Japanese media once again revealed dirt on Takahashi, who spent 33 million yen on water soldiers last year, but lost to Ishibashi by 420,000 yen
At the same time as Takahashi's erroneous statements triggered severe countermeasures from China, dissatisfaction with her in Japan has become increasingly intense, and even mainstream media have begun to publish negative reports about her, which seems a bit like taking advantage of someone's misfortune.
Recently, Japanese media reported that during the previous Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential election, Takahashi spent as much as 33 million yen just on hiring "water soldiers," equivalent to over 1.5 million yuan, and if other miscellaneous expenses are included, the total campaign expenditure for her LDP presidency reached 83.84 million yen.
Ironically, despite spending so much money, Takahashi ended up losing to Ishibashi, whose campaign expenses were only 420,000 yen, less than 1% of Takahashi's.
This revelation has once again sparked attention and concerns across Japanese society regarding political donations and "water soldier politics." During last week's parliamentary party leader debate, the leader of the largest opposition party, Hashimoto, called for a strict investigation into political donations to avoid unnecessary expenditures and ensure fair elections.
Takahashi, however, avoided the question, stating that instead of focusing on that, it would be better to discuss cutting the number of members of parliament. This was a core condition for the New Party's agreement to form a coalition government with the LDP. Because this issue has not been advanced, the New Party is recently threatening to withdraw from the ruling coalition, leaving Takahashi isolated.
Japanese netizens are very dissatisfied with Takahashi's remarks. After all, the fundamental reason for the LDP's ruling crisis is the "black gold scandal," and political donations have always been a thorn in the side of Japanese voters. The LDP has never intended to completely eliminate this problem.
Many people left comments on the news article, saying that it's no wonder that any statement unfavorable to Takahashi would immediately be attacked, because she had hired professional water soldiers.
Some people also compiled the promotional materials related to Takahashi at that time, and the content of dozens of tweets was almost identical, and even the images were too lazy to change, indicating that this report was indeed not unjust to her.
Original text: toutiao.com/article/1850283226001408/
Statement: The article represents the personal views of the author.