Although he has no plans to return to national politics, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tells the electorate not to lose hope in the campaign against nuclear power.
Although he has no plans to return to national politics, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tells the electorate not to lose hope in the campaign against nuclear power.
In an exclusive interview with The Asahi Shimbun in Tokyo, Koizumi called for a national movement to steer Japan away from nuclear plants.
“We should patiently continue to make efforts toward such a movement,” he said on Sept. 9. “It is worth our efforts.”
In the first interview Koizumi, 73, has granted to a media outlet since he stopped down as prime minister in September 2006, the theme was nuclear power.
The former prime minister denounced the Abe administration for pushing to rely on nuclear energy despite the 2011 Fukushima disaster, calling the recent restart of a nuclear power station “wrong.”
“Japan will be all right even if all its nuclear power plants are abandoned right now,” he said.
While in office from 2001 to 2006, Koizumi, of the Liberal Democratic Party, had promoted nuclear power generation in line with previous governments' policy.
Koizumi, however, had a dramatic change of heart in the wake of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011, pointing to the potential danger of nuclear plants.
Last year, he actively campaigned in the Tokyo gubernatorial election for former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa on a primarily anti-nuclear platform. Hosokawa placed third in the race, behind winner Yoichi Masuzoe, who was backed by the ruling LDP.
Koizumi said the costs of bolstering the safety of nuclear power stations in quake-prone Japan would prove massive, citing powerful temblors in recent years such as the 2007 Niigata Chuetsu-oki Earthquake and 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
“Nuclear power plants are not safe,” he said. “If additional precautions are taken (to help prepare nuclear facilities for a giant quake), it will cost a huge amount of money.”
The former prime minister also hit back at the government’s argument that continuing with nuclear power will be a step in the right direction in terms of addressing global warming, given it does not emit carbon dioxide while generating electricity.
“Nuclear power is not clean at all,” he said. “It is obvious that nuclear power also generates ‘nuclear waste’ (highly radioactive waste), which is more dangerous than carbon dioxide (that is spewed by thermal power plants).”
Koizumi criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for “being influenced by promoters of nuclear power” and pressing ahead with the restart of a nuclear power plant.
The No. 1 reactor at Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture officially began commercial operations this month, the first in the nation in about two years.
Koizumi said he pressed Abe to move toward a nuclear-free Japan at a meeting between the current and former prime ministers in March.
“I said to him, ‘Japan can close down all of its nuclear power stations only if you decide to do so and that you have a great chance,’ ” he said.
Koizumi was confident that Japan could persuade the United States, with which Tokyo has worked together in promoting nuclear energy, about its possible change of course.
“Washington will definitely accept it if Tokyo decides to go without nuclear power plants,” he said, “because the United States is our ally and a democracy.”
Koizumi, however, ruled out the possibility of a return to national politics in the future to rally political forces calling for the abolition of nuclear energy.
Still, he said while nuclear power generation has scarcely been an important issue in elections, he is confident that one day it will.
“Time will certainly come when the nuclear power issue will emerge as a key campaign issue in elections,” Koizumi said. “Candidates will be judged by their positions on nuclear power."
(This article was written by Shinichi Sekine and Takashi Funakoshi.)