During election campaigns, candidates who may otherwise remain in air-conditioned corridors of power are forced to spend a lot of time outside instead.
Stump speeches in front of train stations, as well as interactions with voters on the street regardless of the weather or the candidate's physical health, are long-established practices in efforts to win office.
But with concerns about summer heat rising and many elections taking place in summertime, it may not be tenable to conduct campaigns as in the past, given health risks to candidates, their staff and voters.
At the same time, strict campaign laws mean that its tougher to adapt to this new reality by shifting to more appropriate times or offering respite to voters.
Upper House elections are held in summer — mostly in July — every three years. The next election is scheduled for the summer of 2025.
The mean temperature for July this year was the highest for that month since records began in 1898. That month, Tokyo had 12 days where the daytime high was 35 degrees Celsius or above — what is known as an "extremely hot day" — and on July 29 highs of 40 C and above were recorded in Ibaraki, Saitama, Gunma, Shizuoka and Tochigi prefectures.
With temperatures trending upward due to climate change, campaigning in July in future years could see many people put at risk. But balancing this with legal restrictions on the conducting of election campaigns, as well as candidates' desire to be as publicly visible as possible, even in super hot weather, might be tricky.
Makoto Katagiri, a secretary for Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan Upper House lawmaker Kenji Katsube, says outdoor daytime rallies for a candidate have traditionally lasted for 30 to 45 minutes. But that doesn’t include the time spent waiting for speakers to arrive.
“Under Japanese law, outdoor rallies at places like a public park can take place between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.," he says. "We should think about evening rallies (when it’s cooler) or shortening daytime speeches when it’s really hot.”
The law also says neither candidates nor their staff can show up before the rally and start handing out bottles of water to people who are waiting for the speeches to start. That’s because doing so is seen as a gift from the politician to voters, and is thus not allowed.
“If it’s really hot, we’ll make announcements to be careful of the heat and be sure to drink water (that they bring themselves),” Katagiri says.
Other ideas to deal with heat risks at rallies, such as having campaign staff set up cooling tents before the stump speech to assist those waiting for the candidate, might be allowed, Katagiri says. But doing so would not be cheap for the candidates, while the logistics — setting them up for a relatively short stump speech and then taking them down and hauling them to the next campaign stop — also present a barrier to their adoption.
Katsube represents Hokkaido, which is known for cooler summers compared with other parts of the country. Nonetheless, there is still a risk of heatstroke, not least because many voters in the prefecture are elderly and not accustomed to intense heat. Katagiri says that, as a result, they aren’t in the habit of drinking lots of water during the summer.
On the other hand, he says, if those coming to hear campaign speeches in hot weather are farmers, fishers or those who work outdoors, they may be more used to the heat and can protect themselves better than those who work indoors all day.
As for candidates and heatstroke, how they wish to be perceived by voters plays a large role in deciding what measures they take while campaigning. Delivering a long speech in the broiling sun without wearing a hat, for example, is seen by some, including Katsube, as a campaign strategy.
“He seems to think it’s better if people see him sweating in the sun without a hat. It shows he’s willing to endure or try and do his best,” Katagiri says.
Even indoor rallies and meetings with voters can face heat issues. In Hokkaido, many public buildings do not have air conditioning, for example. Although larger venues seating several hundred people are likely to have it, smaller events with fewer than 100 voters, a gathering Katagiri refers to as a “tea party,” may take place in a venue that does not.
Transportation to and from the venues can also be problematic in terms of extreme heat. Specially designed campaign cars carry the candidate and campaign workers around the district, and stump speeches are sometimes delivered from the rooftop.
Loudspeakers on the car, which blare out the candidate’s name as the vehicle rolls through the streets, also pose a problem. Katagiri says that when they are on, it’s sometimes not possible to keep the air conditioning on at the same time due to the amount of energy they draw off the car battery. That means a long, hot ride for the passengers.
As July 2025 is a long way off, specific countermeasures that Upper House candidates might take on the campaign trail is not yet a focus of major debate, although Katagiri says things such as further training for staffers on heatstroke countermeasures and other precautions should be considered.
But he also points to one simple way, increasingly common in Tokyo, that male voters in Hokkaido might adopt in order to reduce heatstroke risk.
“I’ve heard that Tokyo men are increasingly using sun parasols. That’s something we don’t have at all in Sapporo, and I think it’s time to emulate Tokyo in that respect,” Katagiri says.
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