Trend for Hatoyama

"Banzai, banzai, banzai," cried the members of the Japanese Diet last week as they bolted from the chamber, bound for beer and sake in their party caucus rooms. Premier Ichiro Hatoyama's government had just formally dissolved the Diet in preparation for the Feb. 27 general elections. The Premier, who is partially crippled, was wheeled up and down the corridors by his aides, beaming and shaking hands.

Ichiro Hatoyama had good cause for elation. Last week the big Kyodo news agency polled voters and confirmed the Asahi verdict: 40.8% for Hatoyama; 18% for Taketora Ogata, successor to the fallen Shigeru Yoshida as head of the conservative Liberal Party; 14% for Mosaburo Suzuki of the left-wing (Bevanite) Socialists; 12.5% for Jotaro Kawakami of the moderate, right-wing Socialists. In all, more than 56% of the voters expected that Hatoyama would win.

Hatoyama is successfully winning Japanese conservatives away from the old Yoshida Liberal Party, while the disunited Socialists, though they are expected to gain between 15 and 30 seats in the 467-seat Diet, are given little chance of outmatching Hatoyama's shrewd, votegetting platform of nationalism, conservatism and a drift to neutralism in the cold war.

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