Based on an article by Takayuki Hikawa in the monthly magazine WiLL, this piece examines how the Constitutional Democratic Party focused on pursuing the “Cherry Blossom Viewing Party” issue during the national crisis of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Through Noriko Ishigaki’s Diet question, Jun Azumi, Yukio Edano, the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and Tamotsu Sugano, it records the author’s anger as a native of Miyagi.

February 28, 2020
The people of Miyagi, just as in the case of having Azumi, whose political base is Ishinomaki, as a member of the Diet, are being made to feel ashamed of their beloved hometown for the first time in history.
Noriko Ishigaki is beyond outrageous.
The following is from the monthly magazine WiLL, released on the 26th.
It is an extraordinary excerpt from the truly painstaking work by journalist Takayuki Hikawa, published under the title,
The Man Behind Constitutional Democratic Party Member Noriko Ishigaki’s Question.
It is the people of Miyagi Prefecture, my hometown, who elected Noriko Ishigaki, whose reality Mr. Takayuki Hikawa has made clear.
However, as I have mentioned many times, the result of last year’s House of Councillors election was:
Ishigaki: 474,692 votes, 48.6%, versus Kazuo Aichi: 465,194 votes, 47.7%.
Despite such a large number of votes, the difference was only 9,498 votes.
Ishigaki has completely forgotten that fact.
She has forgotten the fact that half of Miyagi Prefecture said NO to her.
Because she entirely lacks the humility that a human being ought to possess, she is probably able to carry out such traitorous acts calmly.
At the same time, she is a perfect example of how, if one grows up reading the Asahi Shimbun,
and the Kahoku Shimpo is exactly the same kind of thing,
then studies at a university where people raised in the same way serve as professors,
and works at a television station where people raised in the same way work,
a mass of masochistic historical views and anti-Japanese ideology is produced.
In any case, the people of Miyagi Prefecture, just as in the case of having Azumi, whose political base is Ishinomaki, as a member of the Diet, are being made to feel ashamed of their beloved hometown for the first time in history.
The proud pride of the people of Miyagi Prefecture, whose prefectural capital is Sendai, the City of Trees and the academic city, is being wounded day after day for the first time in history.
Noriko Ishigaki is beyond outrageous.
Every time this person’s conduct is reported, I feel as if excrement and urine are being poured over me.
Edano, the leader of the party to which this woman belongs, despite the fact that it was reported at the end of last year that the new pneumonia virus had emerged in Wuhan,
did not at all, as a member of the Diet elected by the Japanese people, thoroughly discuss beyond party lines the measures Japan should take to defend itself completely.
On the contrary, with the truly laughable and malicious story manufactured for the purpose of attacking the administration, called the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party, he continued attacking the administration and even tied its hands and feet.
As I have stated many times, it was, as usual, the people controlling the Asahi Shimbun and NHK’s news division who led such evil.
NHK, for example, not only failed even once to say, “This is not the time to be doing such things,”
but Arima and Kuwako, on Watch 9, continued day after day to report the opposition’s attacks with delight, saying things like, “Debate has begun in the Diet.”
Edano, that mass of evil,
whose behavior was such that it is no exaggeration at all to call him a traitor to the nation and a seller-out of the country,
calmly and triumphantly attacked the administration in the Budget Committee the day before yesterday, saying that the government’s response had fallen behind.
The only evil comparable to that is the evil of China and the Korean Peninsula.
The preface is omitted.
If, by pursuing the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party issue, they could drive Prime Minister Abe into a corner, public support for the opposition parties would also rise.
Just imagining it, Azumi could not stop laughing to himself.
However, Azumi’s scheme collapsed all too easily.
The novel coronavirus, which began spreading from Wuhan, China, had its first confirmed infection in Japan on January 16.
At first, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare was optimistic, saying that the possibility of human-to-human transmission was low, but the situation grew more serious day by day, and the infection spread to countries around the world in the blink of an eye.
With more than nine million Chinese tourists visiting Japan each year, the Japanese government was facing a grave crisis-management situation:
how to stop the virus at the water’s edge and protect the lives of the people.
Amid this, Yukio Edano, representative of the Constitutional Democratic Party, stood for a representative question in the plenary session and spent much of his question time criticizing the government and ruling party over the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party and casinos, without mentioning the national crisis.
And even in the Budget Committee, which began on January 27, the opposition parties devoted themselves entirely to “cherry blossom” questions.
On the 28th, a bus driver in Nara Prefecture who had carried tourists from Wuhan became the first Japanese person confirmed to be infected with the novel coronavirus.
As public anxiety and confusion spread inside Japan, with masks becoming scarce, on the 29th the first government-chartered flight from Wuhan rescued and brought home 206 Japanese nationals.
On that day, Constitutional Democratic Party member Noriko Ishigaki, who stood to ask questions in the Budget Committee, began her questioning as follows:
“Originally, I would like to ask questions about the new pneumonia virus, and also about the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces to the Middle East, issues that directly concern the people who live in our country, their lives and property.
However, I believe that we must correct the sloppiness and lack of responsibility in this administration’s management of public documents and public money, which have become the greatest obstacles to our country’s safety.
Therefore, I will mainly ask questions about the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party, which can be called a symbol of this administration’s corruption.”
In response to Ishigaki’s remarks, criticism poured in online, such as,
“Are you still asking questions about the cherry blossom issue when Japanese people at home and abroad are being exposed to danger to their lives?”
and
“It is not just appalling; it is sad.”
Only from the next day did the opposition parties finally, and reluctantly, begin allocating question time to the new pneumonia.
Incidentally, a person connected to the Constitutional Democratic Party reveals who wrote Ishigaki’s question draft.
“In fact, the person who wrote Ishigaki’s draft was Tamotsu Sugano, who became famous in the Moritomo issue by behaving like the representative of former chairman Yasunori Kagoike.
Sugano, who was hired as Ishigaki’s private secretary, is, through Ishigaki, becoming bloodshot in his pursuit of the ‘cherry blossom’ issue.”
Indeed, inside the Diet, Sugano has recently been repeatedly seen at Constitutional Democratic Party meetings, and even CDP lawmakers frown and say, “Why is that guy attending the meetings?”
Since they are giving important use as a brain to a person with such a controversial background, it is only natural that public opinion is moving away from the Constitutional Democratic Party.
This article continues.