Nichiren, Soka Gakkai and Komeito - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 65

party, the JSP, meant that by the late 1990s the opportunity for smaller par-
ties to play a more in

uential role had come. After Shinshint - , Komeito had
continued to show greater policy accommodation with the ruling LDP and
eventually entered into a coalition government in October 1999 together with
Jiyut - (the Liberal Party), headed by Ozawa Ichiro. Joining in this coalition
with the LDP, more than anything, gave Komeito real power for the

rst

time, as the LDP agreed to co-sponsor a number of Komeito s legislative

agendas. The then deputy leader of Komeito, Hamayotsu Toshiko, justi

'

ed
this move to reluctant Soka Gakkai voters in an interview in November 1999
by stressing that the focus of Komeito had always been to create a citizen-
oriented political alternative to the iron triangle of LDP politicians, big business
and top bureaucrats. By joining in a coalition, she argued, Komeito would be
better able to pursue improvements in education and social welfare for
ordinary Japanese.
Christensen (2000) has argued that by the late 1990s, after years of failed
attempts at uniting opposition parties, all opposition parties (except for the
Communist Party) were ready to form an alliance with the LDP, seeing this
as the only way to political power (cf. Stockwin 2006). However, the Shin-
shint - years left supporters of Komeito feeling betrayed by politicians for
whom they had voted defecting so easily back to the LDP. The proposed
alliance with the LDP was not easily accepted. Komeito had a tough job of
convincing its supporters, with probably half of them opposing this move.
The coalition was at first reported in the media as being the end of Komeito,

comparing it to snow gathering under a geta (Japanese wooden sandal),
something that is brushed off

and discarded when it gets too dangerous to

walk on. This analogy re ected what happened to the JSP after its coalition

with the LDP (1994 96), when the party declined dramatically. Komeito

proved itself more resilient. The Japan Times (3 January 2004) stated that
'

-

Campaign support is arguably the price Komeito must pay to stay in the
ruling block ' , although it also pointed out in the same article that Komeito

had bene the LDP-led government has had to accept some of its

policies, particularly on social security

ted, as '

' . Komeito was clearly in a precarious

partnership with the LDP in the first few years of the coalition in which it

had to prove itself as a reliable political party that was not in the coalition
only to protect its electoral base, the Soka Gakkai, as widely perceived.
While at the local level Komeito is currently the biggest party, with some
3,000 local municipal and assembly members, at the national level the per-
ception of it as a evidently continues. The fact that Komeito

has not shown itself to have a religious agenda, but is rather a party that is
serious about improving welfare provision and medical services, has impor-
tant things to say about human rights and protection of the environment, as
well as realistic proposals about peace through wider international coopera-
tion, is still somewhat di

' religious party '

cult to get across. This is partly the challenge any
small political party faces. At the same time, perceptions of Komeito as a
strange religious party did change during its cooperation with the LDP. ' The