Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka gives his first news conference after becoming prime minister on July 19, 1972. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

“I never knew there’d be so many of them” was my first thought when I saw an array of mug shots of the Liberal Democratic Party members who are considering running in the party’s presidential election next month.

There are said to be more than 10 hopefuls currently.

The LDP has supposedly done away with its “habatsu” intraparty cliques, so everyone is now free to do their own thing—at least in theory. Some people may liken the situation to a lid being removed, while others may say a weight has been lifted.

Whatever the metaphor, I suppose this unusually crowded presidential race has much to do with the removal of old habatsu-related constraints.

That said, it does not mean that everyone who wants to run will automatically become a candidate.

The first hurdle they must clear is to collect signatures from 20 sponsors. And if the first round of balloting does not decide the winner, a run-off election will ensue, in which case the outcome will depend on the votes of Diet members, who will make up about 90 percent of the voters.

And there, you might anticipate what tricks the habatsu factions and their bosses may try to pull.

In olden days, LDP politicians who wielded absolute power in party presidential elections were called “kingmakers.”

The most famous among them was Kakuei Tanaka, who resigned as prime minister in 1974. Even after he left the LDP as a defendant in the infamous Lockheed bribery scandal trial, Tanaka “crowned” three prime ministers.

At its peak, the Tanaka faction had 140 members.

But Tanaka never anointed anyone from his own habatsu as LDP president or prime minister. Instead, he made his faction’s sheer size and strength available to the leaders of other factions, helping them get their members elected to the highest office.

That way, Tanaka kept the entire LDP administration under his thumb.

According to “Sengo Seiji-shi” (Postwar history of politics) by Masumi Ishikawa, legislators of the Tanaka faction could hold key Cabinet posts, but could never become prime minister as long as they remained in the habatsu.

Tanaka was a truly formidable kingmaker. But his faction ultimately imploded under pressure from dissatisfied legislators who were influential in their own right.

“Kazu wa chikara, chikara wa kane,” which translates literally as “numbers are power, power is money,” was a fad expression back then. But it should never be allowed to become a political tenet.

I wonder how the LDP presidential election will go. LDP members’ lust for power is now on full display.

Should the supposedly dead habatsu politics come back to life, complete with “latter-day kingmakers” pulling a few strings, that will be something I just don’t want to see.

—The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 20

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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