TOKYO, May 29 (Xinhua) -- A smear campaign scandal involving Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her election team continues to unfold in the Asian country.
On Thursday, when Michihiro Ishibashi, a lawmaker from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, once again questioned Takaichi over the matter at a meeting in the House of Councillors, or the upper chamber of Japan's National Diet, the prime minister denied the allegations.
According to earlier Japanese media reports, Takaichi's campaign team allegedly instructed private individuals to produce a large number of defamatory videos targeting rival candidates during last year's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership race and the February House of Representatives election, and to covertly spread them across the internet and social media platforms. The revelations quickly drew widespread attention across Japanese society.
Analysts pointed out that Takaichi has long used social media to drum up support for her political ambitions, with no shortage of past controversies behind her. The latest smear scandal once again called her political integrity into question.
ANONYMOUS SMEARS
According to a report by Japan's weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun, Takeshi Kinoshita, Takaichi's aide and one of her closest confidants, is the central figure in the scandal.
Kinoshita allegedly contacted video producer Ken Matsui multiple times, instructing him to create and distribute videos attacking Takaichi's rivals within the LDP as well as opposition candidates.
The report said that during last year's LDP presidential election, Kinoshita held a series of online meetings with Matsui, directing Matsui to use artificial intelligence software to mass-generate short videos attacking Takaichi's intra-party rivals, including Shinjiro Koizumi and Yoshimasa Hayashi, while portraying Takaichi in a favorable light.
During the lower house election in February, Takaichi's campaign team was also accused of spreading smear content targeting key opposition candidates, including Centrist Reform Alliance candidates Jun Azumi, Sumio Mabuchi, Katsuya Okada, and Yukio Edano.
After the smear campaign scandal came to light, opposition lawmakers pressed Takaichi over the matter in parliament. The prime minister denied the allegations, saying she and her team "did not in any way disseminate negative information about other candidates or create and distribute such videos."
When asked whether her secretary Kinoshita had held online meetings with the video producers, Takaichi sidestepped the question, saying only that "given the sheer volume of exchanges that take place online, it is difficult to verify each and every one of them."
In response to Takaichi's denials, Shukan Bunshun said it had obtained 67 pieces of evidence documenting contacts between Kinoshita and Matsui, including text messages and online chat records.
MANIPULATING PUBLIC OPINION
Japanese media previously reported that Takaichi was among the politicians in Japan most adept at leveraging social media to boost her profile.
As the smear campaign scandal continues to unfold, this particular "talent" has once again come under public scrutiny.
According to the reports, Takaichi and her supporters have long used clip videos to build up her image as a strong, assertive leader.
These short clips typically extract dozens of seconds of confrontational or emotionally charged footage from parliamentary debates, television appearances, or press conferences, and package them with sensational titles, captions, and music for rapid spread across social media.
During the campaign for the February lower house election, the unusually high circulation of campaign videos linked to Takaichi sparked controversy -- an LDP promotional video for her had racked up over 100 million views in under 10 days, a figure exceptionally rare for political content.
Speculation mounted that the video had likely been boosted through paid advertising on social media platforms, raising public questions about how much Takaichi's team had spent on advertising.
Japanese media previously reported that Takaichi's camp spent 83.84 million yen (about 526,300 U.S. dollars) on campaign publicity during her 2024 LDP presidential campaign, with roughly 40 percent of the total allocated to video production and social media promotion.
Takakage Fujita, secretary-general of the Association for Inheriting and Propagating the Murayama Statement, told Xinhua that one key reason for the Takaichi-led LDP securing a landslide lower house election victory was her team's massive investment in social media, using money to manipulate online public opinion.
LACK OF INTEGRITY
The smear scandal has drawn strong skepticism toward Takaichi from both politicians and the public.
Hideya Sugio, an upper house member from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, criticized Takaichi's explanations in parliament as evasive and beside the point, frequently responding with "don't know" and "no records" to dodge accountability.
He warned that if the reports prove true, it would raise serious questions about whether Takaichi can remain Japan's prime minister or even keep her seat in parliament.
An editorial in the Tokyo Shimbun echoed the view that, if the allegations are substantiated, they would cast doubt on Takaichi's legitimacy as prime minister.
When opposition lawmakers said Takaichi should sue the media for defamation if the reports prove false, she skirted the issue, claiming instead that she needed to "put official duties first and weigh the potential burden of a lawsuit."
This drew skepticism from former lower house member Ichiro Ozawa, who argued that if the reports are groundless, Takaichi should take legal action; however, if the allegations are substantiated and she was either aware of or involved in the matter, she should resign.
The latest revelation surfaced amid longstanding public distrust over politics, putting Takaichi's political integrity back in the spotlight.
Takaichi's integrity problems are nothing new. She has been accused of falsifying her resume, claiming she once served as a "legislative researcher" for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. However, a Japanese journalist revealed that her role was, in fact, equivalent to that of an unpaid intern, leading to criticism that such misrepresentation amounted to deceiving voters.
During the 2024 LDP leadership race, Takaichi sent campaign materials outlining her policy positions to party members before the official start of the campaign period. The LDP's presidential election administration committee ruled the move a violation, resulting in a verbal warning.
Takaichi has also faced allegations of exploiting a political donation refund mechanism to transfer branch funds under her own name, as well as replacing receipts to correct an omission in a 2021 political funds report.
Following this year's lower house election in February, she distributed congratulatory gifts to more than 300 LDP lawmakers, a move suspected of violating Japan's Political Funds Control Law.
Analysts say that, from allegedly falsifying her resume to violating election rules, from political funding scandals to the online smear campaign, the pattern speaks for itself: Takaichi will stop at nothing to grab power, with her political ethics having repeatedly set off alarm bells. ■
