It's a little bit funny...a little bit sad
Today is Election Day in Japan, the lower house, House of Reps. I've been following them since, ooh, about 1984. Actually, my first ever ticket to fly to Japan was booked for a date which would have meant arriving just days before the 1983 election. The flight was cancelled and the next available one was a couple of weeks later. (An acquaintance once pointed out, I am the *only* person they know who recalls travel dates and trips by whether there was an election involved...)
Prior to returning to Japan to work in 2016, I had made a point of flying to Tokyo each election from the landmark change of government one in 2009, to 2015. Self-funded of course, my then place of employ didn't consider my research a priority, but I digress. (At least I avoided a lot of form filling and submission.) Yes, friends who travelled to Japan for all sorts of reasons thought my psephological excursions were, well, strange.
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| We wait for the poster (Tokyo 11th) |
Anyway, back to the present. One of the reasons I took up my present position in Tokyo was I expected being on the ground as it were, would be better for the kind of research I like to do, the books I like to write (eventually, one day, when I have, er, time). I had detected a bit of a disconnect with the apparent 'high levels' of support for the then Abe government and what was going on at a grassroots level. I wanted to get in on this in situ, something I couldn't do with a ten-day annual trip.
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| The candidates in my electorate, notice anything? |
In my previous trips, I used to land and then set out my schedule to follow the candidates and leaders around as they made their speeches in public appeals, mostly at train stations, but in other public spaces as well. It wasn't just to hear what they had to say, but also observe the people who stopped to listen, to watch, to comment. All the interactions. I went as far as my budget would allow. Usually around the greater Tokyo region. One of my personal disappointments this time is that work has kept me away from the hustings...even when I planned to catch someone somewhere on the train line home, 'twas thwarted by someone turning up in my office at *just the wrong time*.
Even yesterday, Saturday, the 'grand finale' day where the main contenders make their final pleas...I had a four-hour graduate class. What does a psephy do? Once the class finished I had time to go to one, just one, final call. In Shinjuku, opposition party leaders were going to gather with key candidates. There is always a large crowd (we are still in Covid times). It is a couple of train rides away and it was probably already too late to get a front row spot.
So, to Akabane Station. A 30 minute bus ride away, the electorate next door to where I live and featuring a couple of politicians whose careers I have followed pretty closely. The call was for local candidate Ikeuchi Saori, a woman in her 30s, previously elected for a term in parliament but defeated in the last election. She started her campaign for the next election almost the very next day. She is dynamic, progressive, turns up at local events, is committed. She was being supported by the party's Secretary-General, Koike Akira, whose campaign to return to parliament I happened to capture in Shinjuku many years ago. There was a bit of historical continuity in following-up. So I went to Akabane.
I have to stress, this was for research purposes. It was a hard decision, my researcher instincts want me to be everywhere. In going to the final call for candidates in the Japanese Communist Party, I am not advocating for their election, nor for their policies. I considered staying at home too, to avoid accusations of bias etc. But in all honesty, these rallies are fascinating, and I would think something like this introduced in Australia would be quite interesting, instead of the clinical, staged hotel conference rooms we tend to get.
The crowd was a reasonable size, for one candidate, and enthusiastic. Ikeuchi has two chances--to represent the single-member district and she is also listed on the JCP's proportional list. It is an interesting system here in Japan, two systems in the one house--289 seats made up of single-member constituencies, 176 seats drawn from the proportional system, for a total of 465 seats. If a candidate wins in their single-seat electorate, obviously they don't take a seat in the proportional list. It is a kind of 'second chance' system, which has its fans, and critics. I have started to investigate the use of the proportional system to prioritise women, LGBTQI candidates and others to perhaps bring some 'proportionality' to Japan's parliament...but even if it works in theory, you would have to find a way to move the rusted-on time servers usually found at the top of the lists. (We know how this works from the Australia Senate example...)
So a few pics here, but I've decided to put a few more over on the psephyspix blog too...just for the atmosphere of a final campaign call.
Thanks for getting this far. More, as they say, to come.
