So, it was Sunday afternoon, kind of an overcast day, I was doing some photo sorting/deleting/tagging (yes, it’s a never-ending job) and, all of a sudden, I realized that there was a really loud political speech being shouted through a megaphone outside. (What was somewhat funny was, at that moment of realization, I also realized that it had probably been going on for 20 minutes before I actually let my ears notice it; but I digress.)
Internally, I start questioning why/how noise bylaws in Japan are lax enough to actually permit this kind of noise pollution. I want to stress that I do not mean “noise pollution” because of the content of the speech: I mean actual, loud, ear-splitting, top-volume, shouting through a super amplified megaphone in residential neighbourhoods as a regular means of political campaigning (although the content is usually pretty eye-bleed inducing too…).
Anyway, the drone was unrelenting (and, yes, I have all the windows shut), so I decided to stroll outside and see what it was all about (camera in hand, of course). I hadn’t quite expected to see everybody’s favourite xenophobe (a.k.a.the governor of Tokyo) giving a stump speech on a Sunday afternoon, but there he was:
Shintarō Ishihara 石原 慎太郎 on the stump
And there was quite a crowd gathered to listen as well (which only surprised me because the only other time I’ve seen more than 50 people at one time outside my building was during the Tokyo Bay fireworks or maybe the mikoshi matsuri. In other words, I never expect to see a mass of people gathered outside my building despite its size and the number of people living in it):
crowd gathered to listen to Ishihara
I don’t really follow Tokyo politics that closely, but it does fascinate me that someone holding the views that Ishihara holds is an elected representative of such a populous urban centre. As for why Ishihara is out on the stump on a Sunday afternoon, it appears that this particular Tokyo election has taken on greater significance because it may determine Prime Minister Aso’s course of action:
Official campaigning for the July 12 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election kicked off Friday, with 221 candidates running for 127 seats in the poll, which is widely seen as a bellwether for the next House of Representatives election.
The focus of the local election is whether the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito–serving as the “Ishihara ruling bloc” of Gov. Shintaro Ishihara–will retain its majority by winning 64 seats or more, or if the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan will take over as the largest force in the assembly.
The result of the vote is likely to affect Prime Minister Taro Aso’s decision over whether to dissolve the lower house shortly after the Tokyo election.
Taking the added significance of the election into account, each political party will look to fight an all-out battle in the Tokyo poll as if it were a national election.
The LDP currently has 48 seats in the assembly; the DPJ 34; New Komeito 22; the JCP 13; and Tokyo Seikatsusha Network, or NET, 4. In the latest assembly election, the LDP’s aim is to maintain its position as the leading party.
But amid the deteriorating approval rating of the Aso administration, the LDP “is having to fight in a strong headwind we’ve never experienced before,” said a senior official of an LDP association of Tokyo assembly members.
In this tough electoral environment, the LDP also has set itself a goal of maintaining a majority together with its coalition partner, New Komeito. Even if the LDP loses ground, winning only 44 or so seats, the alliance could still maintain its majority provided New Komeito maintains its current strength in the assembly.
Meanwhile, the DPJ is aiming to become the leading party in the assembly, hoping that more than 40 of its 58 candidates will win seats so it can outnumber the LDP camp in the assembly.
There are a few key issues polarizing members of the Assembly along party lines:
Troubled Shinginko Tokyo bank, the relocation of Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market and the capital’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics opened rifts between ruling and opposition parties in the metropolitan assembly–and they are set to feature prominently in the looming assembly election.
Shinginko chalked up accumulated losses of 101.6 billion yen in the three years after it was established with 100 billion yen of the metropolitan government’s money in April 2005, and the bank also was found to have been slipshod in checking the debt-servicing capability of its borrowers. In 2008, assembly members of the LDP and New Komeito agreed to an additional injection of 40 billion yen to bail out the bank, slamming the door on objections from members of the DPJ, the JCP and Tokyo Seikatsusha Network.
The opposition is calling for the metropolitan government to withdraw from the management of Shinginko, but the ruling parties are adamant that doing so would spell disaster for the small and midsize companies that borrowed from it.
The planned relocation of Tsukiji market also split the assembly along party lines after high concentrations of a toxic chemical were detected at the new site.
LDP and New Komeito members insist no other sites of a suitable size are available, but they agree the move should only be made after the soil at the Toyosu site has been properly decontaminated. However, members of the DPJ, JCP and Tokyo Seikatsusha Network claim the site has not been confirmed safe.
Tokyo’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics was backed by the LDP, DPJ and New Komeito, but opposed by the JCP and Tokyo Seikatsusha Network.
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