Rift in Japan’s ruling party

Press, 25 October 1982, Page 8

Rift in Japan’s ruling party

NZPA-Reuter Tokyo Rifts are widening in Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party oyer its failure to pick a successor to the outgoing Prime Minister, Mr Zenko Suzuki, political sources said yesterday. The party was plunged into turmoil at the week-end when four Cabinet Ministers launched their campaigns for a preliminary leadership election by the L.D.P.’s total membership of just over a million. This came after the failure of party leaders at a marathon 12-hour meeting to agree on a single candidate and avert a prolonged and nnfpntinJlv divicivp battle

over the succession. The sources described the meeting as a clash between former Prime Ministers Kakuei Tanaka and Takeo Fukuda, whose rivalry has dominated Japanese politics for the past decade. Mr Tanaka, now on trial in connection with the 1976 Lockheed bribery scandal, is backing the candidacy of Yasuhiro Nakasone, aged 64, the director-general of the Administrative Management Agency. The other three candidates, temporarily united in the “Fukuda Group” although each has his own supporters, have all pledged to end Mr Tanaka’s alleged domination

ment. They are Toshio Komoto, aged 71, director-general of the Economic Planning Agency, Shintaro Abe, aged 58, the International Trade and Industry Minister, and Ichiro Nakagawa, aged 57, the director of the Science and Technology Agency.

The candidates have already started feuding over the election rules and whether the preliminary election on November 23 should be followed by a vote of the party’s 421 members of Parliament.

Mr Nakagawa said that the winner of the primary should automatically become the new leader without a run-off election.

The party has only held a leadership vote by its members once before, and Mr Nakagawa recalled that Mr Fukuda, then Prime Minister, stepped down in 1978 after being beaten in the election by Mr Tanaka’s candidate, Masayoshi Ohira. But Mr Nakasone, who has the backing of 244 members of Parliament from factions led by himself, Mr Tanaka and Mr Suzuki, said that a run-off election should be held under party rules.

In 1978 Mr Fukuda was the incumbent Prime Minister, he said, and had declared before the membership vote that he would resign if defeated.