Peter Alford, Tokyo correspondent | July 25, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THEY were the vanguard "Koizumi's Children", whom their mentor hoped would continue his project of remaking the Liberal Democrat Party; today, the party is on shaky ground and they are most at risk of being swept away.
"We are the strongest reformers, we are committed to the cause and we are committed to returning as second-term Diet members," Kuniko Inoguchi said the day after Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolved the House of Representatives and called an August 30 election.
Dr Inoguchi, Satsuki Katayama and Yukari Sato arrived in the house in September 2006 among 83 LDP first-timers swept in by a surge of voter enthusiasm for Junichiro Koizumi's dashing "new politics" and his ambush of Old LDP rebels who fought his postal privatisation scheme.
They were chosen by Mr Koizumi, who retired as prime minister a year later and leaves his seat this election, for career achievements, political freshness and, above all, commitment to his reforms.
Ms Katayama had been a senior Finance Ministry official and greatly feared at budget preparation time by spending ministries; Ms Sato was chief economist at Credit Suisse First Boston (Japan); Dr Inoguchi, a political scientist, had been Japan's ambassador to the UN Conference on Disarmament. Dr Inoguchi was taken straight into the final Koizumi cabinet as minister for gender equality and social affairs while Ms Katayama became parliamentary vice-minister for economy, trade and industry.
In a party hierarchy where MPs usually wait five terms for their first vice-ministry and seven or eight for a ministry, these were extraordinary appointments.
"I think you will not find very many people as energetic, intelligent and positive as we are here," Dr Inoguchi said on Tuesday.
But that will be to little avail unless the long-dominant conservative party -- voted out just once previously in 54 years -- can in the next 35 days somehow turn back a powerful anti-government trend.
If not, a tide even stronger than 2005, but this time of bitter disillusion with the party Mr Koizumi left behind, will sweep away most Koizumi Children clinging to seats they took from the now-resurgent Democratic Party of Japan.
Ms Katayama's recession-blasted manufacturing district in Shizuoka and Ms Sato's Gifu seat are already written off as LDP losses by many commentators.
But the tide is buffeting far more senior LDP people -- including five former party secretary-generals (all still powerful figures), five of eight faction leaders, a former prime minister and now factional don and a brace of ministers.
In an atmosphere of devil-take-the-hindmost desperation, there will be few lifeboat seats available for one-termers who aroused much resentment in the party establishment even while their patron occupied the prime ministerial office.
After Mr Koizumi stood down, the old hands' dislike of his disruptive policies and bulldozer methods began to be vented on his proteges, particularly those who continued defiantly to carry his torch.
Under Mr Koizumi's successor, Shinzo Abe, Dr Inoguchi was not reappointed to cabinet and Ms Katayama did not get another vice-ministry position.
Under Yasuo Fukuda and now Mr Aso, the isolation of still-committed Koizumi reformists -- fewer than 30 of the original cohort -- became quite blatant. A couple bolted recently to defend their seats alone rather under the flag of a party one said was no longer the "Koizumi LDP of the 2005 election", but for most "children", that is not an option.
Without headquarters support, the burden of saving their seats would be impossible.
On principle, they argue, as Ms Sato does, that if prospects for Koizumi reform have soured in the LDP, they are impossible within the DPJ's "new socialism".
For the time being, the vanguard Koizumi's Children have recommitted to Mr Aso leading a backward-looking LDP into perhaps the party's most critical election, but their disappointment is palpable.
They make the point separately that the Prime Minister has called an election without a policy manifesto -- one is being scrambled together now -- although younger MPs have been arguing for months for a policy-driven campaign.
"We have to make by ourselves, each one of us, our manifestos and stand on our own feet to retain the voters' confidence and support," said Ms Katayama. "That is a very different position from last time."
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