The price of admission to Japanese politics is high

At least help us get our money back

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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