokunoshima proposal came up. We also heard indirect comments that some island officials were ready to accept hosting (the base) if it meant economic stimulation.

It was then I decided to delay a Futenma decision so we could look at a wider range of options.

Q: Was that decision made after realizing that a move to Tokunoshima had been previously considered by Japan and the United States?

A: The proposal basically came from information provided by Lower House member Seishu Makino and others. We were not told it had been considered before.

We did not consult bureaucrats in considering the proposal. We wanted to keep the idea secret. Our method may have been naive.

In hindsight, we could have gathered information more openly and discussed why Tokunoshima was a viable option more calmly.

Q: In the end, you returned to the Henoko proposal.

A: The United States was strongly opposed to the Tokunoshima proposal. They said moving some Marines far away would reduce deterrence and affect other functions.

We could not counter any arguments about the handling of the Marines.

It finally came down to a choice between two options, so we could only think about Henoko because the environmental assessment report had been completed.

Q: In your resignation speech, you said, "I do not believe it is good to continue a national security policy dependent on the United States for the next 50 to 100 years."

A: I said that because I felt it was not desirable as a nation to depend on the United States for Japan's defense for eternity.

Of course, the Self-Defense Forces alone cannot defend Japan right now. We have to be grateful to the United States.

However, we cannot depend on them forever. While we decided to relocate to Henoko, I also feel that we must continue to seek a path to move it out of Okinawa or Japan.

Q: With the change in government, you sought a different governmental system from the one under the LDP.

A: We wanted to create a political system in which the public could participate. For that to happen, politicians must decide policy, not bureaucrats.

We gave more authority to the top political appointees in each ministry. We attempted to have Cabinet ministers decide things that were previously decided by administrative vice ministers. We also tried to weed out waste.

To strengthen the prime minister's office and eliminate the vertical structure of the central government bureaucracy, we tried to pass legislation to establish the National Policy Bureau and give legal grounds for the Government Revitalization Unit as well as to concentrate bureaucratic personnel decisions in the prime minister's office.

However, those bills did not pass so we were unable to complete the creation of an administrative management structure.