New Party for Impacting Traditional Politics
Former mayor of small city in western Japan called Akitakata, Shinji Ishimaru, announced on January 15 th that he launched a new local political party named Path to Rebirth, or Saisei no Michi in Japanese. Ishimaru hopes to field candidates in all the districts in the election of Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly scheduled in this summer. Having said that the party would not embrace any policy for the election, the party appears to be a highly unusual entity in Japanese politics. Ishimaru was elected the mayor of Akitakata when he was 37 years old in 2020, criticizing a scandal in which his predecessor had received money from a lawmaker of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who was sentenced guilty for distributing bribes to local politicians. Ishimaru’s name was nationally known when he uttered “Shame on you” to the city assembly members during his speech in a session. Not seeking reelection as the mayor of Akitakata, Ishimaru ran for the governor of Tokyo in 2024...