<figure id="attachment_369898" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-369898" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="4b0033d5"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/04/ed99c38fd0ac9cbbfb111b6f3f041110.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-369898" class="wp-caption-text">Governor Koike visits Otome to give a speech in support of him</figcaption></figure>
 The &#8220;real candidate&#8221; is buried in the ground.
 The election of Hirotake Otogu, 48, a writer and vice president of the political organization &#8220;First no Kai,&#8221; to run for a seat in Tokyo&#8217;s 15th district (to be announced on April 16 and voted on April 28), which has a population of 440,000, is proving to be an uphill battle because he is unable to make the most of his name recognition.
 On April 17, the day after the public announcement, the results of a poll conducted by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) became a topic of conversation in the Nagatacho area. The sample was &#8220;1,200 respondents on April 13 and 14,&#8221; and Otome was in fourth place, slipping 8.3 points. He was more than three times ahead of the top vote-getter, Natsumi Sakai (37) of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, with 30.9 points.
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 Just before the public announcement, the results of a poll conducted by the Liberal Democratic Party, New Kōmeitō, and The Japan Innovation Party were circulated, and Sakai was in the lead in all three polls. One survey showed Mr. Otome in a lowly fifth place. Local lawmakers who are helping Sakai&#8217;s campaign are snickering.
 Thanks to the recent &#8216;politics and money&#8217; issue, it&#8217;s like &#8216;bonus time. The leaflets are being flown one after another. There are nine candidates running in Tokyo&#8217;s 15th Constituency, so it&#8217;s a tight race, but the opposition parties have come together in a joint struggle, and the support of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party has also been obtained. Mr. Otome&#8217;s high name recognition made us wary of him at first, but now he has become a bad publicity stunt. However, Mr. Sakai&#8217;s speeches are honestly &#8220;average. I am not good at debates either, so I will try to stay away from debates and continue to appeal for correction of the &#8216;politics and money&#8217; problem, and then come voting day,&#8221; he said.
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 In order to close the gap with Sakai, Koike went to two locations on the 16th, the day of the public announcement, to support Otome. He rode in his campaign car and made his way around the district. A senior official of the Tokyo Metropolitan People&#8217;s First Party (TMF) confided, &#8220;Koike&#8217;s switch was complete.
 Koike&#8217;s switch has been turned on completely. Koike&#8217;s switch was complete. She tried to put Koike&#8217;s color in the forefront and make Otome&#8217;s past problems with women go away. However, &#8230;&#8230; the issue of academic fraud, which I thought was long over, was rehashed.
 The issue of Koike&#8217;s academic fraud was reignited by Toshiro Kojima, 75, a former secretary general of TOFA. In the May 2012 issue of the monthly magazine &#8220;Bungei Shunju&#8221; (May 2012 issue), he accused Koike of &#8220;having been complicit in the manipulation of academic credentials. Kojima supported Koike, Minister of the Environment, when he was a career bureaucrat at the Ministry of the Environment, and promoted &#8220;Cool Biz.&#8221; From &#8217;17 to &#8217;21, he served as the Secretary General of the Metropolitan Fa
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Direct interview with Governor Koike after his speech."></div>
At the Foreign Correspondents&#8217; Club on April 17, Kojima was eloquent.
 He said, &#8220;I was involved in the cover-up without realizing it. （Koike consulted me because he had never actually graduated. The statute of limitations for misrepresenting one&#8217;s career is three years. If he runs for office again and writes in the election gazette that he graduated from Cairo University, he will be guilty of publishing a false statement under the Public Election Law. I am considering filing criminal charges.
 Koike, who attended Otome&#8217;s speech, was yelled at mercilessly.
 &#8220;Did you graduate from Cairo University? You liar!&#8221;
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 When this reporter asked Koike, &#8220;Will you write in your next campaign announcement that you graduated from Cairo University?&#8221; Koike smiled and said, &#8220;Oh, hello.
 Koike smiled and said, &#8220;Oh, hello.
 He responded with a misplaced &#8220;Oh, hello.
<figure id="attachment_369897" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-369897" style="width: 1667px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="fd36bdac"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/04/6ba2d77e80e731313fad87d47cc4c5b5.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-369897" class="wp-caption-text"> Governor Koike being directly questioned by a reporter</figcaption></figure>
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 Nonfiction writer Taeko Ishii, author of &#8220;Empress Yuriko Koike,&#8221; offers an insight into Koike&#8217;s mindset.
 She acts as if it is something insignificant that will be rehashed before the election, a kind of election meddling. But there is no way that he is okay with it in his heart. I don&#8217;t think he imagined that this would happen.
 Koike has ambitions. She wants to return to national politics and make a name for herself as the first female prime minister. However, a former LDP cabinet member who knows Koike well warns, &#8220;If she does not lead Otome to victory in the supplementary election for the 15th district, Koike&#8217;s divine power will be lost and her path to national politics will be cut off.
 In the Meguro Ward Mayoral election, which was held on November 21, a former Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly member, who had been promoted by Koike, was defeated. A former cabinet member continued, &#8220;On the other hand, Mr. Otome&#8217;s popularity has been growing.
 On the other hand, if she can turn around Otome&#8217;s poor showing, there will be an increasing number of people in the party who will support her, saying, &#8216;We want to take advantage of Koike&#8217;s popularity. After the announcement of the election, some women who are members of the academic society began to appear at Ototake&#8217;s speeches, as if he had &#8220;made a deal&#8221; with the New Komeito Party. Koike must be desperate.
 Japan&#8217;s first female prime minister&#8230;&#8230; will Koike&#8217;s persistence produce a miraculous turnaround?

 Daisuke Iwasaki

 Yuri Adachi (direct interview), Kyodo News (speech)

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Rekindling of the “academic fraud scandal” signals a return to national politics! …Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike’s “misguided reply” to this magazine’s direct question

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