Mr Popularity needs more than charm, charisma and curls
Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, has said the historical figure he most admired was Sir Winston Churchill. He will have read that, when Churchill took over as Britain's wartime leader in 1940, he told the House of Commons: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
Koizumi is offering much the same thing now to legislators in the Diet and the 127 million Japanese people - who have given him a mandate to perform the radical surgery necessary to rescue the comatose economy.
It will take an extraordinary personality to pull it off. Koizumi has that all right. Instantly recognisable by the bizarre tonsorial arrangement on his head, the 59-year-old handsome, divorced, charisma on wheels, breaks all the rules. The literally all singing, all-dancing prime minister lists opera, rock 'n roll and the traditional kabuki dance, among his passions - and he will grab a karaoke mike at the drop of a hat.
The Liberal Democratic Party backroom boys have created a mascot called Shishi, which is nothing less than a miniature Koizumi dressed up in a lion costume, and promoted in his own internet magazine, Lionheart. He strikes a chord among the young, and drew gasps from the crowd when he appointed five women and two non-politicians to his cabinet.
However, this magical messiah did not come down with the last shower of rain. He has never had a life outside the politics of the LDP, which has clung to power for 46 years. His father Junya Koizumi was Minister of State for Defence, and grandfather Matajiro once held the position of Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.
Soon after graduating in economics from Keio University in 1967, young Koizumi became secretary to party powerbroker Takeo Fukuda, and he was elected to the House of Representatives two years later. He defended his seat in 10 consecutive elections and rose to be Chairman of the Finance Committee, Minister of Health and Welfare, Chief Deputy Secretary General, and Minister of Posts, just like grandpa. According to his PR machine, Koizumi's motto is the Confucius edict "The most fundamental principle of politics is trust." That must raise a horse-laugh among the Japanese people, only 4% of whom trust politicians at all, according to a recent survey.
Koizumi can thus far be marked down for being part of the problem, rather than the solution. Policy paralysis and LDP party cronyism over the past decade has dragged the economy into its fourth back-to-back recession.
But in recent years, Koizumi challenged the status quo by publishing Reasons to Reassemble the Bureaucracy Kingdom, and Reasons to Privatise the Posts and Telecommunications Service. His promise to introduce "structural reforms without sacred cows" was popular with voters, but went over like the proverbial lead balloon with the LDP's conservative old guard.
There is no commercial cow more sacred than the gigantic Postal Savings Bank, which has been described by one commentator as the world's largest experiment with financial socialism since Stalin.
The post office bank has captured almost half the lending market in Japan and is the custodian for most of the trillions of US dollars worth of yen savings account deposits. Putting this monolith under the control of the private sector would be the biggest signal on reform Koizumi could send to the world. But vested interests will fight him every inch of the way, particularly since the other half of the plan is to force the banks to write off their bad debts, which have now ballooned to more than ¥40 trillion (US$320 billion) Koizumi's most immediate job is to halt the decline in the economy, which is moving from serious to critical. Industrial production is falling fast. Consumer spending has slumped another 3.3% from a year ago, spreading the stain of deflation. Few want to borrow money, even at virtually zero interest rates, and bank lending has fallen for 43 straight months.
Koizumi does not have a lot of options. Years of massive public works spending has lined the pockets of construction companies without helping the economy. Tax cuts, spending coupons for consumers and supply-side reforms have all gone in the failed basket. Deregulation and privatisation benefits will take years to come through. Big time austerity is the unpalatable menu for the Japanese.
Quick fix advocates say Koizumi must persuade reluctant Bank of Japan Governor Masaru Hayami to speed up the printing presses to create inflation, which would reduce the real level of debt among Japanese corporations, and perhaps bring retail shoppers back. It would also lead to a risky devaluation of the yen, which the rest of Asia definitely does not want.
The BOJ has merely urged Koizumi to keep his hair on. Asked by reporters about rising deflation recently, Hayamai replied "is that so serious?"