Based on Rui Abiru’s essay in Seiron, this article examines the abnormal nature of opposition questioning in the Diet. It focuses on Constitutional Democratic Party lawmaker Noriko Ishigaki’s claim that the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party was “the largest vote-buying scandal in history,” criticizing groundless assertions and political attacks that degrade parliamentary debate.

March 3, 2020
Can Anything Be Said against the Government? Rui Abiru Questions the Opposition’s Sense of Human Rights
The following continues from the previous chapter.
Which side is making the Diet desolate?
Can anything be said against the government?
This is not limited to the current Diet session, but one is tempted to say that, in every respect, the questions of the mainstream opposition parties are of this nature.
There are too many examples to list, but to take one, Noriko Ishigaki of the Constitutional Democratic Party declared the following about the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party during her debut questioning at the House of Councillors Budget Committee on January 29.
It was the people of Miyagi Prefecture, my beloved hometown forever, who narrowly elected this Noriko Ishigaki in last year’s House of Councillors election.
For that reason, whenever I see this person’s name, I feel, for the first time in my life, that my love for my hometown diminishes.
“Using the position and authority of prime minister, which he happened to assume, he provided free food and drink to voters in his own electoral district. I must say that this is the largest vote-buying scandal in history. I would like to state that it is clearly a violation of the Public Offices Election Act.”
What does “the largest vote-buying scandal in history” mean?
The total cost of the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party was about fifty million yen.
Even if food and drink were provided free of charge, nothing very substantial was served.
Nor was it distributed to every participant.
Naturally, travel and accommodation expenses to Shinjuku Gyoen in Tokyo, the venue, were paid by the participants themselves.
The Cherry Blossom Viewing Party itself has been held for many years, including during the Democratic Party administration of Yukio Hatoyama.
To describe that as if it were a major corruption scandal can only leave one bewildered.
Is there any basis for declaring it a violation of the Public Offices Election Act?
If they believe that anything, including falsehoods, may be said against Prime Minister Abe or the government, one can only be astonished at what kind of view of society and what kind of sense of human rights they possess.
Rui Abiru’s point is entirely correct.
The Diet is, by its nature, a place where the course of the nation is debated through facts and words.
If one pursues a suspicion, one must present grounds.
If one says something is illegal, one must present a legal basis.
If one says it is vote-buying, one must clearly state what act constituted vote-buying, toward whom, and in what way.
That is the minimum responsibility of a member of the Diet.
Yet the questions of the mainstream opposition parties often fail to meet even this minimum standard.
They make assertions based only on impressions.
They merely make their language extreme.
They portray the other side as if it were criminal.
Then those remarks are cut out by television and newspapers and spread as material for attacking the administration.
With this, the Diet is not a forum of speech.
It is merely a theater of abuse.
Moreover, they are far too insensitive to the fact that their words injure the character and honor of others.
If it is against the government, if it is against the prime minister, then no matter how reckless the words thrown at them may be, they are permitted.
If such a way of thinking exists, it is not democracy.
It is not a sense of human rights.
It is simply violence for the sake of a power struggle.
Of course, there is freedom to criticize the Abe administration.
Monitoring the government is an important role of the Diet.
But criticism and abuse are different.
Oversight and impression manipulation are different.
Pursuit of responsibility and personal attack are different.
If people who cannot even distinguish these things are said to represent the people in the Diet, there is nothing more dangerous for Japanese democracy.
At a time when responding to the novel coronavirus is urgent, the Japanese people must never forget that the Diet was being consumed by such word games and attacks on the administration.
This essay will continue.