Japan not alone in suffering leadership crisis

In fact, many had expected Kan to score an easy victory — until his faux pas did him in. When he was elected premier to succeed Yukio Hatoyama last month, the DPJ Cabinet's approval ratings shot up to an unprecedented 60 percent. Hatoyama was able to lead his Democrats to a landslide victory in the Lower House elections at the end of last August to terminate the LDP's almost uninterrupted rule of a half century, thanks mainly to his promise of change to get Japan out of its all but interminable economic doldrums that have forced the world's second largest economy to pile up a national debt almost double its gross domestic product.

Of course, the promise — well, campaign promise — couldn't be kept. Nobody can. In particular, Hatoyama's promise to remove a U.S. Marine Corps air base at Futenma from Okinawa hit an American stonewall and he had to resign — together with Ichiro Ozawa as his party secretary-general — after both had been implicated in the misuse of campaign donations. Kan is the victim of Hatoyama's broken promise

A plain-spoken former social activist, Kan was more than eager to sell the tax reform he had espoused while serving as Hatoyama's finance minister to help reduce the mountain of national debt. He proposed to increase the sales tax by 10 percent just as the LDP had done. It's a proper and fitting proposal which was made at a wrong time. Japan has to raise tax sooner or later to prevent an economic bubble bust like the one it suffered at the end of 1980s.

Kan may be toppled, but anybody who replaces him simply has to raise sales tax — and other taxes, too — to prevent a Greece-type meltdown in Japan. But the trouble is that nobody dare do so. Japan has a leadership crisis. So do practically all other democracies across the world. Does U.S. President Barack Obama fare any better? How about Nicolas Sarkozy of France? Lee Myung-bak of South Korea? Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany? Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom? Or President Ma Ying-jeou?

They have one trait in common. They have made many, many campaign promises to win the hearts of voters who have impossibly high expectations for a change for the better. When those leaders cannot deliver what they have promised, their charisma is gone. Voters turn to others who are able to make promise after mesmerizing promise.

That is the karma of all aspiring politicians in modern democracies across the world.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email