Photo/Illutration Dewi Sukarno at a news conference in Tokyo on Feb. 12 (Tatsuhiko Yoshizawa)

TV celebrity Dewi Sukarno, the Tokyo-born widow of the first president of Indonesia, will run in the Upper House election this summer on an animal welfare platform.

Sukarno told a news conference on Feb. 12 that she will form a political party to realize a “humane world in which people co-exist with dogs and cats” and outlaw eating their meat.

The 85-year-old was one of the wives of Sukarno, the inaugural Indonesian president who used only one name and died in 1970.

She is known in Japan as “Dewi Fujin” (Madame Dewi).

According to sources, Sukarno will form “12 Heiwa-to” (12 peace party) with entrepreneur Hiroshi Horiike, who has pushed for international bans on eating dogs and cats, and others.

The “12” in the party name is pronounced “wan-nyan,” roughly the Japanese equivalent of “bow-wow” and “meow.”

The party plans to field Sukarno, Horiike and other candidates in the proportional representation portion of the Upper House election.

Sukarno, who changed her nationality to Indonesian in 1962, plans to re-acquire Japanese citizenship.

Shinnosuke Fujikawa, a political consultant, will help her party develop election strategies.

When dark horse Shinji Ishimaru, a former mayor of Akitakata, Hiroshima Prefecture, came in second in the Tokyo gubernatorial election last year, Fujikawa served as secretary-general of his campaign.

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