July 2009 to July 2010 - Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan - page 174

people in their twenties to forties did not want to reveal for whom they had
voted, among those who did, Minshut - was overwhelmingly the choice of
preference; these voters said that it was time for seiken k - tai. Despite Prime
Minister As -

' s constant statements to the contrary, local elections clearly

were a ected by national politics. As it turned out, the Tokyo Assembly

election became an important step towards the con dence with which voters

churned out the long-ruling LDP less than two months later. One of the more
talkative people I spoke to was a man in his forties. He had voted for Min-
shut - ,forseiken k - tai. I then inquired about what he thought of Komeito. He
looked around him and said,

' well, you have to be careful what you say

around here [in Shinanomachi] , and explained that he was afraid that if

Komeito actually took power as one party then one religion would have too
much in

'

uence. The religious aspect was a problem; besides, he was not sure
for what Komeito stood, what its opinions were.
As polling stations closed, it soon became clear that the LDP had seen
heavy losses. By noon the next day, the long-awaited date for the next Lower
House election had been set

some seven weeks later. In recent
months the media had paid attention to a supposed JCP revival among young
voters dissatis

- 30 August -

financial and unemployment situation. Perhaps
that was part of what Yoshikura had feared. While most seats gained by
Minshut - were won from the LDP, no communist revival was apparent. If
anything, the opposite was the case: the JCP found itself down to eight from
its previous 13 seats. The main competition for Komeito was not the JCP, but
rather the main opposition party. The clear winner was Minshut - , which
gained 14 seats and now had 54 seats in the Tokyo Assembly. Speaking to a
taxi driver a couple of days later, he expressed what seemed to be the senti-
ment of the majority of people in Japan. Tired of politicians and big money
mixing, he said it was time for

ed with the

minsh -

(the people or democracy). I asked
him if it then worried him that Mr Hatoyama, the head of Minshut - , was
embroiled in a money scandal, not to mention the previous head, Ozawa,
who had recently resigned as party head because of allegations that he had
received illegal donations from a construction company. He said that this was
not an issue as laws were made by people and Mr Hatoyama had used his
own money anyway, which to him indicated that perhaps the law was wrong
rather than Hatoyama. That Hatoyama, as the likely new prime minister, was
under investigation for money laundering seemed to be of little concern. This
view was perhaps not surprising as the media seldom mentioned, let alone
discussed, the implications of this as it remained

' '

fixated with the possibility of

seiken k - tai.
Despite Komeito being in a coalition with the unpopular LDP, it got all its
23 candidates elected, increasing its representation by one seat in the Tokyo
Assembly. The media attributed this success to well-organised vote canvassing
carried out by Soka Gakkai members. While this was indeed a contributing
factor, this analysis typically failed to explain why people vote for Komeito or
how Soka Gakkai members managed to garner enough support for their