Why Hatoyama Failed

Written By: guyjin on June 8, 2010 No Comment

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With the resignation of Hatoyama Yukio last week, Kan Naoto became the fifth man to hold the post of Japanese Prime Minister since September 2006. Since this time, Abe Shinzo (1 year), Fukuda Yasuo (1 year), Aso Taro (1 year), and Hatoyama Yukio (8.5 months) have all failed to govern beyond their first anniversary… Indeed, all but Aso (who lost the election last year to Hatoyama), ended up resigning their posts. Hatoyama had tried to hold on, but eventually the number 17, which one poll put his cabinet’s approval at the weekend before his resignation, seemed to be the final straw…

There has been a lot of commentary about what led to Hatoyama’s downfall. Some blame the trouble over the US base in Okinawa. Others point to political fund scandals that dogged both Hatoyama and Ozawa Ichiro (who also resigned along with the Prime Minister). And Takashi Yokota at Newsweek even blamed the mainstream media… But I think it was even more simple than all of these issues. In a nutshell, Hatoyama is not a leader.

In recent times, there seems to have been a movement in various parts of the world, where politicians have been articulating aspirational goals and ‘yes we can’ attitudes in order to get elected… and then once they are elected, they begin to realize that implementing their ‘pie in the sky’ policies is not as easy as they seemed to think. In many ways, Hatoyama is a dreamer. He may be well suited to writing books, or working in some kind of think tank, where he can talk all day about ‘yuai’, ‘climate change‘, ‘nuclear disarmament’, and ‘fraternal unions in East Asia‘. But ultimately, in order to lead a group of people with differing aspirations and goals, a leader’s dreams must be tempered by pragmatism, and fantasy must give way to reality.

Hatoyama ultimately seemed to have trouble moving from the dream to the reality. He talked of clean and open government, yet was impotent in dealing satisfactorily with political fund scandals that plagued both him and the man behind the scenes that had seemed ‘too big to fail’, Ozawa. And then he dithered for almost his entire term on the Futenma Marine Base issue, promising to review the agreement with the US, and leading critics on, while eventually realizing that there were no realistic alternatives to the status quo. In doing so, Hatoyama took an issue that the majority of the population were not concerned with (in a December 2009 poll, 60% of respondents wanted the government to continue with the 2006 agreement with the US on Futenma, and only 26% wanted significant changes), and turned it into an issue that would define his term in office.

Some have said that the Futenma issue, and Hatoyama’s failure to obtain a satisfactory result for the Okinawan people, and in the process to stand up to the US, were a major factor in his lack of popularity. But I never sensed a ground swell of public opinion against the Japan-US relationship, or against the 2006 agreement in particular. Critics were certainly vocal, but they never really would have threatened Hatoyama’s position if he had been clear and decisive on the issue from the beginning. It was not the issue itself, but Hatoyama’s dithering inability to lead and take a position which saw to his downfall. He seemed to be trying to please everyone, an impossibility, rather than setting the course that was best for the country.

The fact that the public lost confidence in Hatoyama, the man, to a far greater extent than they lost patience with his policies or party is shown clearly by the latest opinion poll for new Prime Minister, Kan Naoto. A JNN poll over the weekend sees Kan with 66.7% support, a massive 50% higher than Hatoyama’s mark just a week earlier. The public seem to still have expectations for the DPJ, and the resignation of Hatoyama seemed to be greeted in many ways with a collective sigh of relief. This was certainly felt more by DPJ politicians than anyone else. The same poll that gave Kan such strong support also showed support for the DPJ at the next election up 11% to 27%, with the LDP falling back 1% to 15%. This suggests that the new leadership may yet forestall losses for the governing party at the coming Upper House elections.

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Tags: DPJ, Futenma, Hatoyama Yukio, Kan Naoto, LDP, Leadership, Prime Minister, Resignation, Yuai