Reform-oriented Cabinet shuffle

郵政改革を目指す小泉改造内閣

Prior to the naming of the new Cabinet lineup, Mr. Koizumi appointed Mr. Tsutomu Takebe, a former farm minister and avowed advocate of postal-system privatization, to succeed Mr. Shinzo Abe as secretary-general of the Liberal-Democratic Party.

In the administration of Mr. Koizumi, Mr. Takebe's assumption of the party's No. 2 post bears far greater importance than the appointment to a Cabinet portfolio directly related to postal reforms.

Mr. Takebe is known as a staunch advocate of Mr. Koizumi's reform initiatives. Belonging to a comparatively small intraparty faction headed by Mr. Taku Yamasaki who lost in last year's general election, a former LDP secretary-general, Mr. Takebe is relatively unknown to outsiders of the political world. As a minority Liberal Democrat who favors postal-services privatization, however, he played a central role in working out the LDP's "manifesto" for last year's Lower House election.

Commitment to Mr. Koizumi's postal-services reforms is believed to have determined Mr. Kaoru Yosano's appointment as chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council. It is exceptional that a politician unaffiliated with any intraparty group in the LDP will be serving in one of the party's three executive posts. These two appointments apparently represent Mr. Koizumi's determination to carry out his long-cherished goal of privatizing postal services.

Mr. Koizumi probably intends to rally forces in his party toward the goal of postal reforms, driving a chariot pulled by these dedicated party executives. Without any strong intraparty power base, however, it is uncertain if these two party executives will be able to breach the strong barrier of resistance to postal-services reform within the LDP.

What attracts interest in this connection is the naming of Mr. Fumio Kyuma to the remaining party-executive post: chairman of the party's decision-making Executive Council. Mr. Kyuma is close to Mr. Mikio Aoki, who leads the Liberal Democrats in the Upper House and once was senior leader of a large faction led by former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. Informed sources believe that Mr. Koizumi expects Mr. Kyuma to ask Mr. Aoki to exert his influence on many Liberal Democrats to expedite the process of legislative preparations for postal privatization.

In shuffling the Cabinet, Mr. Koizumi retained Mr. Heizo Takenaka, the economics minister who has been serving as the driving force behind Mr. Koizumi's structural reforms, bestowing on him the additional burden of a newly created post to oversee postal privatization. Together with Mr. Taro Aso, who has been retained as the head of the relevant ministry, Mr. Takenaka will supervise legislative preparations for the privatization.

Postal privatization appears to have overwhelmed other issues involved in the appointment of party executives and Cabinet ministers. This is only natural because from the start of the Koizumi government, postal privatization has been the most important of Mr. Koizumi's "structural reform" initiatives that have been taking shape following the approval of the scenario by the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. Japan Post will be divided into four corporate units under a holding company, beginning in April 2007. One unit will manage over-the-counter services at post offices while the other three will handle mail delivery, Yucho savings and Kampo life insurance. Yucho and Kampo operations will become completely independent from the holding company by the end of March 2017.

By avoiding factional considerations as much as possible, however, Mr. Koizumi may have risked taking a collision course with the forces opposing the privatization rather than appeasing them. To counter resistance from those forces, Mr. Koizumi will have to win public support, and for that purpose he needs to explain in detail how the privatization will benefit individual Japanese. Otherwise, the new party and Cabinet structures launched Sept. 27 may mark the beginning of a frustrating end to the Koizumi administration.

The Japan Times Weekly
Oct. 9, 2004
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      安倍晋三前幹事長の後任に起用された武部勤元農水相は、少数派閥の山崎派出身で、昨年の総選挙向けの自民党マニフェスト作成に中心的役割を果たした。武部氏、与謝野馨・新政調会長（無派閥・元通産相）の両者とも郵政改革の強力な推進者である。

      首相が自民党内で求心力を失っているなか、新執行部が郵政改革への党内の抵抗をどう乗り切るかが問題である。

      久間章生・新総務会長は青木幹雄・自民党参院議員会長（橋本派）に近い。首相は久間氏を通じ、青木氏に郵政民営化の立法化を急ぐよう働きかける意向といわれる。

      新設の郵政民営化担当相は、竹中平蔵経済財政担当相が兼務することになった。留任した麻生太郎総務相と共に、郵政民営化の立法化を推進する。

      経済財政諮問会議で先月決まった郵政民営化の基本方針では、日本郵政公社は2007年4月、持株会社の下に窓口ネットワーク、郵便、郵貯、簡保の4社に分割される。郵貯、簡保会社は2017年3月までに持株会社から完全に独立する。

      派閥力学を無視した首相は、党内の民営化反対勢力と衝突する危険がある。それに対処するためには、首相は国民の支持を取りつけなければならない。民営化が国民のためになることを十分に説明しなければ、今回の内閣改造、党執行部人事が政権の終焉につながる可能性がある。