Staff writer

With what he touts as "naive dreams," Kunio Hatoyama has entered the Tokyo gubernatorial race claiming he will make the capital more livable, fun and comfortable.

Hatoyama has deep roots in the Liberal Democratic Party. He is a protege of the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, has held two Cabinet portfolios and hails from an elite political family whose members played a key role in founding the conservative giant.

But Hatoyama says he has always been uncomfortable with the LDP's dominance.

"I thought the political world would suffocate (under the LDP's sway)," he said during a recent talk at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

Hatoyama left the LDP with Ichiro Ozawa six years ago during a time of political realignment. In 1996, he joined his elder brother, Yukio, to form the Democratic Party of Japan. He left the DPJ in February to obtain wider support in the Tokyo race.

"I am not a person who can calculate life beforehand," Hatoyama said. "If I were such a person, I wouldn't have left the LDP, and I would have never given up my 22-year career as a Diet member to pursue this course."

However, observers said Hatoyama may have had his eyes on the governor's chair in the capital for a long time.

Four years ago, he actually planned to enter the Tokyo race but was forced out after New Komeito's predecessor party decided not to support him, they said.

While some political observers see Hatoyama's candidacy for governor as a bid to find a life outside the DPJ, where he often remained in the shadows of party leader Naoto Kan and his brother, Hatoyama says his determination came from a romantic motive -- love for his hometown, which has grown to a giant metropolis but has increasingly lost its good qualities as a place to live.

The keyword of his policy platform for the campaign is "symbiosis with nature."

"That means I want to make Tokyo a livable place," Hatoyama said in an interview with The Japan Times. "Tokyo is a megalopolis with concentrated industries, but if we continue to only pursue materialistic values and money, Tokyo will become a stifling and stressful city," he said.

Hatoyama has not elaborated on what steps or programs he has in mind to achieve his goal, claiming "symbiosis with nature" is the principle of his policy ideals.

Hatoyama meanwhile does not see the need to make Tokyo even more industrialized and business-oriented, unlike other candidates, including former Foreign Minister Koji Kakizawa and ex-U.N. Undersecretary General Yasushi Akashi, who is being fielded by the LDP but is expected to gain the support of Soka Gakkai, the nation's largest lay Buddhist organization and New Komeito's key power base.

The waterfront area, one focal point of the election this time as well as four years ago, should become a place of recreation and relaxation for people, Hatoyama said.

"I would like to construct housing and make theme parks, such as a fashion town and an animation town," he said.

"I want to make the area a town where people gather and feel happy to be close together," Hatoyama said. "If we do not start now, Tokyo is going to become a desert."

Such remarks by Hatoyama, a known collector of butterflies, may sound attractive to city-dwellers who are becoming more sensitive to environmental issues. Other candidates, however, criticize him as being out of touch with the life of ordinary people.

In an apparent attempt to respond to such criticism, Hatoyama has gradually tried to focus attention more on the metro government's financial crisis, another major point of contention, and welfare programs for elderly people.

To solve Tokyo's financial woes, Hatoyama has suggested issuing "Tokyo citizens' bonds."

By using local government assets as collateral, he proposes to issue bonds with which Tokyo citizens would get a higher interest rate than with commercial banks and post offices, while the metro government would be able to borrow money with a lower interest rate than loans from financial institutions.

Hatoyama vows he would also streamline the metro administration by cutting 20,000 civil servants over four years and establishing an administration evaluation system.

To shorten the long waiting list for Tokyo's nursing homes, for which some 15,000 people have applied, Hatoyama pledges to establish more than 1,000 small nursing facilities, where elderly people can get closer attention from care-givers.

Still, Hatoyama stresses his idea of making Tokyo symbiotic with nature. "If my idea is not used now, 30 years on, people will look back and say 'Hey! We should have done what Hatoyama said,'" he said.