The fringe far-right Sanseito party emerged as one of the biggest winners in Japan’s upper house election yesterday, gaining support with warnings of a ‘silent invasion’ of immigrants, and pledges for tax cuts and welfare spending.
Birthed on YouTube during the Covid-19 pandemic spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the party broke into mainstream politics with its ‘Japanese First’ campaign.
Public broadcaster NHK projected the party to win as many as 22 seats, adding to the single legislators it secured in the 248-seat chamber three years ago. It has only three seats in the more powerful lower house.
“The phrase ‘Japanese First’ was meant to express rebuilding Japanese people’s livelihoods by resisting globalism. I am not saying that we should completely ban foreigners or that every foreigner should get out of Japan,” Sohei Kamiya, the party’s 47-year-old leader, said in an interview with local broadcaster Nippon Television after the election.
In polling ahead of yesterday’s election, 29 per cent of voters told NHK that social security and a declining birthrate were their biggest concern.
A total of 28pc said they worried about rising rice prices, which have doubled in the past year. Immigration was in joint fifth place with 7pc of respondents pointing to it.
Kamiya, a former supermarket manager and English teacher, told Reuters before the election that he had drawn inspiration from Donald Trump’s ‘bold political style’.
&uuid=(email))