Hata still faced a challenge from Michio Watanabe, 70, who heads a large faction in the Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled Japan until it was deposed by Hosokawa’s reformers last year. Watanabe was willing to bolt the LDP with some of his followers and join the ruling coalition-provided it would make him prime minister.
Watanabe’s ploy looked like a long shot. And whoever heads the government will face a long fist of problems: a stagnant economy, a trade fight with Washington and a nuclear threat from nearby North Korea. At the head of a fractious coalition, the next prime minister will have trouble solving any of these problems.
The leader’s real job will be to hold the coalition together until officials have redrawn the country’s electoral map in accord with the political-reform bill pushed through by Hosokawa last December. That process, which could take three to six months, will reduce the power of rural constituencies. Then Hata and his centrist allies-or whoever is in charge-might feel strong enough to drop their leftist coalition partners and contest a national election on their own. Winning it would finally bring them real power.
