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Japan Local Support Groups
Koenkai (local support groups) were perhaps even
more
important than faction membership to the survival of LDP
Diet
members. These koenkai served as pipelines through
which
funds and other support were conveyed to legislators and
through
which the legislators could distribute favors to
constituents in
return. To avoid the stringent legal restrictions on
political
activity outside of designated campaign times,
koenkai
sponsored year-round cultural, social, and "educational"
activities. In the prewar years, having an invincible, or
"iron,"
constituency depended on gaining the support of landlords
and other
local notables. These people delivered blocks of rural
votes to the
candidates they favored. In the more pluralistic postwar
period,
local bosses were much weaker, and building a strong
constituency
base was much more difficult and costly. Tanaka used his
"iron
constituency" in rural Niigata Prefecture to build a
formidable,
nationwide political machine. But other politicians, like
It
Masayoshi, were so popular in their districts that they
could
refrain, to some extent, from money politics and promote a
"clean"
image. Koenkai remained particularly important in
the
overrepresented rural areas, where paternalistic,
old-style
politics flourished and where the LDP, despite
disaffection during
the late 1980s over agricultural liberalization policies,
had its
strongest support.
In the classic oyabun-kobun manner, local
people
who were consistently loyal to a figure like Tanaka became
favored
recipients of government largesse. In the 1980s, his own
third
electoral district in Niigata was the nation's top
beneficiary in
per capita public works spending. Benefits included stops
on the
Shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo and the cutting of a
tunnel
through a mountain to serve a hamlet of sixty people
(see Transportation and Telecommunications
, ch. 4). Another
fortunate
area was Takeshita Noboru's district in Shimane Prefecture
on the
Sea of Japan.
The importance of local loyalties was also reflected in
the
widespread practice of a second generation's "inheriting"
Diet
seats from fathers or fathers-in-law. This trend was found
predominantly, although not exclusively, in the LDP. In
the
February 1990 election, for example, forty-three
second-generation
candidates ran: twenty-two, including twelve LDP
candidates, were
successful. They included the sons of former prime
ministers Suzuki
Zenko and Fukuda Takeo, although a son-in-law of Tanaka
Kakuei lost
in a district different from his father-in-law's.
Data as of January 1994
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