While the fallout from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's slush fund scandal will continue to reverberate during this month's round of by-elections, one of the three districts set to vote has a rocky past of its own — one of scandals and political misconduct.
On April 28, the residents of Tokyo's No. 15 district — which corresponds to the city’s southeastern Koto Ward — will head to the polls for the third time in a year.
They won’t be short on choices. After a recent electoral scandal prompted a flurry of resignations from local politicians, nine candidates — including a well-known writer, a former wrestler and a scholar on Islamic thought — will compete for one seat in what’s set to be the most chaotic of the three by-election races. Official campaigning kicked off on Tuesday.
The plight of the ruling coalition
The LDP’s inability to find a suitable candidate for the district speaks of its predicament at both the national and local levels.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is facing low approval ratings and staunch public discontent over the party’s handling of the slush fund scandal. In a recent TV Asahi poll, 81% of respondents expressed their discontent over punishments the party levied earlier this month against the lawmakers involved in the scandal.
Meanwhile, in Koto Ward, two politicians affiliated with the party — former Mayor Yayoi Kimura and former Lower House lawmaker Mito Kakizawa — stepped down within the last year alone following accusations of campaign wrongdoing. Kakizawa was then arrested and sentenced to two years in jail, freeing up a seat in the Lower House.
Its hands tied, the LDP had initially hinted that it would endorse Hirotada Ototake, an independent candidate who has de facto affiliation with another party — an unusual move for the ruling party — before changing course.
Ototake, a well-known writer born with a condition that left him limbless, had been critical of the LDP over the scandal, but he had also remained receptive to external support.
“It’s hard to forgive people when they don’t respect the rules and use or save money in an unfair way,” he said when he announced his candidacy. “But, during election time, the decision on which candidate to support varies according to the state of the race."
It’s not the first time Ototake is trying his luck on the national stage. In 2016 the LDP tapped him for an Upper House seat, but he was eventually forced to forgo his candidacy following tabloid reports about extramarital affairs with five women. He took another shot as an independent six years later, but failed to win the seat.
Ototake has received the full backing of Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike and her regional party, Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First), who named him as the deputy leader of the party’s national arm, First no Kai. Putting an end to insistent speculation that she might run for the post herself, in late March Koike alluded to ongoing talks with the LDP and its junior partner, Komeito, to back Ototake.
Koike’s all-in support was instrumental to the triumph of Tomin First’s candidate against a united opposition front in December’s Koto mayoral election. Last weekend, even before the start of the official campaign, she was already making stump speeches in the district alongside Ototake, who has received the additional backing of Yuichiro Tamaki's Democratic Party for the People.
However, almost two weeks after news Ototake’s candidacy first emerged, the LDP officially announced it would not endorse him, on the grounds that he had failed to demand a formal recommendation from the party and because the local branch of the party had asked headquarters to refrain from filing a candidate.
In a news conference Friday, Koike hinted that Ototake will attempt to expand his support circles across various companies and business organizations, even without the LDP’s endorsement.
As the local assembly is still grappling with the fallout from the local scandal, an LDP assembly member voiced his frustration over the party’s inability to find a suitable candidate for the post.
“It’s shameful that we weren’t able to field our own candidate — we should have,” said Takumi Ooyane, adding that nobody else in the party’s local ranks had dared to raise their hand for the post. “Perhaps we were a bit timid because the party’s entangled in all these scandals.”
The fact that prominent Tokyo LDP politicians — such as former policy chiefs Koichi Hagiuda and Hakubun Shimomura — have been embroiled in the recent scandal has impacted the party’s chances in the race, veteran election strategist Hiroshi Miura said.
For its part, Komeito, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, will likely refrain from any formal recommendation. The party had shown some reluctance toward Ototake’s candidacy soon after it was announced. In a news conference in early April, the party’s policy chief, Yosuke Takagi, hinted that local supporters were far from enthusiastic about Ototake's candidacy.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, party leader Natsuo Yamaguchi said Komeito had yet to formalize a position on the matter. Ototake hasn’t requested a formal endorsement from the party.
The women’s division of Komeito’s main Soka Gakkai support base is traditionally very sensitive to adultery scandals, and the reception to Ototake’s name had been lukewarm to say the least, Miura said.
“When the women’s division decides to support a candidate, they spare no effort,” Miura explains. “I don’t think they’ll mobilize this time.”
Fragmented opposition
Emboldened by the LDP’s predicament, opposition parties are looking to seize Tokyo’s No. 15 district in an effort to deal a further blow to the beleaguered Kishida administration. However, chronic fragmentation might split the vote and prevent any candidate from winning a clear mandate.
Natsumi Sakai, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan’s candidate, served as a member of the local ward assembly for two terms until she decided to run in the mayoral election last December.
A former midwife with a clean record and a success story — she gave birth to a child after defeating cervical cancer — she’ll be using her professional experience to appeal to a broad swath of voters. She has received the backing of the Japanese Communist Party, which opted to withdraw its own candidate and form a united front with the CDP. Whether she’ll be able to convince her fellow Koto residents — she lost by a wide margin in December — and the CDP’s core support base remains to be seen.
An Upper House member formerly belonging to the CDP, former wrestler Genki Sudo will also compete in the race, potentially splitting the CDP’s votes.
For her part, Yui Kanazawa of Nippon Ishin no Kai might benefit from an early-comer advantage, and the many hours she spent standing on street corners approaching bystanders across the district. Already a candidate in the district in the 2021 general election, she’s slowly become a familiar face. Nippon Ishin hopes that a win in Koto might lead to further expansion in the capital.
“She’s been doing this for five years,” said one of her aides, as they handed out fliers in the Monzen-Nakacho district. “It’s the only thing that we have.”
Other candidates seeking the post include former LDP lawmaker Tsukasa Akimoto, who represented the district in the Lower House until he was convicted of bribery in 2021, Sanseito’s Rina Yoshikawa, and Akari Iiyama of the Conservative Party of Japan, among others.
Political disengagement
In a district that's grown weary of political scandals, and where voter turnout in the last mayoral election fell under 40%, political disenfranchisement might emerge as the only clear winner in the race.
The recent cases of corruption and vote-buying, which extended to some members of the local assembly, will likely be on voters’ minds when they head to the polls. Meanwhile, talks on the moves of single parties have dominated media reports, with little to no debate on policy so far.
"Enough is enough,” said 74-year-old Shigeo Kikutani, a ward resident and the head of a local assembly in the district. “How many times will we be asked to vote?”
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