Japanese senators would like to expel one of their own. They are very upset against this absentee colleague, who has never sat since his election last year.
Can we expel a parliamentarian who never comes to work in the National Assembly or the Senate? This is the question that Japanese senators are asking themselves at the moment. The elected officials are very upset against one of their own: an adviser who has never been to Tokyo, or even to Japan since his election last year. They no longer know how to convince him to come and do his job and they are determined to strike hard.
Absenteeism of representatives of the people, which is a problem in many democracies, is a very rare phenomenon in Japan. The parliamentarians are rather assiduous there, so for a few months, a senator for the less original annoys all his colleagues. This is a Youtuber who is known in the country as Gaasyy. But his real name is Yoshikazu Higashitani. He is 50 years old, he is not a professional politician. He hosts a somewhat trashy gossip channel where he promises to reveal the secrets of the country’s powerful. Whether politicians or big bosses.
>> Inflation: in Japan, the government is implementing the “strategy of shame” to drive up wages
Elected without campaigning
He was elected without campaigning since he won his seat as a senator in a proportional vote on a list that was led last year by a rather strange party, which is called the Party against NHK. is a party committed against television license fees and against public television.Gaasyy won a senator’s seat, because his name was well placed on the list of this populist party. But he was in Dubai at the time of the election. And contrary to what he had promised, he never returned to Japan. And so he never attended any session of the Senate.
Since last year, senators have therefore been trying to punish him: registered letters, disciplinary sanctions, and even potential deductions from salary. Because if he does not work, the shadow senator is always paid. He has even won 125,000 euros in parliamentary compensation since his election. But despite these threats, Gaasyy does not move.
>> Japan: a fourth minister leaves the government in three months
Fraud case
His party says he is actually afraid of being arrested in Japan for his videos. The police actually want to hear him in a scam case where he had made fans believe that he was going to be able to make them meet members of the K-Pop group BTS. But in theory, he cannot be imprisoned since he benefits from a form of immunity during his term of office.
In the meantime, the other parliamentarians are losing patience. And so they decided to vote, in the coming days, for his expulsion. It’s the first time it’s happened in Japan since 1951. It’s a pretty harsh sanction: very few democracies can take back a parliamentary seat for absenteeism. For example in France, in these cases, parliamentarians who are too often absent are financially sanctioned.