The LDP as the Main Obstacle to Gay Rights in Japan
New Elections, Scaled Up Vaccination & the Sinking of the Suga Government in Tokyo
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Elections in Japan🗳️
The Essentials: News and weekly politics about Japan.🏆
Progress on the Vaccination Process of Japan💉
Tweet(s) of the Week💬
Elections in Japan🗳️
Mayor of Saitama City「さいたま市」🏘️
Last Sunday, Shimizu Hayato「清水勇人」was reelected as Mayor of Saitama City for a fourth term, in a low-key affair with a sadly record-low turnout.
Hayato, who had the support of the LDP, Komeito and even the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan easily defeated Maejima Hideo, a Japanese Communist party candidate, by almost 40 points.
Since he was first elected in 2009, Shimizu Hayato has managed to win votes left and right, with a growing share of support each time. Turnout has always been low throughout the years but he’s grown the number of votes consistently.
According to the NHK Exit Poll, almost 18% of those surveyed said that they were “supporters” of the CDPJ. It looks high but it is expected in a city like Saitama. The CDPJ is eminently an urban party, especially strong in Saitama itself, Tokyo or Kanagawa.
Furthermore, Saitama city is Edano Yukio’s home turf: the leader of the CDPJ has been continuously representing the downtown of Saitama City, the District 5 of Saitama, since 2000.
Hyogo Prefectural Assembly Special Election: Takarazuka City 🎭
On the same day, special elections for the prefectural assembly of Hyogo took place to fill 2 vacancies created in April. That month, two incumbents members of the LDP & Ishin, who represented the city of Tkarazuka in the prefectural assembly left their seats to run for mayor of their city, but they both lost.
Last Sunday, five candidates vied from the two vacant seats from Takarazuka in the 86-seat legislature of Hyogo. The final results of the election showed once again the failure of the Opposition parties to coalesce behind unified candidates when the races do not take place at the national (even in those cases, the cooperation is always difficult…). In the end, the LDP and Ishin no Kai candidates retained the seats they previously held from the city in the Assembly (the third seat is occupied by a communist incumbent). The Opposition parties had a big chance, in an affluent, opposition-friendly city on the border between Hyogo and Osaka, to take a seat after their candidate was elected mayor in April:
Then, it was a big victory for Yamazaki Harue, who became the second female mayor in the history of the city, succeeding another female left-wing mayor, Nakawa Tomoko, who had held the seat since 2009.
For the special election, however, the parties did not coordinate a single candidate, a big mistake that led yet to another (likely) avoidable loss:
Seat 1: Ishin candidate 15.920 votes
Seat 2: LDP candidate 13.461 votes
CDPJ candidate 12.712 votes
JCP candidate 6.590 votes
(Hypothetical unifed opposition candidate: 19.662 votes)
Independent 5.456 votes
I know.
In politics, 1+1 does not always make it 2… However, if their shared goal is “regime change”, the Opposition parties should start from the ground. Focusing only on coordinating candidates at the national level deprives them of a comprehensive approach to changing Japanese politics and the dominance of the LDP in the country.
The example of 2019 was especially disappointing. 🤦
It was doable…
Nagoya City Council: Minami-District 🏭
In April, one of the four politicians that represent the Minami District in the Nagoya City Council, an LDP incumbent, ran for Mayor of the city and lost to the irreducible right-wing Mayor Kawamura Takashi, in Japan’s fourth city.
Thus, his vacant set was put in play last Sunday. In the end, with a 20% turnout, the LDP managed to retain the seat:
LDP candidate 10.733 votes
Tax Cuts candidate (Mayor Takashi Party) 5.869 votes
JCP candidate 4.627 votes
Independent 1.338 votes
Independent 964 votes
The Essentials: News and weekly politics about Japan.🏆
Anti-Gay Conservative Members Rock the LDP
Last week, when the LDP organized a party conference to discuss a proposed nonpartisan bill to “further the understanding1 of LGBTQ people”, several of its members made disgusting and disparaging remarks about sexual minorities. Even though it was a behind-closed-doors event, it became public, creating an uproar against some conservatives within the party that keep blocking progress despite the overwhelming support of the Japanese people for gay rights:
Yamatani Eriko「山谷えり子」, a 3-term member of the House of Councillors threw around a little of transphobia, saying that: “Even though he may have a male body, he’s a female, so he might enter into the toilet, or win at sport competitions…it’s ridiculous”.
At the same meeting, Yana Kazuo「簗和生」a young member (42 years old) of the party who represents Ibaraki’s District 3, went to the core of the gay discrimination argument, saying that the bill “would go against the preservation of the biological nature of the human species”
Yikes.
I don’t know how many LDP members were at the meeting…but wow. There’s another one.
Nishida Shouji「西田昌司」who’s been representing Kyoto at the House of Councillors since 2017, talked about the “immorality” of the LGBT people and how they must 我慢, even more: “Sex minorities and those who are not, must protect society and tolerate each other (…) in case of (them) disregarding the morals, bringing up a discrimination lawsuit would destroy society”.
It is remarkable how comments like these, from what we could concieve as a small part of the LDP, wihtin a minority (the LDP as a whole) in the country, are blocking social progress desired by the Japanese people.
These remarks show once again how far behind, the party and the government are in comparison to the Japanese people. At the first meeting last week, the party dropped support for the bill because, apparently, some conservatives2 didn’t want to include a CDPJ-proposed sentence that stated that “LGBT discrimination shoulnd’t be allowed…”.
On the 4th of May, the party finally accepted the bill in another intraparty meeting, reassuring conservatives that the party was not “giving an inch” though. It doesn’t look optimistic for the attainment of further protections, at least in the short term, as the party has to continue debating the bill in the face of the opposition of a conservative minority…
Just in time for the Olympics, Japan could have legalized Gay Marriage. Can you imagine…
It’s time either for the LDP to adapt and approve gay marriage plus other protection for sexual minorities or for the Japanese people to kick the LDP out of the government3 for blocking progress on a field that garners widespread agreement in the Japanese society.
New Poll Finds the LDP in a Precarious Situation in Tokyo
On Tuesday, the Tokyo Shinbun published a survey about the state of politics in Tokyo and it paints a really worrying picture for the LDP, just two months away from the Olympics and the election for the Metropolitan Assembly of Tokyo. 👀
ICYM, check out the thread I made on Twitter about the poll 🚨🚨🚨
The apparent weak position of both the LDP and the Suga Governemtn *in Tokyo* does not bode well for the Metropolitan Election in July4.
On the 25th of June, all the candidates for districts around Tokyo have to be made public. By then, I will have ready a special Newsletter entry about the Tokyo Election!
Progress on the Vaccination Process of Japan💉
This week Japan reached a new milestone in its vaccination process: 10 million doses administered, 7.1 million first doses. At least 5.6% of the Japanese population has one dose, 2.3% is completely immunized.
The daily pace is finally set at 400k per day. On the weekend (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) almost 1 million doses were administered, almost 200k more than the previous weekend.
With the growing rate of the vaccination of the elderly ratching up, we should finally reach, this week, half a million doses per day.
The growth has been spectacular in the last two weeks: since then, 50% of the total doses of the process, which started in February have been administered. Over 2 million shots in each of the last weeks, with a growing share of first doses. Important.
Will Japan reach 3 million shots this week?
Of the 10 million shots administered:
7.1 million first doses
2.9 million second doses
The difference has been growing between first and second doses because the vaccination for the elderly recently started. The vaccination of healthcare workers is already on its way out with more than 70% of them with at least one dose.
The vaccination of Japanese seniors is slowly progressing. Check out the following ranking:
Up up up!
There are some differences, regionally, about the progress of the vaccination in Japan. Currently, the process is moving on two tracks: healthcare workers and the elderly.
The share of the population with 1 dose reaches 8% in only four prefectures:
Wakayama 9.6%
Yamaguchi 9.3%
Kochi 8.6%
Saga 8.3%
The total immunization, with two doses, does not reach 5% anywhere in Japan though. Above 3.5% we can find five prefectures:
Tokushima 3.9%
Saga 3.8%
Fukui 3.6%
Kochi 3.6%
Wakayama 3.5%
Tweet(s) of the Week💬
LOL
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike for Prime Minister'? It ain’t happening folks…Check out this thread by the great Derek Wessman:
By the way, TAIWAN IS A COUNTRY
I wonder if the target of a bill like this, to “raise awareness”, is the Japanese public or the party itself…
According to JIJI, Prime Minister Suga and his people are worried that pushing such a bill could endanger the conservative vote for the party before the election in Tokyo and the General Election in the fall.
Inada Tomomi「稲田朋美」 a previous Minister of Defense and a famed conservative LDP member, has been trying for some time to change the focus of the party and fellow conservatives towards a more “tolerant” stance of the party towards LGBTQ, in order not to surrender this issue to the Opposition. It won’t be easy.
As a toss-up prefecture, the LDP’s grip in Tokyo might slip away in the next election if Suga is not able to lift up his approval rating. After the 2017 Election, the LDP controls 21 (20 + 1 from Komeito) out of 25 seats from Tokyo in the Lower House, but 16 of them were elected with less than half of the vote.