The curtain rose Thursday on the new conservative coalition government to reveal just one more unimpressive performance of the same old political drama. Much had been said and written about the apparent significance of the realignment, but it seems to have ended up as essentially just another political numbers game.
The coalition between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Liberal Party was launched with a minor reshuffling of the Cabinet in which only Mr. Takeshi Noda, secretary general of the LP, was given a post, that of home affairs minister. His assumption of the Cabinet portfolio was made possible by the resignation of his predecessor, who belongs to an intraparty faction led by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.
At the same time, the number of Cabinet ministers was cut back from 20 to 18, a move that was achieved at the expense of two ministers also affiliated with the Obuchi faction. Mr. Obuchi accepted the LP's demand that the Cabinet posts be trimmed as a contribution to administrative reform. In so doing, he used a method that would least roil the waters within his faction-oriented party.