Ex-general Tamogami scores 12% in Tokyo election

Retired Japanese general Toshio Tamogami gained 610,865 votes in the Tokyo gubernatorial in February 2014. This is about 1/8 of the total vote. Tamogami became notorious for remarks justifying Japan’s war of aggression against China and the Allies. He favours abolishing the war-renouncing Japanese constitution and has stated that he thinks Japan should develop nuclear weapons to be taken seriously by China.

Surprising for someone with right wing views like that, an exit poll conducted by Asahi Shimbun showed that the younger the voters, the more support he gained. While only 6% of voters in their seventies had voted for him, 24% of those in their twenties did. This been credited to a successful Internet campaign by Tamogami and his supporters. A less charitable interpretation of it would be that the more likely people are to still remember World War II, the less keen they are to see a repeat of it.

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