Death threats against Tokyo governor candidates reflect societal ‘frustration’ in Japan

Fax messages were sent on Monday to the office of the Tokyo First Party, to which Governor Yuriko Koike serves as a special adviser, and the office of a member of the group representing the city’s Toshima ward.

“I have obtained a high-performance bomb and sulphuric acid. I will pour sulphuric acid on Yuriko Koike and blind her,” read the anonymous message, Jiji Press reported on Tuesday.

“I will blow up Yuriko Koike’s election office,” the dispatch added.

Renho Murata, the primary challenger to Koike, who is running for a third term, also received a fax message at her office last week threatening to “repeatedly stab Renho to death with a knife” and set off “explosives on June 24”, Jiji Press quoted campaign officials as saying.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police are investigating the warnings, which come ahead of the July 7 vote, as attempted political intimidation.

“These threats to assassinate candidates are very worrisome, but it is hard to figure out quite where they come from,” said Tadashi Anno, a professor of politics at Tokyo’s Sophia University.

“The obvious suggestion is that they are the result of what is going on in Japanese society at the moment, the problems that are being felt by certain strata of the public,” Anno said, pointing to people working temporary jobs with few safeguards and for relatively low wages.

“A lot of people are just eking out a very meagre existence on the periphery of society, so I guess it should come as no surprise that there is this latent anger against the existing social order,” he said.

“I find that quite ominous for Japanese society, and I hope it does not erupt into the sort of widespread violence that we saw in the 1930s.”

Hiromi Murakami, a professor of political science at the Tokyo