Last month, a gubernatorial election was held in Hyogo prefecture, where the former governor, Motohiko Saito (斎藤 元彦), was suspected to have committed power harassment, which ended up with the municipal parliament passing a non-confidence vote against him. This election brought two jolts to me.
The first surprise was that he was actually reelected. At first, he was panned nationwide; but as election day pulled up, youngsters started to prop him up by watching YouTube highlight clip videos and TikTok films showing how he pulled off improving Hyogo management, while calling out newspapers and TV broadcast stations as “old media”, wanting to avoid being deprived of the pork barrels. They contained lots of misinformation and dis-information against his arch-rival, Kazumi Inamura (稲村 和美), which was said to be like what happened in the American presidential elections.
The second surprise played out soon after his reelection. A post on SNS written by the president of an advertisement company which supported the governor acted out a sensation because she bragged about undertaking an election campaign on SNS; that means she got paid by the governor, but it is forbidden by Japanese election law (which could make wonder those who are from countries where it is natural that election campaigns cost a lot).
I personally feel disgusted with the president because it has even been reported that at least two officials killed themselves because of the governor’s power harassment, and she didn’t care about that in the slightest by endorsing him, but another revolting thing is that some people join the argument online to mock her pictures on SNS, which she had been posting, just to say, “Serves you right!!” Talk about cyberbullying!!
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