Photo/Illutration Boards for posters of candidates running in the June 22 Tokyo metropolitan assembly election and Upper House election scheduled for July are set up in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward on June 4. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

While I was walking near a train station, a large rectangular board caught my eye.

It was an official display panel set up to provide candidates in the upcoming Tokyo metropolitan assembly election with designated spaces for their campaign posters. The official campaign period for the election of the assembly’s 127 members begins on June 13.

According to the local election authority, the board is unusually large this time because it will also be used to accommodate posters for the Upper House election scheduled for July. As I stood before the still-blank white panel, I found myself reflecting on the role of campaign posters in today’s digital age.

There was a time when posters played a far more central role in elections. I recall that, more than on official boards, they were often plastered haphazardly on utility poles throughout the city.

I remember how, more than 30 years ago, when I was a rookie reporter at a regional bureau far from Tokyo, local party branches and candidates’ offices would fiercely compete to plaster their posters on every utility pole in sight.

Of course, they rarely bothered to obtain permission from the pole administrators. With each election, local police issued hundreds of warnings for violations of the Public Offices Election Law.

In some areas, local assemblies even passed resolutions banning posters from utility poles, arguing that they marred the urban landscape.

According to “Tokyo no Seiji” (Politics in Tokyo), edited by political scientist Michio Muramatsu, the 1965 Tokyo metropolitan assembly election was marked by fierce poster wars.

Rival candidates tore down each other’s posters, covered them with defamatory ones or put up fliers declaring, “This method of posting violates the election law.”

In the current Tokyo metropolitan assembly election, a recent revision to the election law requires candidates to ensure that their posters uphold a basic standard of civility and decency.

The lack of decorum 60 years ago was troubling enough, but last year’s gubernatorial race arguably set a new low.

One political group fielded numerous candidates, only to sell or rent out their allotted poster slots to non-candidates for advertising and publicity stunts. In one case, a candidate used his space to display posters featuring a woman who was nearly nude.

Though posters have lost much of their former significance, they surely deserve better than to draw attention for the wrong reasons.

A fleeting glance at one on the street can unexpectedly awaken a sense of civic identity—I am a voter. That kind of message, delivered not through a smartphone but through the physical fabric of the city, has its own quiet value.

—The Asahi Shimbun, June 13

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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