TOKYO — Japan’s far-right populist Sanseito party was one of the biggest winners in the weekend’s upper house election, attracting many voters with its “Japanese First” platform that included calling for tougher restrictions on foreigners and the curtailment of gender equality and diversity policies.
Sanseito added 14 seats in Sunday’s vote to the one seat already held by its leader in the 248-member upper house, the less powerful of Japan’s two-chamber parliament.
The surge in the party’s popularity came amid the backdrop of a historic loss by the long-governing conservative coalition of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, with Sanseito attracting frustrated voters struggling with economic woes.
Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya said Tuesday that he has no interest in forming an alliance with conventional parties like Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP.
Kamiya said he is open to cooperating with other emerging parties, but he’s expected to wait in the hopes of gaining more seats in the more powerful lower house. His ambition is to have more influence to possibly form a multiparty coalition like those in Europe.
Sanseito, which translates to “Participate in Politics,” started in 2020 when Kamiya gathered people on YouTube and social media to create a political group to attract voters discontent with conventional parties.
The group began to grow as its members started winning seats in local assemblies, stepping up its presence and grassroots support base.
After the start of the coronavirus pandemic, his online approach quickly got traction, fueled partly by an anti-vaccine stance.
Sanseito achieved a foothold in national politics in 2022 when Kamiya won a six-year term in the upper house. The party won three seats in the October election in the lower house.
The party holds 15 seats in the upper house, compared with the 122 held by Ishiba’s governing coalition, but Kamiya has been steadily reaching a much larger audience.
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