SETSU KOBAYASHI is still smarting from his brief foray into Japanese politics last year. A constitutional scholar, he set up a centrist political party called Kokumin Ikari no Koe (“The Angry Voice of the People”). But the people were not as angry as he thought: none of the party’s list of ten candidates won any of the seats allocated by proportional representation in elections for the upper house of parliament. They had each deposited ¥6m ($53,000) to run, which they all forfeited. The whole exercise left Mr Kobayashi ¥60m out of pocket—the price of a nice apartment in Tokyo. “Never again,” he says.
Candidates for first-past-the-post seats in parliament pay half as much (¥3m)—but that is still swingeing by international standards (see chart). This creates a big obstacle for new parties or independents trying to break into politics. Tokyo is about to hold elections for its local assembly; candidates must stump...Continue reading
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