Yesterday we described Junichiro Koizumi’s unlikely selection as prime minister of Japan. It was unlikely because he ran as a reformer to lead a conservative party that had no interest in reform, but was desperate to survive as an entity. The disastrous administration of Yoshiro Mori—with single-digit approval ratings—had everyone in the party worried that they would get clobbered in the upper house election just a couple of months away.

Mind you, the LDP did not actually expect Koizumi to do too much in the way of reform; they were more interested in someone talking about a new broom sweeping clean than someone actually getting the broom out of the closet. The party elders were confident in their ability to keep things from getting out of hand.

They soon realized they had badly misjudged the situation. The long-suffering Japanese public have been subjected to politicians from the ruling party who don’t pretend to mean what they say, can’t be bothered to hide their disdain for the average voter, and save their remaining passion for their mistresses or money raising. When an eloquent politician appears with enthusiasm, energy, and ideas, and—most importantly—focuses his attention on the public’s concerns rather than trying to convince the public to focus on the politician’s concerns, the Japanese public repays that politician tenfold.

That’s just what happened with Koizumi. Desperate for a leader who acted like a real human being, still recovering from the disillusionment over the crushing of the first reform government during Morihiro Hosokawa’s term as prime minister in 1993-4, and believing that this was the last real chance to reform Japan’s political system, the public rewarded the off-beat, blunt Koizumi with popularity ratings that soared over 80%, unprecedented in Japan.

For the LDP, Koizumi was both a nightmare and a dream come true. Koizumi’s popularity also sent the popularity of the LDP skyrocketing. Under his leadership, the party won a stunning victory in the upper house election when their prospects verged on the hopeless just three months before. During the election campaign, Koizumi himself became the public symbol of the LDP; while the emphasis on an individual leading a party is the de facto standard in most Western political campaigns, it is extremely rare in Japan.

This came at a price for the party, however, and they first realized it with Koizumi’s Cabinet appointments. As we explained yesterday, the LDP is comprised of several factions. The primary objective in Cabinet appointments has been to apportion the spoils among the different factions according to their relative strength. Competence for the job is not a qualification, and neither the prime minister nor the rest of his Cabinet were selected to formulate policy—they were just asked to implement it.

Koizumi ignored these practices. He already represented a break with the past because he was the second prime minister in a row from the same faction. But he alienated the old guard in the party when he appointed to key Cabinet posts allies from his faction who shared his views instead of balancing factional interests. He even appointed economist Heizo Takenaka (second photo) to reform the banking sector and clean up the economy. (And he has succeeded; the worst is over for the banks and their bad debt problems and the stock market has rebounded).

Koizumi thus became a politician of a type taken for granted in the West, but seldom, if ever, seen in Japan. He had a specific agenda, articulated that agenda to the public, appointed people to his Cabinet to implement that agenda, and worked to make his policies a reality. What was standard in most Western democracies was a novelty in Japan.

The LDP’s old guard may have despised Koizumi and wished they had never seen him, but they were stuck with him because he pulled their fat out of the fire in the upper house election. That didn’t mean they had to go along with what he wanted to do; however. These elements in the LDP have continued to fight Koizumi every step of the way during his entire term of office. Yet they don’t dare remove him because they have no credible replacement.

Indeed, after the LDP’s success in the upper house election, some observers thought Koizumi should leverage his popularity by calling for an election in the lower house to increase the LDP’s representation in that body and perhaps regain the outright majority that it had lost a few years before. (It has been governing in a coalition with the New Komeito, the political wing of a lay Buddhist organization, and smaller conservative parties.)

Koizumi resisted calling an election as long as possible, however. An LDP victory would have meant an increase in the strength of the factions in the party that opposed him, making the implementation of his reforms less likely.

Has the prime minister of any other country chosen not to hold an election because his party was sure to be successful in that election? Yet that was exactly Koizumi’s predicament.

If the opposition of his own party was not enough, the prime minister also has had to deal with a bureaucracy that has actively worked against his reforms. Traditionally, the Japanese bureaucracy has not been viewed as politically neutral public servants implementing the decisions of a democratically elected government responsible to the people. In the 19th century, the legislature was so weak the bureaucracy was regarded as being synonymous with government. Even today, the upper levels of the civil service are dominated by people from a handful of universities that have formed their own power centers. These bureaucrats exercise political power by influencing policy through Diet committees and the Cabinet. The most important person in a Cabinet ministry is usually not the Cabinet minister appointed by the LDP, but the deputy minister appointed from within that Cabinet ministry to handle the heavy lifting. Senior bureaucrats often opt for early retirement to enter politics, strengthening their hold on policy.

This article in the Japan Times shows how Koizumi continues to stir up the hornets’ nest when he had to take the unprecedented step (for Japan) of transferring two senior bureaucrats he thought were undermining his efforts to privatize the Japanese postal system. (The Japanese government, through the post office, competes with the private sector by offering a banking system and selling life insurance. Koizumi, like his grandfather before him, was the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, so he knows where the bodies are buried and the cuts that have to be made.)

Koizumi’s aides were quoted as stating that the two had to be removed because they “intrigued with members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who are opposed to postal privatization.” In fact, former LDP Secretary General Hiromu Nonaka, who is opposed to privatization, sharply criticized the transfers at a meeting of an association for postmasters.

Here is a comment from the article that crystallizes the problems with government in Japan:

“It would be intolerable that I should be transferred because I have different opinions from a prime minister,” one bureaucrat said.

In most countries, it would be intolerable for civil servants to act as if they are more important than a democratically elected government, but that is not how things work in Japan.

To continue:

Taking strong political initiatives in the personnel affairs of senior bureaucrats can help prime ministers or Cabinet members achieve policy goals and make political responsibilities clearer. But such appointments often generate bitter reactions from bureaucrats because it makes their status unstable and can damage the continuity of an administration, critics say.

Most people would think that if prime ministers appoint people to implement their policies, it would contribute to the success of an administration, and therefore its continuity. Apparently, however, some critics in Japan (whoever they may be) still think that prime ministers are supposed to leave policy initiatives in the hands of the bureaucracy.

When Koizumi steps down, commentators worldwide will dissect his assertive foreign policy that has included using Yasukuni as the means to stand up to China and both Koreas, sending troops overseas for the first time since the end of the Second World War, and employing the military to secure Japanese territorial waters against incursions from Chinese submarines and North Korean smugglers. The punditry will measure the successes of Koizumi’s reforms against his promises when he took office, with most forgetting that politics is the art of the possible. Some may even give him credit for Japan’s substantial economic improvement during his term of office.

But none will mention his most significant accomplishment. He has shown the public and a younger generation of lawmakers that the Japanese government can function like that in a modern country, with a politician backed by the public taking the initiative for formulating and implementing policy. He has shown that a strong-willed leader can confront the entrenched political and bureaucratic interests better suited for an undeveloped 19th century country rather than the interests of the people in a 21st century democracy, and achieve some success.

He has been an icebreaker cutting a path through the frozen wastes of Japanese politics . Before Koizumi, no one would have believed it could happen.