Day to Think About Politics

What Is Day to Think About Politics?

Every July 27th is "Day to Think About Politics" (政治を考える日, Seiji wo Kangaeru Hi) in Japan. On July 27, 1976, former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei (田中角栄, 1918–1993) was arrested — initially on suspicion of violating the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law, and later indicted for accepting bribes — over payments from the American Lockheed Corporation related to aircraft purchases — the scandal known as the "Lockheed Incident" (ロッキード事件, Rokkīdo Jiken). The arrest of a former Prime Minister on corruption charges was unprecedented in postwar Japanese history and prompted lasting public reflection on the relationship between money and politics.

The Lockheed Scandal

The Lockheed bribery scandal emerged from U.S. Senate investigations in 1976 that revealed Lockheed Aircraft Corporation had paid bribes to government officials in multiple countries to secure aircraft sales. In Japan, prosecutors found that Tanaka Kakuei, who had been Prime Minister at the time, received ¥500 million from Lockheed via the trading company Marubeni in connection with All Nippon Airways' purchase of Lockheed TriStar aircraft. Tanaka's arrest on July 27, 1976 triggered Japan's biggest postwar political scandal.

Tanaka Kakuei: The Complex Legacy

Tanaka Kakuei is one of the most complex figures in postwar Japanese political history — simultaneously celebrated as a self-made political genius who rose from poverty, a transformative Prime Minister who opened relations with China (1972) and implemented major regional development programs, and condemned as the embodiment of Japan's money-politics culture in which political power and construction industry patronage were inseparably linked. He was convicted in 1983 (upheld on appeal in 1987) but remained politically influential, leading the LDP's largest faction from behind the scenes; he died in 1993 while his appeal to the Supreme Court was still pending.

Money and Politics in Japan

The Lockheed Incident prompted significant public debate about Japan's political financing system and the relationship between the construction industry, political donations, and public works spending that had characterized Japan's postwar development model. Political funding reform has been a recurring issue in Japanese politics ever since — with scandals periodically reigniting public demand for cleaner politics and more transparent political financing.

Fun Facts

• "Kaku-san": Tanaka Kakuei's nickname among his supporters — "Kaku-san" (角さん) — reflects the unusual combination of populist warmth and political genius that made him simultaneously revered and reviled. His self-made success story (from a rural Niigata childhood with only an upper elementary school education, through the construction business, to Prime Minister) resonated deeply with Japan's aspirational postwar middle class.
• Influence despite conviction: Tanaka's continued influence over Japanese politics after his 1983 conviction — through his faction's control of the Liberal Democratic Party — reflects the complex relationship between legal accountability and political power in Japan's postwar political system.