Drawing on Masayuki Takayama’s latest book, this article examines the deceptive use of the term “independent” in local elections and Asahi Shimbun’s deliberate wording choices.
The contrast with Sankei Shimbun reveals how political affiliations were intentionally obscured.

May 28, 2016

The following is from the latest paperback work by Masayuki Takayama, introduced yesterday.
That he is a one-of-a-kind journalist in the postwar world is proven by almost every chapter.

Fake newspapers in an age of fakes.
When I went to vote in a national election, a ballot for the ward mayor election was included as well.
I have an awareness of being a Tokyo resident, but no sense of being a ward resident.
At most, depending on the ward one lives in, one’s car license plate is labeled “Nerima” or “Adachi.”
If it is labeled “Adachi,” surrounding cars tend to avoid you, making it easier to drive, but strangely, even a good car looks cheap.
That is about the extent of my awareness, so I do not know who the ward mayor is.
Above that is the Tokyo governor, and a metropolitan assembly with plenty of free time.
Thinking that such costly elections should be abolished and that things should return to the old system of gubernatorial appointment, I looked at the list of candidates and was astonished. The party affiliation column, which I had hoped would serve as at least some basis for judgment, showed that every single candidate was listed as independent.
That cannot be the case.
From experience, I know that in such trivial elections, Communist Party members always slip in.
Even rolling a pencil would, with fairly high probability, end up pleasing the Communist Party.
After voting, I asked my wife and daughter how they distinguished among the “all independents,” and they said they left it to fate.
When they asked me what I did, and I said that I abstained, considering the fairly high probability of an unpleasant outcome, they admired the idea, saying they had not thought of that.
In the recent Chiba gubernatorial election, this issue of “independents” became a problem.
The elected governor, Kensaku Morita, ran as an independent.
In reality, however, he remained a member of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Calling this a case of false labeling, the Asahi Shimbun reported that “a group ‘formed by citizens’ called ‘The Association to Accuse Mr. Kensaku Morita’ filed a criminal complaint against Governor Morita.” It is hard to understand the difference whereby it is acceptable for a Communist Party candidate to pose as an independent in the Setagaya ward mayoral election, but wrong for Morita Kensaku, who is affiliated with the LDP.
What caught my attention, however, was that while Asahi described this group as “formed by citizens,” the Sankei Shimbun reported it as “formed by Social Democratic Party–affiliated Chiba prefectural assembly members.”
In other words, it is a politically colored organization.
The motive for the accusation can be explained by this political coloration, but why did Asahi describe it as “formed by citizens,” giving it an ostensibly “independent” flavor? Would it have been inconvenient to write that it was affiliated with the Social Democratic Party?

To be continued.