9/12/2005

80 percent of LDP’s “assassins” won seats
MSN-Mainichi—About 80 percent of “assassin” candidates that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) fielded against rebels were elected to the House of Representatives in Sunday’s election… the LDP fielded 25 “assassins” against many of them, 20 of whom won seats.

LOSERS Katsuya Okada, Horie, Kobayashi (L to R)

WINNERS PM Koizumi, his “assassins”

The term “assassins” is very telling here. In Japan, beauty trumps everything and the Japanese PM Koizumi’s “assassins” were picked for their appearance more than any other reason. This strategy resulted in the one of the biggest election wins in the post war era and now Koizumi will go down in the history books as Japanese LONGEST serving prime minister. (Japanese prime ministers used to change every few months eldom serving more than one and half years. )

Fellow Tokyo blogger, Coco put it best when she observed: Beauty comes first
…there is a unwritten rule in Japanese female world. The rule is “Beauty talks in any time any occation.” For example, some woman accept her boy friend’s cheanting if the other woman is more beautiful than herself, we tend to let the woman who has better looking than oneself go first….

See also the 3Yen report: Everyday is a Bad-hair Day for Japanese Diet candidate