The Fall Of The Shadow Shogun

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday October 16, 1992

Tom Ormonde

IF HE hadn't been Japan's most powerful politician, Shin Kanemaru would easily have passed for a yakuza crime boss. With his puckered face, snake eyes and gangland crew-cut, this man looks the yakuza goods. His gruff talk is close to the mark also, a coarse Japanese vernacular you might expect to hear in dark alleys of Tokyo where gangs run illicit sex houses and intimidate people. The other trait Mr Kanemaru shares with Tokyo mob chiefs is getting around town in the back of a big, black Mercedes.

There may be deeper reasons, too, why the Japanese media nicknamed this legendary political fixer the "Don". Not only has Mr Kanemaru been the unrivalled backroom chief of the ruling Liberal Democrats (being free, evidently, to select Japanese prime ministers at his own pleasure and order them around), he also cultivated contacts in the opposition parties and is said to have befriended top crime figures - the men he seemed to mimic - to fortify his political power.

Japan's system of government, like Australia's, is called a parliamentary democracy. Shin Kanemaru helps us appreciate the fundamental differences. Like the top politicians who preceded him, Mr Kanemaru earned his stripes by being an excellent bagman and manipulator. To this day, the ability to raise obscene sums of money, to buy and trade influence, remains the decisive criterion for promotion in Japanese politics, way ahead of intellectual calibre. It is not hard to see how having criminal friends could advance one's career.

Mr Kanemaru became well-known for the unsavoury company he keeps, but this hasn't stopped him being feted by foreign leaders of various persuasions. Nor has his periodic lack of a title (he resumed the formal position of ruling party vice-president late last year). As the "shadow shogun" - the power behind the throne in the world's second richest nation - Mr Kanemaru got too important to be left out of anyone's political calculations. President Bush rolled out the red carpet for him when he visited the United States earlier this year.

But this will not happen again. Shin Kanemaru's underworld links finally caught up with him this week, apparently bringing his career to an effective end. The 78-year-old godfather of politics was hounded into an early retirement from Japan's parliament, the Diet, by unrelenting public anger over his role in a financial scandal and his dealings with the mob. His fellow powerbroker, Mr Noboru Takeshita, also seems endangered by the scandal, raising the possibility of Japanese politics losing its two main players in one hit.

It is widely assumed Mr Kanemaru is already a spent force, though you could never be sure. A struggle for succession among younger, ruling party bagmen is under way, foreshadowing a generational transition in Japanese politics. The new men will carry the expectations and hopes of the Japanese public, as well as some foreign countries frustrated by dealings with Tokyo, for serious reforms to attack political corruption at the core, to help bring Japan's Third World political system into line with its First World economy.

If previous scandals are a guide, the Japanese public should not count on promises from politicians to fix the system. Just over three years after the cabinet of Mr Takeshita had to resign over the Recruit payoffs affair, another scandal - a reminder of the enduring power of cash in politics - is paralysing Japanese decision-makers when the world is looking to them for leadership. This fiasco differs from the last in many ways, most importantly in the yakuza factor.

It is not a new development for Japanese politicians to be fraternising with gangsters. Since long before World War II, good relations with yakuza have often been considered useful by Japanese businesses and politicians with the odd nasty errand to run. Continued courtship of gangs by some lawmakers and businessmen serve to undermine others trying to curb yakuza activities, and serve also to underline the enduring role of intimidation in Japanese society.

Few Japanese politicians have appreciated and harnessed the power of intimidation better than Shin Kanemaru. Anecdotes about his thuggery were still emerging after his resignation this week, the latest coming yesterday from the former head of the Environment Agency, Mr Ishimatsu Kitagawa, who claims Mr Kanemaru repeatedly threatened him by phone two years ago because he opposed a controversial dam project.

Mr Kanemaru's reported use of gangsters for political ends dates back at least to 1987, when he was still on the rise and was backing Mr Takeshita's ultimately successful bid to be prime minister. According to Tokyo prosectors pursuing the affair, Mr Kanemaru sought the help of Susumu Ishii, then head of the Inagawa-kai crime syndicate, to silence a right-wing organisation that was campaigning against Mr Takeshita.

The rightists, seeking to damn the candidate with their praise, had been broadcasting sarcastic pro-Takeshita messages at high volume from mobile sound-trucks around the offices of ruling party Diet members who were to select the PM. The yakuza boss is said to have brokered an end to the harassment campaign, which in turn marked the beginning of a close association with Mr Kanemaru that lasted until Ishii died last year.

The first contact with the crime chief came through a man called Hiroyasu Watanabe. Mr Kanemaru probably wishes now he had never met this man, who was the wildly ambitious president of an express courier company called Tokyo Sagawa Kyubin. Today he is the central figure in the money scandal which has forced Mr Kanemaru out of parliament and which may yet cut short the term of the current Prime Minister, Mr Kiichi Miyazawa.

The courier company was bankrupted by its president's mad, reckless quest for influence and favour in Japan's political and criminal worlds, into which he is said to have pumped hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars in cash, loans and loan guarantees. Three ex-prime ministers and two present cabinet ministers are claimed to be on a list of at least 12 big political beneficiaries.

The former PMs, Mr Yasuhiro Nakasone and Mr Takeshita, are alleged to have each got 200 million yen ($A2.2 million), but neither has admitted to it. Mr Kanemaru, on the other hand, stunned the political world more than a month ago when he publicly owned up to having received a donation of 500 million yen($A5.7 million) - more than 300 times the legal limit.

Mr Kanemaru resigned his position as ruling party vice-president to show atonement, but held on to his spot as chairman of the ruling party's Takeshita faction, the largest. Then he locked himself inside his central Tokyo mansion during September, waiting for prosecutors and the angry Japanese public to leave him alone.

The prosecutors obliged, abandoning plans to cross-examine Mr Kanemaru and summarily fining him just 200,000 yen ($A2,300) - the maximum penalty for abuses of Japan's Political Funds Control Law. Public anger exploded on a scale rarely scene in this normally passive, apathetic society, with widespread protests centring on the meagre penalty and the apparently favourable treatment given to Mr Kanemaru.

By the time Mr Kanemaru emerged from hiding and showed up for work this month, purporting to resume duties as faction boss, most of the country and a large number of MPs from his own party had turned against him. The great kingmaker and fixer, the man who routinely showed contempt for democracy and public opinion in his work, was finally hounded into retirement by the will of the people.

While public pressure for more action remains, prosecutors have given mixed signals about their determination, or lack of it, to pursue others caught in the Sagawa net - and about whether to lay bribery charges, which are difficult to sustain. Speculation that the scandal may lapse soon is also fuelled by a conspicuous lack of vigilance from opposition parties, which are said to have dirty money recipients in their own ranks.

In a belated response to public sentiment, opposition groups have vowed to summon Mr Kanemaru and Mr Takeshita for cross-examination in the Diet. Even if both were forced into early retirement, there is no guarantee that current rhetoric on reforming politics would be any less hollow than at this time last year, when the "clean" Prime Minister, Mr Kaifu, was dumped by Mr Kanemaru for daring to push the matter too far.

A root cause of money addiction in Japanese politics is the electoral system, which pits candidates from the same party against each other in multimember constituencies. As they do not oppose each other on policy grounds, the same party opponents tend to have to fight it out with money. In Japan's feudal-style system, local members must employ a big staff to service voters, whose expectations can range from cash bribes at election time to gifts at weddings and funerals.

The costs of perpetual re-election for each member are thus astronomical -more than $1 million a year on average. While local MPs must raise much of the cash themselves, they also get handouts from faction leaders. Power brokers use the cash handouts to build their power base. Mr Kanemaru's 500 million yen payoff from the Sagawa group was reportedly distributed among lower ranking Takeshita faction members.

While getting rid of multi-member electorates would not instantly change this cash culture, it would be a good start. Yet there is great reluctance even for a partial change to single-member constituencies, particularly among the perennially weak opposition groups which stand to lose seats.

The strength of current public opinion may yet push Japan's politicians into making a brave start on reform, which is essential if this country wants to be taken more seriously as a global political leader. In the absence of drastic change, the Japanese politicians are destined to remain utterly preoccupied with the pathetic business of raising cash and trading favours, leaving important policy detail as usual in the hands of the faceless, unelected bureaucrats.

© 1992 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home