Ichiro Ozawa: ’Wily, Machiavellian, amoral’

Japan, it seems, it set to dump its prime minister. You’d be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu. If scandal-tainted power broker Ichiro Ozawa knocks off Naoto Kan in a challenge for the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) on Sept. 14, he’ll become the country’s third leader in 12 months. Kan has been in office for all of 90 days. His predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, who decamped, as he explained, because a “little bird” told him it was time, lasted less than nine months. Indeed, Japan has seen six leaders in four years, its spin-cycle politics spitting out new prime ministers with frightening speed.

“Although I am unworthy, I have decided to run in the leadership election,” Ozawa said last month, announcing his intent. Few pundits disagree. “He’s a wily, Machiavellian, amoral player—and he knows where all the bodies are hidden,” says former Canadian ambassador to Japan Joseph Caron. Three months ago, the 68-year-old veteran power broker was forced out as the DPJ’s secretary-general, the party’s No. 2 position, because of his links to a campaign funding scandal for which he may still face indictment.

Nevertheless, he’s also an ideas man, says Stanford University’s Daniel Sneider. Ozawa wrote one of the most interesting books about the country’s future direction: Blueprint for a New Japan, which offers a “serious, programmatic” vision for the country. And he’s decisive—a quality the country is aching for after a rudderless half-decade. “The downside is: people don’t like him,” says Sneider. “It’s a crippling problem.”

Four in five Japanese don’t want Ozawa having any political influence, according to a recent poll for the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. When asked to choose between him and Kan, three in four opted for the latter. But Japanese politics have long been divorced from the people politicians set out to serve, says Caron: “The parties are not democratic—the leaders aren’t elected by party members,” but by sitting MPs. Currently, both Kan and Ozawa each have the support of roughly 160 of the 412 Diet members. The race, say analysts, is too close to call.

Ozawa, known as the “Shadow Shogun,” was cast into the wilderness by the Kan slate, but smelled blood after Kan’s disastrous showing in upper house elections in July. “Kan went to war, but couldn’t finish the job,” says Sneider—he “didn’t prove any more capable of leading the party, or government.” The feud, which is casting a shadow over Japan’s stalled economy and delaying crucial policy decisions, carries real risks for the country, says Caron, who spent 17 years in Japan, and recently joined the Vancouver-based Asia Pacific Foundation as a distinguished fellow. And an ugly fight, he says, could irrevocably split the DPJ, which has been governing without a majority since this summer’s elections. The endless shuffle has, meanwhile, guaranteed Japan virtual anonymity on the world stage. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva struggled mightily when trying to remember the name of Japan’s prime minister in a recent speech. “You say ‘good morning’ to one prime minister, and ‘good afternoon’ to a different one,” Lula said with a shrug.