Labels:text | screenshot | newspaper OCR: INSIGHT HITACHI& enough to assure an aspirant of the prime minis- ter's post. He could get almost any bill he wanted passed by the Diet just by sharing back-room SINGAPORE drinks with members of the LDP's chief opposi- tion. His mastery over the mighty bureaucracy, one that held Japanese businesses in a regulatory vice, was unrivalled. That kind of power didn't come easy. It didn't come clean. But it could be had-for a price. The Deal Maker Kanemaru, who entered the Diet's Lower House in 1958 on an LDP ticket, made himself indispensable to the party through his unusual pipeline to the opposition parties. Al- though the LDP had held an absolute majority over both Houses since 1955, most laws and budgets were agreed to in talks between the LDP and its lesser rivals before a vote was taken. The Diet Policy Committees (DPCs)-one for every major party-handled negotiations. Kanemaru was convinced that harmony was the Investing in Innovation key to Japan's future development. In 1969, three years before he became the ruling party's DPC HITACHI chairman, he publicly expressed his concem over
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