Only a day into the Tokyo governor’s election campaign, local officials have faced a plethora of problems concerning candidate billboards, ranging from a lack of space to unabashed nudity.

Each election billboard has equally sized squares where candidates can display their campaign posters.

The metropolitan government’s Election Administration Commission had prepared 48 squares on billboards around the capital for the July 7 gubernatorial election.

But 56 people have entered the race, so the office asked the eight who were the last to file their candidacies to use clear files to display their posters.

“I wish the election officials would have taken action earlier,” one of them said after being informed of the decision on June 20.

He was given an A3 clear file by the officials and went to a posting area near Shinjuku Central Park.

He placed his poster between two clear files and sealed it with adhesive tape. He then attached the poster to the right edge of the display board with pins.

“I’m lucky that my poster stands out, but it is clearly unfair,” the candidate said.

Another late-registering candidate said: “There is no equality between the candidates. I feel like I am handicapped.”

In the 2016 Upper House election, six seats were up for grabs in the Tokyo electoral district.

Election officials had prepared 30 poster slots for each billboard, but that wasn’t enough. Local election officials had to hastily add plywood boards to accommodate all of the candidates.

On June 19, the day before the gubernatorial election campaign officially started, 54 people had completed the process of having election officials check their required documents for candidate registration.

Election officials of municipal governments around Tokyo had voiced concerns they might need more poster slots.

But metropolitan election officials decided not to install additional poster boards. Instead, on the day the campaign started, they announced the plan to use clear files.

“If we announced it early, it may have caused social confusion,” an election official said. “We assessed the situation until the last minute.”

EMPHASIZING NUDITY

After the posters were placed on the billboards, it became evident that certain players were more interested in making money or gaining attention than leading the nation’s capital.

Of the 56 candidates, 24 are affiliated with the party that opposes Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK).

The so-called NHK party had announced that its candidates would not display campaign posters but allow people who “donate” to use the billboard spaces.

Some billboards now have many of the same poster advertising or promoting things that are not related to the election.

In another problem, a poster displaying a sexually explicit image appeared on various billboards in Tokyo on the evening of June 20.

The Metropolitan Police Department issued a verbal warning to the candidate over the poster, which featured an apparent female supporter. Police said the image violated the metropolitan government’s ordinance on prevention of disturbances by emphasizing nudity and promoting indecent language and behavior.

The candidate told reporters, “I was asked by police to remove the posters promptly, and I will do so accordingly.”

The candidate also said, “I thought it was within the legal range” and “I believe that freedom of sexual expression should also be strongly guaranteed.”

Still, the candidate removed the poster in a display area in Shinjuku Ward and said he would do the same at other sites.

According to the internal affairs ministry, candidates can freely choose the content of their posters, in principle, as long as it does not support another candidate or contain false or libelous information.

Keita Watano, a critic who has written a book on internet populism, said it is possible the governor’s election has already fallen victim to the “attention economy,” in which sensational content is used to attract attention and generate income.

“The idea that, ‘as long as you follow the written rules, you can do anything that is not a written rule,’ has infiltrated the electoral arena. This is a big problem,” Watano said.

Nobusuke Yasuno, a full-time lecturer at Nihon University who specializes in electoral systems, said, “The situation of Tokyo’s election falling into chaos may be consumed as amusing ‘entertainment.’

“The election tools provided by the governments are becoming dysfunctional. It is time for the Diet to rethink the current Public Offices Election Law and election campaigns,” he said.

(This article was written by Honomi Homma, Ryo Takeda, Eiichiro Nakamura, Hiroshi Nakano and Takuro Negishi.)