The crushing defeat of third-force political parties pushing for the end of atomic power in December's general election — even as antinuclear sentiment among the public has soared — left many activists pondering what went wrong.
Yasuko Maruko, a regular attendee at the antinuclear rallies staged Fridays near the prime minister's office last year, was one of the activists who ran in the Dec. 16 Lower House poll, hoping groups opposed to atomic plants would break through into mainstream politics.
But Maruko, running on the ticket of the antinuclear Nippon Mirai no To (Tomorrow Party of Japan), suffered a devastating defeat in the Tokyo No. 5 constituency, finishing fifth with less than a quarter of the votes garnered by the Liberal Democratic Party's winning candidate. The now-ruling LDP is cautious about eliminating all of Japan's nuclear power stations.