Japanese Prime Minister in coma

TOKYO, APRIL 3. The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Keizo Obuchi, is unconscious and in coma, the acting Premier, Mr. Mikio Aoki, said .

Vajpayee's message

The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, today expressed concern for Mr. Obuchi's illness and prayed for his speedy recovery.

- AFP, PTI

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Setback for LDP in election year

By F.J. Khergamvala

TOKYO, APRIL. 3. The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Keizo Obuchi has gone into a coma. The handing over of the reins of office leaves a power vacuum within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party- led coalition at a time when it needs to get its act right, both at home and in foreign relations.

It was announced this afternoon that the ailing Prime Minister is now on a respirator. Quite obviously, his condition has worsened rapidly and it is time for Japan to look to a new person. For the short-term future, Mr. Obuchi's condition will hinder the party going into a general election and meeting the demands as host of the G-8 summit, scheduled in Okinawa for late July.

Mr. Mikio Aoki, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, while announcing this morning that Mr. Obuchi had asked him to take over as Acting Prime Minister, said after he had last met the Prime Minister, he had been moved to the intensive care unit of a local hospital. Late in the afternoon, Mr. Aoki announced that Mr. Obuchi was in a coma. Asked earlier if Mr. Obuchi's condition was life- threatening, Mr. Aoki told reporters, ``I don't know.''

Ordinarily, Japan would perhaps be the last country to cry out for a single person leadership. Its powerful bureaucracy and consensus style makes it relatively less necessary than other nations to have a man at the helm. The fact that the markets and business leaders expressed anxiety about a prolonged vacuum suggests that Mr. Obuchi had proven himself as a leader. Share prices opened lower at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, partly because of the uncertainty of the long-term prognosis for Mr. Obuchi.

Mr. Obuchi, 62, became Prime Minister in the summer of 1998 when the LDP, led by Mr. Ryutaro Hashimoto suffered a debacle in the elections to a part of the Upper House. He had just begun positioning himself in an advantageous position before the general election which must be held by October 19 this year. The handling of the public safety aspects of the Mt. Usu volcano eruptions, the economy, the upcoming high-profile G-8 Summit and the splitting of a troublesome coalition partner were factors which helped improve Mr. Obuchi's hold on power. On a personal plane, his ready and self-effacing wit, folksy style, a habit of dialling people at random and a ruthless backroom manipulating skills transformed him from a lacklustre politician to an achiever in the eyes of the people and analysts. He could hold his own even after his mentor, the former Prime Minister, Mr. Noboru Takeshita became seriously ill.

The LDP cannot possibly rely on the stop-gap Premier, Mr. Aoki to fill the vacuum. Mr. Aoki, 65, has been an Upper House member without any political constituency since 1986 and was recommended as a loyal aide by Mr. Takeshita to help Mr. Obuchi. His main achievement was to consolidate the coalition. Japan and the LDP requires a much more formidable leader to lead the country into the G-8 and then into a Lower House election.

The LDP Secretary-General, Mr. Yoshiro Mori and the Foreign Minister, Mr. Yohei Kono are clearly the front runners. On paper, Mr. Kono is better positioned because he is the only person in the post-war era to have been the LDP head but not the Prime Minister when the LDP was in charge. He is fairly young by Japanese standards of leadership and with his foreign affairs experience, is competent to play host-nation leader at the G-8.

The reality could be different as the party knows that the person who adopts a high profile at the G-8 gets an advantage in the Prime Ministerial stakes. Mr. Obuchi will be the LDP chief until at least a year after the election.

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