Tokyo teams up with bathhouses to boost voter turnout for assembly election
Local authorities in Tokyo are ramping up efforts to raise voter turnout ahead of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election on Sunday, rolling out a series of public awareness campaigns aimed particularly at younger voters.
Initiatives include partnering with public bathhouses amid Japan's ongoing sauna boom and collaborating with high school students to create promotional materials.
According to the Tokyo's election commission, voter turnout in the previous election in 2021 stood at 42.39%. While over 50% of voters in their 60s and older turned out, rates were much lower among younger demographics, with only 25.8% of voters in their 20s and 34.22% in their 30s casting ballots — highlighting a persistent gap in political engagement between age groups.
In an attempt to reach younger voters, the commission is collaborating with the hot spring website Nifty Onsen and the Tokyo Sento Association to raise voter awareness at 61 bathhouses across the capital.
Posters are being displayed during the campaign period, and several bathhouses are naming one of their baths 'election bath' to make people more aware of the upcoming election.
'With the sauna trend, we can appeal to a wider, younger audience,' a Tokyo metropolitan government official said. 'We hope people will take a moment of relaxation to reflect on politics and the upcoming election.'
In Tokyo's Nerima Ward, local high school students helped design election-themed pocket tissue packs to be handed out at train stations and other public locations.
The Nerima municipality is the only one of Tokyo's 23 wards with a dedicated election outreach team. Its official X social media account is updated frequently. 'We aim to post at least once a day,' a Nerima government official said.
In the city of Machida in western Tokyo, officials have redesigned the birthday cards that the local government sends to residents turning 18 to inform them of their eligibility to vote as Japanese citizens. The new designs were developed with input from young people and aim to make the cards feel less stiff and formal and more accessible.
'We hope their first voting experience will lead them to vote again,' a city official said.
Translated by The Japan Times
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NHK
an hour ago
- NHK
Top court upholds denial of COVID subsidies to sex industry businesses
Japan's Supreme Court has upheld lower court rulings that found it is not unconstitutional to deny state subsidies for enterprises impacted by the pandemic to adult entertainment businesses. The court's First Petty Bench on Monday rejected an outcall escort service operator's appeal for compensation and payment of the subsidies. The operator argued that its exclusion amounts to occupational discrimination and violates the Constitution's guarantee of equality under the law. That claim had previously been rejected by a district and a high court. In upholding the lower courts' decision, the top court said non-store-based adult entertainment businesses are positioned as having the potential to impede the healthy development of minors if various regulations are not put in place. The court ruled that denying public funds to such businesses is not unconstitutional. One of the five justices behind Monday's ruling, the presiding justice, Miyagawa Mitsuko, gave a dissenting opinion. She said the exclusion could give the impression that operators and workers of sex-related industries are socially inferior, and is a stereotype that could take root among the public. The operator stated: "I don't believe this ruling truly upholds human rights. Considering the impact on the industry, it's the worst possible outcome. On the other hand, I found some solace in the fact that there was a justice who wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that it violates the Constitution."
Japan Times
3 hours ago
- Japan Times
Many regions eager to host branches of upcoming disaster agency
Many prefectures and cities in Japan are eager to host regional branches of the national government's envisioned disaster management agency, a signature project of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, according to a recent survey by Jiji Press. The survey, which was conducted this month, covered all 47 prefectures as well as municipal governments and other bodies, with the number of entities keen to invite such branches totaling 28. By Friday, 13 prefectures, 10 cities and the Union of Kansai Governments had submitted their requests to the central government. The city of Nagoya plans to make a similar request next month. The governors of Gunma and Mie prefectures, as well as the mayor of Fukushima have also voiced interest in hosting branch offices of the disaster management agency. Among the potential hosts, Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture and Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture highlighted in their respective bids their experiences of dealing with the aftermath of the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that hit both prefectures and other parts of the Tohoku region hard. Ishikawa Prefecture and the city of Komatsu, located along the Sea of Japan, have both picked as a candidate site an area near Komatsu Airport, which they expect would be able to serve as a key base for the transportation of relief goods in the event of a powerful earthquake and tsunami occurring in the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast of Japan. Ishikawa suffered heavy damage from a giant quake that struck on Jan. 1, 2024. Kochi Prefecture, which is highly likely to be affected by a possible Nankai Trough disaster, proposed that a department be set up in the prefecture for the planned agency to offer support to local governments making advance preparations for community rebuilding in the event of a large-scale disaster. The Union of Kansai Governments, made up of the six prefectures in the Kansai region along with two nearby prefectures and four major cities in Kansai, proposes that the central government establish a disaster management hub in not just the Tokyo metropolitan area but also the Kansai region. Hyogo Prefecture and its capital, Kobe, have jointly asked for the Kansai hub to be established in or around Kobe, based on the lessons learned from a major earthquake that devastated the city and its surrounding areas in January 1995. As part of requests to help reduce the overconcentration of national administrative functions in Tokyo, Nagano and Okayama prefectures respectively called for some central government agencies and ministries to be relocated to other parts of the country. They also requested that the national government establish the disaster management agency outside of Tokyo. The central government aims to launch the agency in fiscal 2026. Expectations for hosting disaster management agency branches ballooned among local governments after Ishiba said last December that the idea of establishing regional branches ought to be explored. On June 6, Ishiba instructed his government staff to accelerate discussions toward setting up such branches. Last Thursday, Ryosei Akazawa, the minister in charge of preparations for launching the new agency, showed a plan to draw up criteria for selecting venues for regional branches.
Japan Times
3 hours ago
- Japan Times
Agriculture ministry aims to stop publishing rice index amid accuracy concerns
The agriculture ministry plans to cease publishing its rice crop situation index, which has been used for almost seven decades, after farmers and retailers voiced concerns that government data is overstated, the farm ministry said Monday. The rice crop situation index –– or the ratio of rice yield per 10 ares (1,000 sq. meters) to the average yield per 10 ares –– shows the condition of the crop. For rice produced in 2024, the crop situation index was in the same range as previous years at 101, or 1% more rice crops than the average year, according to the agriculture ministry. 'Amid speculation from the public and farmers about the various data and statistics on rice, our ministry debated over what is really the best way to make revisions,' farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters, adding, 'We've decided that to release the index will mean doing nothing about this inaccuracy.' The gap between the crop situation index and farmers' testimonies occurred because the ministry was using outdated sampling numbers –– trends from the past three decades, during which cold weather resulted in smaller yields, making it inappropriate to compare with current crops. 'From now on, we want to use satellites, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technology to improve our accuracy, establishing a new foundation for agriculture policies,' Koizumi said. The Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications will make the final decision regarding whether to stop publishing the crop situation index. Koizumi's remarks came after he visited Fukushima Prefecture on Sunday to meet with officials from the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) and rice farmers, who said that the agriculture ministry's rice crop situation index does not reflect reality. 'So you're saying that you're not producing, not harvesting as much as the agriculture ministry is saying? Well, we've been hearing the same thing in other regions,' Koizumi told the farmers, adding, 'I will make sure that you feel like (the ministry's data) is getting closer to what you're sensing on-site.' Since replacing his predecessor, who stepped down over a gaffe about rice four weeks ago, Koizumi has repeatedly said rice prices had surged since last summer due to a sharp drop in shipments made to JA and other distributors despite higher production. Farmers produced 6.79 million tons of rice last year, up 180,000 tons from the previous year, according to the farm ministry. In 2025, they are projected to yield 7.19 million tons of rice, which would take the harvest 400,000 tons higher compared with last year's and make it the largest in five years, the ministry said –– data which is now being refuted by farmers, themselves. 'I really want you to figure out the root cause of this rice shortage,' JA Fukushima Chuou-kai president Keiji Kano told Koizumi on Sunday. Other factors, including a rising number of foreign visitors consuming more of the staple grain and speculative buyers entering the market, are also said to have contributed to price hikes. Some critics blamed farmers for not producing enough rice to meet demand. The farm ministry released an additional 200,000 metric tons of stockpiled rice harvested in 2021 and 2020 through no-bid contracts last Wednesday. The retail price for the 2021 rice is expected to be around ¥1,800 ($12.43) per 5-kilogram bag while the 2020 rice is expected to cost ¥1,700. 'We need to prevent consumers from buying less rice, which we are (preventing) with farmers' interests in mind. I ask for your understanding. I don't think that (rice) will be ¥2,000 forever,' Koizumi said.
