A true “specter”..! Why LDP Representative Toshihiro Nikai maintained an “eerie silence” in the Wakayama 1st Lower House by-election

The LDP’s Wakayama Prefectural Federation official said, “Following this defeat, supporters of the LDP in Wakayama Prefecture have been turning away from the LDP.

About two weeks have passed since the LDP suffered its only defeat among the five supplementary elections for the Lower House in Wakayama Prefecture. The LDP, which fielded Hirofumi Kado, a former member of the House of Representatives, said before the public announcement on April 11, “There is no way we can lose. The LDP had been so loose before the public announcement on April 11 that people in various parts of the country were saying, “There is no way we can lose. The wind of the Restoration Party will not reach Wakayama. However, when the election opened, the LDP was outnumbered in preliminary polls, and even Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike rushed to support the party in an attempt to turn things around, but they were defeated by nearly 6,000 votes by Yumi Hayashi, a newcomer to The Japan Innovation Party.

The unexpected defeat has prompted some LDP members in Wakayama to express their concern about a “loss of support” from their supporters. At the same time, the power struggle between the “two big-name politicians” is also attracting attention. A person involved in the LDP’s Wakayama Prefectural Federation said, “Toshihiro Nikai, a member of the House of Representatives and a member of the Seikyo Shimbun, has been in the spotlight.

Toshihiro Nikai, a member of the House of Representatives, and Hiroshige Seko, a member of the House of Councilors. In fact, Mr. Seko, not Mr. Nikai, was actually in charge of the supplementary election this time. Mr. Seko’s enthusiasm was extraordinary, and he told his supporters and company presidents, “We absolutely cannot lose this time. We can’t lose this time,’ he would call and greet them himself. To be honest, I have never seen him work this hard in his own campaign (laughs).”

At first, Yosuke Tsuruho, a member of the House of Councilors, was considered a strong contender for the Wakayama 1st Constituency by-election. However, after much wrangling, the decision was made for Kado. It is believed that Senator Seko’s intention was behind the decision.

Mr. Seko is older than Mr. Kado, but Mr. Tsuruho became a councilor first. Mr. Tsuruho is older than Ms. Seko, but Ms. Tsuruho became a Diet member before Ms. Seko did. Mr. Seko cannot stand Mr. Tsuruho’s attitude, and they have long been bitter enemies. For Mr. Seko, whose long-cherished wish is to switch to the House of Representatives, it was unforgivable for Mr. Tsuruho to do so first. It seems that Mr. Seko was more eager to save his own skin than to save Mr. Kado’s.”

On the other hand, for the victorious Ishin, the Wakayama 1st Constituency was not an area of strong interest in the first place. A member of The Japan Innovation Party explained the election as follows.

To win 600 seats in the nationwide local elections, the party’s policy was to ‘put up a lot of candidates,’ and to be honest, I was occupied with dealing with that. In Wakayama, we had planned not to field a candidate if Mr. Tsuruho, who has close ties with the Restoration Party, was going to run. But then, Mr. Kado decided to run, and we suddenly changed course, saying, ‘Mr. Kado will be able to fight well enough. It was a rush election, but we were able to win almost solely on the strength of our political party.”

True to this statement, the prefectural federation analyzed the breakdown of the vote and found that nearly 80% of Komeito’s supporters supported Kado, while about 30% of the LDP supporters were left out. Among them, about 40% of those who supported Tsuruho are believed to have turned out in support of Ishin and Hayashi, and only about 30% of the votes from the independent voters were cast. In other words, there was a movement among the prefectural federation and some of its supporters not to support Mr. Kado, and it showed in the results.

In this context, the trend of Mr. Nikai, the “Don of Wakayama,” is also a matter of concern. Surprisingly, Mr. Nikai has been keeping a low profile in the supplementary election. A member of the Nikai faction of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said, “Mr. Nikai has been keeping a low profile in the supplementary election.

He only greeted major organizations and did little else in the supplementary election. When it came time to choose a candidate, he said, ‘I don’t care which one, so the prefectural federation should decide. However, Mr. Nikai, who is a master of the art of persuasion, seems to have anticipated defeat and “dared not” make a move. He probably wanted to make the impression in Wakayama that “Seko is still no good enough” for his son’s future national political career.

In fact, there are already complaints about the defeat from many quarters. The LDP’s Wakayama Prefectural Federation official mentioned above is troubled about how to deal with the aftermath of the election.

What hurts the LDP is that its supporters are dissatisfied with the way the election was conducted. In fact, some of the LDP’s old supporters have been asking, ‘Why did you send out the gate?　What is Seko doing? What is Seko doing? There is no doubt that this is a major stain on Seko’s career.

If he wins with Kado, it will be all the better, and even if he loses, he will be able to impress upon his hometown that “it has to be Mr. Nikai. This may have been the reason for Mr. Nikai’s “eerie silence.