Half of Japan's Population is Partially Vaccinated💉
Final Strecth in the race for Yokohama, Mayor Takashi Licking Scandal & Suga Rivals start popping up
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Let’s go with the content of today:
The Essentials: News and weekly politics about Japan.🏆
Progress on the Vaccination Process of Japan💉
Tweet(s) of the Week💬
The Essentials: News and weekly politics about Japan.🏆
The Mayor of Nagoya Apologizes for Bitting an Olympic Medal
Few times during my times following Japanese Politics, I’ve seen such a ridiculous and surreal scandal in Japan like the one that unfolded over the last weeks with the populist Mayor of Nagoya:
Kawamura Takashi, a popular and populist politician, that has controlled the city of Nagoya for years.
Once the Olympic Games ended, the Mayor received in his city Gotou Miu「後藤希友」 a softball player from Nagoya who won a Gold Medal in the games last month. In their meeting at the city hall, Mayor Takashi had no better idea than, in the age of covid, to take her medal and bit it. Ugh. That’s something only athletes are supposed to do with their own medal!
Immediately, the scenes rapidly ran like fire on the internet with many users using the opportunity to pile up on criticizing the Mayor, a right-wing, racist man that may be deeply unpopular for many but who has been reelected for more than ten years as the mayor of Nagoya, one of Japan’s main cities. After several days, last week, Mayor Takashi, following the mini-scandal, proposed to pay for a new medal for the athlete.
The thing is that it looks like Mayor Takashi has a liking for licking things😂
After the blowback, at the start of the week, Kawamura Takashi announced that he would renounce to 3 months of his salary (1.5 million yen) as a way of penance…
“It was the utmost expression of love. I showed admiration for her winning the gold medal” he said before bowing deeply…
Oshima Tadamori, Speaker of the House to Retire
Last week, Oshima Tadamori「大島理森」the Speaker of the Hosue of Representatives of Japan「衆議院」 announced his intention to retire from politics when the current term ends in the fall. First elected in 1983, he’s one of the most veteran LDP politicians in the House, where he’s represented two of the three districts of Aomori Prefecture since then. During his time he’s also been part of the government minister of Education and Agriculture in the early 2000s.
In 2015, he was elected to the post of Speaker of the Lower Hosue「衆議院議長」 for the first time, a role he took back and mantains since 2017.
He joins a growing list of veteran LDP politicians that have announced their retirement in the last months. Many of these men hail from dep conservative seats, like Oshima himself. Others, however, leave behind competitive districts the Opposition parties might like to win in the fall.
Just a few weeks ago I wrote a post about them HERE. Go check it out!
Three Days Before the Election of Mayor of Yokohama
With just three days left in the race for Mayor of Yokohama, the latest public and private polls that are been available paint a rosy picture for the Opposition parties and their unified candidate, the university professor Yamanaka Takeharu.
According to the latest numbers, he appears to be well-positioned with a slight lead over the two other main contenders: LDP’s Okonogi Hachiro and the current Mayor Hayashi Fumiko. Even if the race was focused, on the first part, on the development of the so-called Integrated Resort, the latter part of the campaign seems to have shifted towards COVID, as the fifth wave becomes the worst yet in Japan, in terms of infections and severe cases, including in the prefecture of Kanagawa, where Yokohama is located. Once the attention is on the pandemic, the LDP and its candidates suffer, dragged down by high disapproval ratings for the party and Prime minister Suga in their handling of the situation.
There’s still time left for changes and a lot of uncertainty remains, but it looks like the covid situation has kneecapped Okonogi Hachiro, which is the de-facto LDP candidate even though he didn’t earn heir endorsement given his sudden opposition to the casino plan. That position may have hurt him with male, conservative voters that approve of the plan, whose support may receive and maintain Mayor Hayashi next Sunday.
If Yamanaka Takeharu manages to win on Sunday, it’d arguily be a coup de grace for Prime minister Suga, who currently represents Kanagawa’s Second District, which is conveniently located, where? In Yokohama City itself.
On Sunday, be sure follow the race along with me on Twitter at @NihonPolitics!
Suga Will Not be Alone in the Race for LDP President
With just a little more than a month until the race for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party takes place on the 29th of September, the odds of Prime Minister Suga being reelected without Opposition are dwindling by the hour.
In the last days, Shimomura Hakubun「下村博文」the party Policy Chief surprised everyone by announcing his intention to challenge Suga. Nobody saw this move coming, which shows the weakened position of the Prime Minister within his party. Even though Shimomura does not bring extensive political chops, he’s part of the Hosoda faction, the party’s largest, which might point to unease felt within about the prospects of Suga leading the party to the election in the fall.
Make sure you read this excelled thread, as always, by Tobias Harris on Shimomura:
Previously, Takaichi Sanae「高市早苗」, a former minister of Internal Affairs who currently represents Nara District Two, had shown her intention to run for the party top post too. Expect more news to appear in the coming days.
It looks like Suga won’t be alone in the race anymore…buckle up
Progress on the Vaccination Process of Japan💉
This was the week when Japan finally reached 50% of its population with at least one dose! Japan is exactly at 51% today. The share of people with complete vaccination stands at 40%.
Thankfully, the numbers must be higher among the eligible population.👏👏
These are good numbers, but they’re not enough. The vaccination rates have to stretch close to 70 and 80% of the population. Let’s be confident Japan can do it once the number of doses available expands and younger people can take it. In the meantime, the vaccines are working extremely well, as the national government and prefectural ones release some preliminary numbers.
Thankfully, the Japanese media is picking up the information. It’s so important to show to the people of Japan how vaccines magnificently work to avoid hospitalization and death, while considesbly lowering the risk of infection.
At this vaccination rate, according to Bloomberg, as picked up by the Tokyo Shinbun, 70-80% of the people might be vaccinated by late October of November. Let’s speed it up!
The pace is currently lowing though. The last day Japan administered over 1 million shots was the 10th of August. There’s been a significant reduction in the number of first doses recently even though the numbers from last week still have to be revised, so they’ll grow.
The decline in first does is more noticeable in the weekly chart: from a high of 5.7 million in early July.
The months of June and July were absolutely awesome, with around 35 million doses administered. Sadly August won’t reach those figures: it’s still below May. Two weeks left.
This week, when Japan finally reached half of its population with one dose of the anti-COVID vaccine, the differences between rural and urban Japan became clear, even more: rural Japan is largely over 50%, with some prefectures reaching even 60% of their populations partially vaccinated; meanwhile, urban Japan is stack at 40%.
These are the prefectures with more than half of their people partially vaccinated:
Aomori
Akita
Yamagata
Fukushima
Gunma
Niigata
Ishikawa
Fukui
Gifu
Wakayama
Tottori
Okayama
Yamaguchi (59.6%)
Tokushima
Kochi
Saga
Nagasaki
Kumamoto
Oita
On the other hand, places like Saitama (40%), Tokyo (45%) or Osaka (43%) seem stuck…
When it comes to full vaccination, some of the same rural prefectures previously mentioned are just shy of having half of their population completely vaccinated.
It’s the case of:
Yamaguchi (47%
Wakayama (46%)
Okinawa is, still, dead last with only 29% of its people fully vaccinated.
Tweet(s) of the Week💬
Reding a book I came across this surreal meeting from 1987. Fascinating 🐵🐵
This account is probably one of my favorites about Japan. Go follow them!
Thank you for being here another week!
See you next time with the results of the Yokohama Mayoral race 😀
