Global News Journal

Japan prime ministers haunted by ever-present media

Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama at a news conference on April 28, 2010. (REUTERS/Toru Hanai)

It’s not unusual for a politician whose popularity has slumped to want to avoid the media. But for Japan’s premiers it’s not just a question of keeping critical newspaper editorials out of sight.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, just like his five predecessors, faces questioning from a posse of reporters morning and evening at least five days a week. And just like his predecessors, he seemed to find these brief  “doorstep news conferences” exhilarating while voter support for his government soared around the 70 percent level after a landslide election victory last year.

Now that only about 20 percent of Japanese say they support him in the run-up to a key upper house election, Hatoyama has visibly lost enthusiasm for commenting twice a day on camera. At first known for lengthy explanations, he has become increasingly curt. He even admitted recently that he’d prefer to skip the doorsteps in favour of holding more frequent sit-down news conferences, inviting a broader range of reporters from magazines and internet outlets.  ”But this is the custom,” he said forlornly.

Life was not necessarily easier for Japanese prime ministers before the doorstep idea was introduced by the popular Junichiro Koizumi, who served as premier from 2001-2006. Before his time, young reporters from Japan’s generously staffed big media companies were sent to camp out by the door of the prime minister’s office, taking note of whoever visited him and following him every time he left the room. Some leaders made it clear they found this constant attention irritating.

A move from the quaint 1920s building to a modernist new prime ministerial office in 2002 cut off reporters’ access to the premier’s office door and Koizumi sought to quell media protests by promising to speak to reporters twice a day. No matter how far their support falls, none of his successors has dared abandon the system for fear of sparking a media backlash. 

But some have sought to look beyond the cub reporters sent to quiz them and speak directly to the electorate. Shinzo Abe, premier from 2006-2007, became known for staring straight into the camera lens while speaking to reporters, in an effort to give the impression he was speaking directly to television viewers.

Japan’s “political deflation”

“Political deflation” – that’s how one quipster described the woes besetting Japan’s political sphere as support for both the new ruling party and its main conservative rival slips on concerns that neither side is capable of steering an economy plagued by falling prices, decades of lacklustre growth and a fast-ageing, shrinking population.

Six months after the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) swept to power  for the first time in a landslide election win that ended more than 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the conservative Liberal Democrats, support for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government is only about half the exuberant 70 percent level enjoyed when he took office.

Pundits are predicting the DPJ will have trouble winning an outright majority in an election, expected to be held in July, for parliament’s less powerful upper house. The Democrats need a majority to break loose of a tiny coalition partner — outspoken banking minister Shizuka Kamei’s People’s New Party  – as well as another small partner, the Social Democrats, so they can avoid policy squabbles and pass bills smoothly. An outright ruling bloc loss threatens parliamentary deadlock.

A survey published in the Nikkei business daily on Monday showed support for Hatoyama’s cabinet has slid seven points to 36 percent and support for the DPJ  is down eight points at 33 percent.

Providing some comfort — albeit cold — for the struggling Democrats is the fact that the ousted Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is faring even worse. Even before last year’s election, former financial services minister Yoshimi Watanabe had bolted the party to form the small pro-reform Your Party, and since that defeat several other lawmakers have defected while some still in the LDP are publicly criticising their uncharismatic leader, Sadakazu Tanigaki, and mulling creating rival forces.

The LDP internal strife isn’t playing well with voters, who may be disappointed with the Democrats but appear to have little appetite for a comeback by the Liberal Democrats. Support for the LDP in the Nikkei poll dipped one point to 23 percent, while that for Your Party, by contrast, doubled  to 8 percent.