$Unique_ID{bob00339} $Pretitle{} $Title{Japan Chapter 5C. Professional Organizations} $Subtitle{} $Author{Donald M. Seekins} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{ldp party members support diet political factions groups system house} $Date{1981} $Log{} Title: Japan Book: Japan, A Country Study Author: Donald M. Seekins Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1981 Chapter 5C. Professional Organizations Japan's physicians, lawyers, engineers, academics, and other professionals have organized into professional associations for the exchange of knowledge and the influence of government policy in ways that are similar to those found in other developed countries. One of the most prominent of these has been the Japan Medical Association. Its demands, directed at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, have included increases in the fees charged for Japan's national health care system, the rationalization of health insurance procedures, and preservation of the system by which doctors, pursuing a highly profitable sideline, sell their own prescription drugs rather than sending patients to pharmacists. In the summer of 1971 some 50,000 physicians participated in a one-day strike, organized by the association, protesting the system of compulsory national health insurance. Consumers' and Citizens' Movements Consumers' and citizens' movements, which became prominent in the late 1960s and 1970s, have not been organized around occupational categories but around issues relating to the quality of life-the safety and cost of consumer goods and the protection of the environment from industrial pollution. Finding themselves opposed to established business interests, these groups have made alliances with leftist political groups but in general are nonideological. They have expressed a number of themes: concern for the health and safety of individuals, shock at the way the natural environment has been ruined by rampant industrial expansion, as well as an antipathy toward large corporations greedy for profits. Women have played a prominent part, especially in consumer movements. Women's groups concerned with consumer issues included in late 1981 the National Federation of Regional Women's Associations (Chifuren), the Housewives Association (Shufuren), and the National Association of Consumer Cooperatives (Seikyoren). These have depended on the support of neighborhood women's associations, the women's sections of local agricultural and fishing cooperatives, and government-sponsored consumer education groups. Consumer activity was stimulated by the passing of a Consumer Basic Protection Law in 1968. Subsequently two boycotts were organized by the groups against companies making canned foods containing carcinogenic cyclamates and those making color television sets. The latter, protesting artificially high prices, was especially successful, gaining wide publicity for the consumers' movement. Sales of these sets declined sharply until manufacturers agreed to give in to consumerist demands. Citizens' movements have been concerned principally with issues relating to the environment, although observers claim that the earliest citizens' movements were organized in 1960 to protest the ratification of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan. Antipollution protests were not unknown in the prewar period. In the late nineteenth century, farmers organized a movement to stop the poisoning of croplands by effluents from the Ashio copper mine, north of Tokyo. Probably the most famous postwar movement has been that to obtain redress for victims suffering from mercury poisoning caused by the pollution of Minamata Bay in Kumamoto Prefecture by a chemical company. Incidents of chemical poisoning gave rise to similar protests in Niigata, Toyama, and Yokkaichi in the 1960s. In all these cases organized groups of victims were able to get compensation from polluting companies through the courts. Citizens' movements were started in other places in order to force companies to install pollution control devices or to prevent them from building factories in local areas. In the early 1970s opposition politicians on the local levels were able to use the issue of pollution to win elections, the conservative LDP being depicted as an accomplice of greedy business interests. Alliances between citizens' groups and leftist politicians, however, have not implied an ideological commitment on the part of the former, and in many cases leftists, especially the Socialists, have been ambivalent about their support; insofar as their primary support comes from labor unions whose members regard efforts to regulate or close down offending factories with little enthusiasm, leftists have often been indifferent, or even hostile, to citizens' movements. Thus the socialist mayor of Minamata and union workers refused to support the pollution victims' movement. In the eyes of many observers, the significance of citizens' movements goes beyond their immediate objectives. They represent, in their words, the growth of a "new politics," "one of the most important and spectacular trends in contemporary Japanese history and politics." Environmental groups have drawn their members from all social classes and backgrounds, united around the single issue of pollution within a given locality. They have struggled to maintain their autonomy both from co-option by local-level LDP machines and from leftist control, although their members often studied organizational tactics and methods under leftist tutelage. The most active have distanced themselves from the traditionally oriented neighborhood self-government bodies that have been used by conservatives to gain local support (see Local Government, this ch.). Within the movements the hierarchical structure common to most Japanese groups is largely absent; organization is loosely structured, and members strive in a self-conscious way to relate to each other democratically. Although a great diversity of associations has been included under the label of "citizens' movements," ranging from those that are merely fronts to those that are genuinely independent, it has been suggested that they represent a new democratic consciousness, the development of a true "citizen" rather than a "subject" mentality, and the most potent means through which individuals can be socialized in democratic values. Nevertheless their future is somewhat clouded, owing to the resurgence of conservative political sentiment in the early 1980s. Minority Rights Groups Although the Japanese consider themselves to be a remarkably homogeneous people, a number of minorities do exist, and these have suffered discrimination in the past. The largest group is the burakumin, numbering from 1.5 to 3 million in 1981, who are descendants of the outcast communities of feudal Japan (see Population, ch. 2). The first burakumin rights organization, the Levellers' Association of Japan (Suiheisha), was established in 1922. After World War II the National Committee for Burakumin Liberation was founded, changing its name to the Burakumin Liberation League in the 1950s. The League, with support from the socialist and communist parties, was able to pressure the government into making important concessions in the late 1960s and 1970s. One was the passing of a Special Measures Law for Assimilation Projects, which provided financial aid for burakumin communities. Another was the closing of nineteenth century family registers, kept by the Ministry of Justice, which were maintained for all Japanese, and revealed the outcast origins of the burakumin. These records could now be consulted only in legal cases, making it more difficult to discover, and discriminate against, burakumin. In recent years the Burakumin Liberation League has become increasingly independent of the leftist parties, stressing burakumin autonomy and a pragmatic rather than an ideological stance. The original inhabitants of the northern region of Japan, the Ainu, were gradually pushed out of their homeland by settlers from the southern part of the country over many centuries. Ainu interests have been represented by the Hokkaido Utari Kyokai, and in recent years there has been a revival of interest in traditional Ainu art, culture, and ways of life. Although an "Ainu Liberation" movement had taken responsibility for bombings in various cities in the 1970s, these acts, it seems, were perpetrated by radical groups rather than by the Ainu themselves. Koreans living in Japan in 1981 numbered approximately 675,000. Like the burakumin, they have been subject to discrimination, but unlike them, have not become a part of the regular political process because they are, for the most part, noncitizens. Their interests in Japan have been advanced by groups sympathetic to the governments of either the Republic of Korea (South Korea) or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). The most prominent is the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chosoren), which is sponsored by North Korea. The Press and Politics In 1977 Japan had some 120 newspapers with a circulation estimated at 43 million, the five largest being the Asahi shimbun, the Mainichi shimbun, the Yomiuri shimbun, the Sankei shimbun, and the Nihon keizai shimbun. There were countless magazines, ranging from politically influential journals such as Sekai, the Chuo koron, and Bungei shunju to sarariman manga ("salaryman magazines"), comic books for adults that depict the vicissitudes and fantasies of contemporary office workers. The major magazines and newspapers have been vocal in their criticism of government policies, and they have taken great pains to map out the "tunnels" and "pipelines" through which political contributions flow from business interests to the ruling LDP and the intricate matrimonial connections of top conservative politicians, civil servants, and prominent business leaders. Newspapers were privately owned, although the largest radio and television broadcasting network, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (Nippon Hoso Kyokai-NHK) was a government-owned corporation much like the British Broadcasting Corporation. Observers in 1981 pointed out that the independence of the established press has been limited by the pervasive "press club" system. Politicians and government agencies each had one of these clubs containing from ten to over 270 reporters from different newspapers, journals, and broadcast media. Members in a single club were generally described as being closer to each other than they were to their respective newspapers and journals; they established a close and collaborative working relationship with the political figure or government agency to which the club was attached. There was little opportunity for reporters to establish a genuinely critical, independent stance because reporting distasteful matters might lead to their being excluded from the club and thus unable to gain information and write stories. Some critics accused the large newspapers, ostensibly oppositionist, of being little more than a "transmission belt of government ideas to the people"; free lance reporters, working outside the press club system, often made the real breakthroughs in investigative reporting, as when one published accounts of Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei's personal finances in a monthly magazine in 1974. The Liberal Democratic Party The alignment of political parties in postwar Japan has often been called the "one-and-a-half party system," referring to the fact that in late 1981 the LDP had been in power for over a quarter of a century. There were several opposition parties, the largest of these, the JSP, being the "half party" of the "one-and-a-half party system," but these have been unable to gain enough electoral support to form governments of their own. Despite the emergence of several new opposition parties, the system has remained remarkably stable, with the LDP hanging on to its majorities in both the House of Councillors and the House of Representatives. This has enabled the party to evolve a sound process of policy formulation over the years, which would not have been possible if opposition parties had been able to form governments. LDP strength has been based on a coalition of business, and to a lesser extent, agricultural and other interests, which were sustained through the collaboration of powerful government bureaucrats. Observers argue that in the postwar era, political power has rested on a "tripod" of LDP politicians, big businessmen, and bureaucrats, who were so closely interconnected that in many cases it was almost impossible to say where one "leg" of the "tripod" ended and another began (see Policy-making Dynamics, this ch.). Party History and Basic Principles The LDP has a complex genealogy, having roots going back to the groups formed by Itagaki Taisuke and Okuma Shigenobu in the 1880s. It attained its present form in November 1955, when the conservative Liberal and Democratic parties united in response to the threat posed by a unified Socialist Party, which had been established the month before. The union of the two has often been described as a "shotgun marriage." Both had strong leaders and had previously been in competition with each other. The Democratic Party, which had been established only a year before in November 1954 was itself a coalition of different groups in which farmers' interests were prominent. The result of the amalgamation process was a large party, representing a broad spectrum of interests but which had weak organization in comparison with the Socialist and other leftist parties. The LDP is not, like the leftist parties, based upon a well-defined ideology or political philosophy, and its principles are at times rather difficult to define. Its members hold a variety of positions on issues that can be broadly defined as being to the right of the opposition parties, yet more moderate than those of Japan's numerous rightist splinter groups (see Political Extremists, this ch.). The LDP has identified itself with a number of very general national goals. During most of the postwar period the most important of these have been rapid economic growth and the development of overseas markets for exports, a reflection of predominant business interests. In foreign policy the LDP has pursued a course of close cooperation with the United States on matters of defense and security as defined within the limits of both the 1960 security treaty and Article 9 of the Constitution (see Relations with the United States. ch. 7; Public Order and Internal Security, ch. 8). In recent years a number of other themes have become prominent. In his policy speech to the ninety-fifth Extraordinary Session of the Diet on September 28, 1981, Suzuki reaffirmed his commitment to the enactment of administrative and fiscal reforms that would create a "simplified and efficient administration." Government costs would be cut, partly through the adoption of a "personnel reduction plan," in order to ease the tax burden and control burgeoning deficits. In the 1981 budget the increase in general spending was to be held down to 4.3 percent, the lowest increase since 1956. Other issues of concern have included the creation of a "welfare society" featuring a better quality of life for the people and the need to deal with the special problems of Japan's aging population, the "old people boom." There has been an emphasis on the importance of the "North-South question"-the relations between developed and developing countries and the need to assist the latter in their agricultural development and food production. Right-wing members of the LDP, perhaps the most prominent having been Kishi Nobusuke, who was prime minister from 1957 to 1960, have supported revision of the Constitution, although in general the subject has been considered taboo for LDP politicians. In February 1981 Suzuki reiterated the official position that it should not be revised and warned that cabinet ministers who disagreed with this would be obliged to resign. This has been a delicate issue for the LDP, one that party leaders would prefer to keep in the background. Bases of Support The LDP has been perhaps the most "traditionally Japanese" of all the political parties, relying as it has on a complex network of patron-client (oyabun-kobun) relationships both on the national and the local levels. There has been a system of factions found both in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors that tied individual LDP Diet members to powerful party leaders; on the local level Diet members have maintained support groups (koenkai) in order to gain support during election campaigns and keep in touch with local public opinion. The importance and pervasiveness of personal ties, between Diet member and faction leader and between citizen and Diet member, has given the LDP its pragmatic, nonideological character and has made success in politics less dependent on mass appeal than on jiban (a strong, well-organized constituency), kaban (a briefcase full of money), and kanban (a prestigious appointment, especially a ministry). Many observers have pointed out that the LDP has been not so much a single organization as a loose conglomeration of competitive factions (habatsu) which, despite traditional emphases on harmony and consensus, have engaged in bloody infighting that has damaged the party's image in the eyes of the electorate and has helped the opposition. Over the years factions have numbered from eight to thirteen, with as few as four members and as many as over 100. All have been members of the Diet, although the system has been more deeply entrenched in the House of Representatives, where the real power is, than in the House of Councillors. Faction leaders have usually been veteran LDP politicians, many of whom have served as prime minister: Ohira Masayoshi, Miki Takeo, Fukuda Takeo, and Tanaka Kakuei. Nakasone Yasuhiro and Komoto Toshio are two faction leaders who by late 1981 had not served as prime minister. The choice of Suzuki as prime minister in July 1980 was considered unusual in light of his not being a powerful faction leader, although he had a reputation as a shrewd middleman and had the support of the Tanaka and Ohira factions. Faction leaders offer to their followers services without which they would find it difficult, if not impossible, to survive politically. They provide funds for the day-to-day operation of Diet members' offices and staffs as well as financial support during expensive election campaigns. This is essential because operating allowances provided by the government are very small. The leader also provides his followers with introductions to influential people in the bureaucracy and the business world, which make it easier for them to satisfy the demands of their constituents. Factions form temporary alliances and combinations, and when a new prime minister is chosen a "balance of power" is struck between those who support him-the "mainstream" factions-and those who do not-the "anti-mainstream" factions. The opposition between mainstream and anti-mainstream faction groupings can become extremely vindictive. The "spoils" of factional infighting for the mainstream coalition are the most prestigious cabinet ministries, such as those of finance, foreign affairs, and international trade and industry, while the anti-mainstream faction gets the smaller crumbs. The LDP faction system has been closely fitted to the nature of House of Representative electorial districts, which return three to five persons to the Diet with the exception of the single-member Amami Islands district (see The Electoral System, this ch.). The LDP has usually run more than one candidate in each of these constituencies in order to gain a majority in the House of Representatives, and these candidates have been from different factions. Thus during an election campaign, the LDP has, in a real sense, run not only against the opposition parties but against itself. This intraparty competition, though often sordid and unseemly, has served to keep the party viable. The struggle between factions has encouraged the rise of different, if not new, leaders and has prevented the party from ossifying, the result of power being kept by one leader or small group of leaders over a period of many decades. The competition between factions has been political and personal, however, rather than ideological. There have been ideologically based groups within the LDP, of which the most prominent is probably the "Summer Storm Group" (Seirankai), formed in 1973 by younger LDP Diet members, which is rightist and critical of old-style faction politics; but these are still of less importance than the factions themselves. Factions have been seen as something of an embarrassment, despite their usefulness. In the 1960s LDP politicians as diverse as Kishi Nobusuke, Ikeda Hayato, and Sato Eisaku denounced them. In 1965 Tanaka, then LDP secretary general, declared that "the essential condition for the LDP to emerge and grow in both name and fact as a modern political party responsible for the nation's policies, is the abolition of the factions." In March 1977 Tanaka, Ohira, and Fukuda "dissolved" their factions, closing down faction headquarters offices, but this has been interpreted as little more than a symbolic gesture. A more significant reform was the adoption in 1978 of a primary system to choose the LDP party president (and thus prime minister), one that had been advocated by the reform-minded Miki. Formerly the choice of party president was up to LDP Diet members and special "prefectural" delegates and thus, in fact, the choice of the factions. The new system provided for his nomination by a mass membership in a primary election, the final choice being made by Diet members from between the two who garnered the largest number of votes. Eligibility was defined by party membership, members paying annual dues in 1978 of 1,500 Yen (for value of the yen-see Glossary). In that year there were 1.5 million LDP members, and when the first primary was held in November, Ohira won an upset victory over the favorite, Fukuda, by a margin of 78,000 votes, some 87.6 percent of all party members participating. Fukuda conceded, and Ohira became the first prime minister chosen in this "democratic" manner. Observers have argued, however, that there is little difference in fact between the old and the new systems of choosing a party president and that the faction system is as strong as ever. Factions shifted their focus from the Diet members on the national level to their local support organizations (koenkai), pouring large amounts of money into these and shifting the faction struggles from the national to the local level. According to political scientist Tsurutani Taketsugu, "In many districts, there were near-violent physical confrontations between koenkai members of competing LDP MPs [Members of Parliament] during the election campaign because, with factional struggle now nakedly extended to the grassroots level, the LDP candidates' principal adversaries were no longer candidates but one another. Therefore, relations among factions within the parliamentary LDP were characterized by an unprecedented heightening of hostility, mistrust and stridency." The greater intensity of factional struggle was expressed in the boycott of the Diet by anti-mainstream faction members during a Socialist-sponsored no confidence vote in May 1980. The vote carried-an unprecedented development-and the government was dissolved with elections to be held in June. Suzuki was chosen prime minister in July 1980 without benefit of a primary, and the future of the new system looked doubtful. The koenkai were in late 1981 perhaps even more important to the survival of members of the Diet than faction membership. They have served as channels through which funds and other forms of support are channeled to the candidate and through which he distributes favors to his constituents in return. They have promoted cultural, social, and "educational" activities throughout the year, thus avoiding stringent legal restrictions on political activity outside of designated election campaign periods. In the prewar years, having an invincible, or "iron constituency," depended upon gaining the support of landlords and other local notables. They delivered blocks of votes to the candidates they favored; in the more pluralistic postwar period, the local bosses have been much weaker and building an "iron constituency" has been more difficult. Large amounts of money and a flexible and pervasive network of supporters' organizations were required. Koenkai have remained particularly prominent in rural areas, where paternalistic "old style" politics has flourished and where the LDP has had its strongest electoral support. "Money Power Politics" and the Tanaka Kakuei Phenomenon From 1961 to 1975 the principal source of funds for the LDP as a whole was the National Association (Kokumin Kyokai), which has been described by critics as a "tunnel" through which funds flowed to the party from business interests. Keidanren was alleged to have been especially instrumental in getting large amounts of money from industrial groups, a total of some 10 Yen to 20 billion Yen annually in the early 1970s. Useful as a means of "laundering" political funds, the Kokumin Kyokai was implicated in the money scandals that led to the resignation of Tanaka in 1974, and Keidanren's new director, Doko Toshio, cut the business group's ties with it that same year. A new organization, the National Political Association (Kokumin Seiji Kyokai), was established. Miki, who was prime minister from 1974 to 1976, attempted to promote reforms of political funding that would reduce party dependence on large contributions from business and rely more on individual citizen donations. He hoped to end all corporate contributions after a period of three years, but other LDP leaders found his proposals too radical and the reforms were abandoned. The new Kokumin Seiji Kyokai was, in terms of directors and staff, almost identical with the old Kokumin Kyokai and in late 1981, contributions from individual business enterprises, especially banks and heavy industry, and business associations continued to be the major source of revenue not only for the LDP but for its factions, which garnered funds independently from the party as a whole. In 1975 Miki's government was able to pass-with the support of most of the opposition parties-an amendment to the Public Office Election Law, which prohibited Diet members and members of local assemblies from making monetary contributions to their constituents, and also to pass a revision of the Public Funds Regulation Law which regulated contributions to politicians more strictly. Yet irregularities by LDP politicians continued to be a prominent feature of the political scene. The largest in recent years was the Lockheed scandal. An inquiry by the United States Senate in February 1976 revealed that the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation had paid large bribes to government officials and politicians in Japan in order to sell Lockheed Tristar aircraft to All Nippon Airways. The money, equivalent to some US$8.73 million, had been piped through three channels: Kodama Yoshio, shadowy rightist figure with underworld connections; Marubeni, a trading corporation that handled Lockheed's business in Japan; and All Nippon Airways itself. A number of top LDP men were involved, principally Tanaka. He had three other LDP Diet members were indicted and obliged to resign from the party. A number of other LDP Diet members, nicknamed "grey officials" in contrast to Tanaka and other indicted figures being "black officials," were allowed to remain within the party; however, the party was torn by dissension as "clean" Miki committed himself to pressing an investigation of the affair, while his opponents desperately struggled to push him out of office. In June 1976 six LDP Diet members, led by Kono Yohei, quit the party in disgust and founded their own party, the New Liberal Club (NLC). Despite Miki's fall in late 1976, the Lockheed investigation was continued, and six more LDP politicians, including a former transport minister, were indicted in January 1978. The career of Tanaka illustrates the dynamics of factions, local support organizations, and traditional patron-client relationships in LDP politics. Tanaka had only a vocational school education and got his start after World War II in the construction business. Elected to the House of Representatives from the Third Electoral District of Niigata Prefecture in northern Japan in 1947, he became LDP general secretary (the second highest position in the party) in 1965, and served as prime minister from 1972 to 1974. Nicknamed the "bulldozer" for his determination to get ahead and "Hideyoshi" because he, like the sixteenth century warlord, came from a humble background, Tanaka was a consummate practitioner of "money politics." In 1974 he was forced to resign as prime minister because of a scandal involving the sources of his personal wealth; in July 1976 he was arrested and jailed briefly in connection with the Lockheed bribery case. Although he resigned from the LDP, Tanaka's political career was far from over. In the December 1976 House of Representatives election, he was reelected as an independent by the Niigata Third District by a wide margin, carrying 60,000 votes more than were needed to win and only a few thousand less than he did in 1972 when he was prime minister. Tanaka had maintained a loyal support base in his constituency, providing this poor, rural district with much-needed public projects, such as highways and bridges, and express railroad service. His local support organization, the Etsuzankai, was among the most efficient in the country, enrolling more than 98,000 members, or 20 percent of the district's eligible voters. The power of the traditional patron-client appeals is expressed in the remarks of Third District people who claimed, at the time of the 1976 election, that they had to "repay their debts" to Tanaka for all the benefits he had provided them. Between 1976 and late 1981 Tanaka, although still under investigation and facing a possible jail sentence and heavy fines, remained politically powerful on the national level. His faction was the largest in the LDP, having at least 102 and as many as 140 members in both Houses, and his influence was essential in making Ohira and Suzuki prime ministers in 1978 and 1980. The Liberal Democratic Party in National and Local Elections The LDP has managed, since 1955, to retain a simple majority in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors with the exception of the 1976 lower house election, when it could form a government only with the support of conservative independents and the breakway NLC. Between 1958 and 1976 both the percentage of voters supporting LDP candidates and the number of LDP seats in the Diet gradually declined (see fig. 12). This trend was reversed in the 1979 House of Representatives election and in the "double election" of June 22, 1980, which was unusual in that candidates ran for both houses of the Diet. The LDP made an impressive comeback, winning 47.9 percent of the popular vote for the lower house, the highest since 1967. This seemed to mark the beginning of a conservative resurgence in which opposition hopes of forming a coalition government were dashed (see The Opposition Parties, this ch.). The impressive gains in both houses achieved by the LDP in 1980 were attributed in part to the "sympathy factor" that was aroused in 1980 by the death of Ohira in June, particularly among "floating voters" without a strong party identification, and some observers have even credited the fine weather on June 22 with encouraging the turnout of LDP supporters. Other, perhaps more basic, factors would have included the inability of the opposition parties to present, through the formation of coalitions, a viable alternative to LDP rule. A pervasive mood of caution, an unwillingness to "rock the boat" rather than positive support for the LDP, stimulated in part by unstable international conditions and slower rates of economic growth at home, may have contributed to the conservative resurgence. Even during the "Lockheed election" for the House of Representatives in December 1976, when the LDP's fortunes reached its lowest ebb, surveys revealed that voters were less preoccupied with the misdoings of corrupt politicians than with more concrete issues such as high prices and the standard of living. Economic issues remained the most salient in the eyes of the people, and it is likely that as long as economic growth and increases in the standard of living continue, the LDP will be able to draw on broad popular support. LDP strength remained greatest in the rural districts, declining statistically from district to district with increasing urbanization (see table 23, table 24, Appendix). The party might lose its majority in the Diet if the system of electoral districts, in which rural areas have been greatly overrepresented, were changed to represent urban districts more fairly (see The Electoral System, this ch.). In the late 1970s, however, the LDP, in coalition with moderate opposition parties, began winning back some of the big city prefectural governorships and mayorships that had been lost to leftist coalitions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In April 1978 the LDP-backed independent Hayashida Yukio won against a progressive coalition candidate in the Kyoto gubernatorial election; in April of the following year another LDP-backed candidate, Suzuki Shun'ichi, defeated a socialist and communist-backed opponent for the Tokyo Metropolitan District governorship, which previously had been held by Minobe Ryokichi, a progressive closely identified with the citizens' movements, for three terms, or twelve years. In July 1981 a conservative-centrist coalition retained control of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly although LDP candidates did not form a majority.