A Gaffe on Disaster Damages LDP Campaign

A lawmaker with the Liberal Democratic Party made a gaffe which may affect the campaign for the Upper House election. Yosuke Tsuruho said that occurrence of a great earth quake in Noto could be lucky in his speech for an LDP candidate in Wakayama district on July 8th. Accusations toward Tsuruho arose not only from the opposition parties but the ruling parties.

Tsuruho was elected a member of the Upper House in Wakayama district for the first time in 1998 and currently in his fifth term. He is the Chairman of the Committee on Budget in the House. Since he still has three years for his current term, he does not have his own election campaign in this Upper House election. He was makng a speech for an LDP candidate in Wakayama district on July 8th.

 

In the speech, Tsuruho was appealing necessity of reforming residential registration system in local cities, a policy which he has been involved in as a lawmaker. “How we can maintain well-balanced development of our homeland? How about we can live two places and frequently commuting between them?” said Tsuruho. Facing accelerated centralization to Tokyo, the lawmakers are more focused on flow of the people between big cities and local towns than permanent residence.

 

“Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications always opposes this kind of project. But the ministry is willing to promote it this time. And luckily enough, you know, there was an earthquake in Noto, such a northern place around Wajima,” said Tsuruho.

 

He explained that the sufferers in Noto peninsula evacuated to Kanazawa city and commuted between Kanazawa and their homes in local towns. And he insisted on a significance that the local governments eventually introduced a system in which people could get a residential registration of Wajima City in Kanazawa. It was obvious that he was talking about his policy for local revitalization through double registration system, not about his happiness for the earthquake occurring in Noto.

 

However, the words he chose in his speech was not appropriate. His expression “luckily enough” would have double meaning: timing in a reform of residential registration reform and rightness of the place where the earthquake occurred. His speech was interpreted as “It was lucky that the earthquake occurred in Noto.” “It harmed sentiment of the people and totally unacceptable,” said governor of Ishikawa, Hiroshi Hase, the prefecture where Noto and Kanazawa are located.

 

Tsuruho retracted his words and admitted that he was not aware enough of the situation of the sufferers. LDP Secretary General, Hiroshi Moriyama, demanded Tsuruho to be careful about speech. “It’s something more than a gaffe, when many lawmakers volunteered in reconstruction and heard voices from the sufferers,” said the leader of Constitutional Democratic Party, Yoshihiko Noda.

 

In 2017, an LDP minister told that East Japan Great Earthquake was better occurring in Tohoku region (than in Tokyo). Disaster prevention is one of the major agenda for Ishiba administration. Tsuruho’s careless speech may bring skepticisms on seriousness about disaster security policy of Ishiba administration.

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