EDITORIAL: DPJ leadership election

The Democratic Party of Japan's leadership election to be held Tuesday is effectively a ballot to decide whether Naoto Kan will remain prime minister or whether his challenger, former DPJ secretary-general Ichiro Ozawa, will replace him.

Party members are being entrusted with a grave responsibility by voting on behalf of the general public. We ask all DPJ lawmakers to bear this firmly in mind and examine both candidates thoroughly before they cast their ballots.

Unfortunately, however, casual remarks by some party members give us cause to suspect they have scant awareness of their own responsibility. One example is this remark Yukio Hatoyama, Kan's immediate predecessor: "I became prime minister thanks to Mr. Ichiro Ozawa's gracious guidance. I must repay him."

As for Hatoyama, it is a virtue to repay someone's kindness. But the last thing the nation needs is Hatoyama choosing the top political leader out of his own sense of personal indebtedness. Hatoyama is entitled to vote as he sees fit. But if he is calling on members who are loyal to him to follow his lead, that is a different matter altogether.

In fact, Hatoyama is not the only politician with a shockingly "inward-looking" mentality that makes him feel indebted to someone who has done him favors in past elections.

We fully understand that politics cannot be conducted with lofty ideals alone. It is believed that "strength in numbers" decides the premiership. In the past, leaders of factions in the Liberal Democratic Party, now the main opposition party, traditionally scurried around to fill their war chests and raised their "troops" by dispensing election-time favors and distributing coveted appointments.

But Japanese politicians have also embraced various reforms in an attempt to outgrow factionalism and stop ramming legislation through the Diet on the strength of the party's majority.

There was a time when the LDP fielded multiple candidates in midsize electorates, turning them into factional battlegrounds. It was then decided that revamping them into single-seat constituencies would end these factional battles with ones fought on partisan grounds, which in turn would require candidates to compete on policy, not pork.

And by vesting the party leadership with the exclusive authority to endorse candidates and distribute campaign funds, it was assumed that little reason would remain for the factions to exist.

These reforms are still evolving today.

Despite this, however, Ozawa has gathered around himself a gigantic group of lawmakers. His party, Jiyuto (Liberal Party), had only about 30 members when it merged with the DPJ. Today, the Ozawa group numbers some 150 lawmakers. The way Ozawa has expanded his hold on the DPJ by directing elections and controlling the purse-strings, first as party president and then as secretary-general, is clearly counter to the spirit of the political reforms. Fortunately, there are always people in any group who think on their own rather than blindly toe the party line.

DPJ lawmakers in that category who have not announced whom they are supporting will shortly sit in on an open debate between Kan and Ozawa. We believe their purpose for holding the debate is to learn more about what the candidates are thinking. There is nothing special about this in itself, but we applaud their undertaking all the same.

There are also DPJ legislators who are seeking input from their supporters and struggling together with them to decide what is the right thing to do. This, too, is a most welcome. It makes far more sense to repay favors by turning to the people who voted for them, rather than to party executives who "helped" them in the last election.

In fact, each group might as well encourage every member this time to vote as his or her conscience dictates. That should raise the DPJ's standing in the eyes of the public.

The voting public is supposed to choose the ruling party and the prime minister through direct elections in this day and age. It is time to put factionalism to rest for good.

The people's elected representatives will become truly worthy of their status only when they put the interests of the voting public before everything and rely on their own consciences to decide whom to vote for as DPJ president.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 8