OSAKA -- It was an unusually warm day in late October when a small crowd gathered around a candidate speaking outside Izumigaoka Station near Kansai airport.
Shingo Nishimura, a fiery ultraconservative who in 1999 was forced to resign as vice minister of the Defense Agency for suggesting that Japan should have nuclear weapons, is campaigning to retain his House of Representatives seat in Sunday's general election, running on the Democratic Party of Japan ticket.
To do so, he is following the path of many other candidates in both the ruling and opposition parties who are telling voters they have expressed concerns about the abduction of Japanese nationals to North Korea.