Activities that are undertaken not to elect a particular candidate but to unseat him or her. This is not considered “election campaigning” under the Public Offices Election Law, and even minors who do not have the right to vote may engage in such activities.

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: Guidelines for the Revised Public Offices Election Law (Lifting the ban on Internet election campaigning) (Version 1: April 26, 2013) p.28

About the campaign to drop out of the election According to judicial precedents and actual cases, election campaigning under the Public Office Election Law refers to the campaigning of a specific candidate (not necessarily limited to one candidate) in a specific election. The act is considered to be necessary and advantageous to obtain or cause to be obtained votes for the purpose of election of a person (who is not a candidate for election). Thus, even an act aimed at the elimination of one candidate is an election campaign if it is aimed at the election of another candidate. However, it is understood that an act that has no electoral purpose and is merely an attempt to eliminate a particular candidate from office does not constitute election campaigning (Daihyo 5. 9. 23, Penal Code 9.678, etc.).

2015

Minors are “allowed” to campaign for the election. To be sure, we checked with the Election Division of the Local Government Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and they clearly stated, “Unless an unsuccessful campaign is recognized as an election campaign that includes the intent to elect a specific candidate, it is not bound by the prior campaign. Furthermore, he said that although the Public Election Law prohibits minors who do not have the right to vote from campaigning, there is no law or regulation that regulates minors in terms of campaigning for unsuccessful candidates, and therefore, “there will be no problem” if minors engage in campaigning for unsuccessful candidates.

2021-10-31 Tweeting Thoughts While Watching a TV Show

nishio Akira Amari: “The campaign to lose the election has become more intense from all over the country, and it’s gotten tougher.” Akira Ikegami: “Campaigning for a lost election is an approved action, isn’t it?” Sweet, “Ummm…”

This statement is like an endorsement that “a campaign to lose elections is beneficial in changing politics.”

  • nishio I expect that maybe a proper transcription or something will eventually be made by some media outlet.

nishio “Then we’ll take a survey of viewers to see if they agree with Amari’s explanation. The four-color button on the TV is very active.

And then he confronts them during a live interview on live TV with “88% are not convinced,” which is relentless. - technological use of force

  • nishio If possible, I’d like to see these programs done four times a year, not after the election.

  • Programs over there and over here are very happy to interview people who were not selected and kick dead bodies, but that’s not a very productive activity.

  • nishio By “like this,” I mean “fast public feedback” where you ask a politician a question, listen to the explanation, and then immediately ask, “Did you agree with the explanation?” (or “Fast public feedback”), where you ask a politician a question, listen to his/her explanation, and then immediately take a survey asking, “Are you satisfied with the explanation?

nishio Transcribed by other media [Akira Amari explains his struggle in the primary election, saying “I was intensely campaigned to lose the election from all over the country” Lower House Election 2021 | HuffPost NEWS]

  • When Ikegami asked Amari, who appeared in a live interview on the program, how he perceived the struggle, he said, “To be honest, I did not expect to struggle so much.

  • In addition to the fact that he was running against the united candidate of the opposition parties, he stated, “In my district, there was a strong campaign to unseat me from all over the country, and I suffered greatly because of the publicity that was used to spread this misconception.

  • When Ikegami cut him off and said, “Isn’t the campaign to lose the election itself allowed?” he replied, “Hmmm. The party’s legal team has told us that this is extremely problematic,” he responded.

2022

  • New Solidarity in the Era of Internet Elections: “Campaign to Lose the Election” Experts: “It is Significant to Make the Issue Known” : Tokyo Shimbun TOKYO Web.

  • Ryosuke Nishida, associate professor of sociology at Tokyo University of Technology and an expert on the relationship between politics and the media, said, “With the lifting of the ban on online elections, it has become easier for many people to join together beyond their local communities. I don’t know if the number of unsuccessful campaigns has increased, but with the spread of social networking sites (SNS), I have the impression that it has become easier to visualize them as interesting efforts that take advantage of their characteristics,” he said.

  • In Japan, a citizens’ group took a cue from the campaign to unseat candidates in South Korea in the 2000 lower house election. A list of candidates to be eliminated based on criteria such as involvement in fraud was compiled and made public.

  • Associate Professor Nishida sees the unsuccessful election campaign as “an expressive activity with a political nature. He pointed out that “the Internet penetration rate higher than in Japan and distrust of the mass media were behind the fact that the South Korean voter suppression campaign had a certain effect. In Japan, the voting rate among people in their 30s and 40s or younger who use the Internet is low. He is skeptical about the effectiveness of the campaign, saying, “Even if we call on people who do not usually go to the polls, it may be difficult to achieve success in the narrow sense of “winning or losing” the election.

  • However, he says that it is very important to inform people about issues related to politics. “For example, if it is a matter of (system of) selective marital separation, we can let people know that ‘we are not forcing people to have different surnames,’ or that ‘the LDP is the bottleneck in introducing it. For democracy, a diversity of expressive activities is preferable. If the purpose is to spread a new discourse originating from the Internet, it makes sense as an expression strategy,” he said.

  • [Akira Ikegami

  • democracy


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