After deciding not to run in this weekend's Lower House poll, Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura's status as the "face of the election" has faded and his frustration is clearly growing.
Kawamura, 64, heads the Nagoya-based Genzei Nippon (Tax Reduction Japan) party and helped steer the recent national-level merger of its members into Shiga Gov. Yukiko Kada's Nippon Mirai no To (Tomorrow Party of Japan).
Though he is now throwing his support behind candidates from Nippon Mirai, the platform of Kada's recently formed group no longer stands for, among other things, "tax reduction," the phraseology having been replaced with "opposition toward tax increases." Kawamura, who still leads Genzai Nippon, which is now only a local group, is not in Nippon Mirai nor is he one of its executives.