Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
Regarding “Making noise about keeping the decibels down” (October 11), the Japan Election Law prohibits door-to-door solicitation/campaigning, which is a tremendously good thing. But this explains why candidates have to resort to patrolling the streets shouting their names to gain recognition. It's not a very sophisticated political election strategy because there is nothing intellectual or intelligent about it. It does not involve the presentation or debate of any policy ideas. It's only about name recognition. Kind of childish, really. The Election Law specifically limits campaigning to the hours of eight in the morning until eight in the evening. What bothers me the most is the sight of candidates with bull horns outside train and subway stations before eight a.m. soliciting (berating) sleepy voters with with their cacophonous howling. They want to be lawmakers but they start out breaking the law by campaigning before eight a.m. Something ought to be done. Newspaper stories should be published. Arrests should be made. The sad reality, though, is that a complaint against, or arrest of politicians making illegal early morning campaign noise would simply be met with incomprehension.
This reminds me of “Annoyed teen punches lawmaker giving speech outside train station” (October 29, 2002) that reported an assault on Democratic Party of Japan House of Representatives lawmaker Yukichi Maeda not for political reasons, but just because he was noisy and annoying. I have always admired that unnamed teen.
Published on Thursday, October 23, 2014 as “Lawbreakers from the get-go.”