TOKYO —
Political parties and candidates hoping to capitalize on the Internet to appeal to today’s technological-savvy voters in the July 11 House of Councillors election were disappointed when parliament failed to legalize cyber-campaigning in time.
But with both the ruling and opposition parties eager to embrace Internet technology and the communication potential it offers, it appears to be just a matter of time before the nation sees parties and candidates vying in cyberspace for votes during elections.
‘‘We really wanted to proclaim, ‘Vote for the Liberal Democratic Party,’ on our website,’’ said an official of the main opposition party in charge of its Web content, who declined to give his name citing an internal rule. ‘‘But because that wasn’t legalized, little will change in our (homepage) content during this campaign period.’‘
Using the Internet for election campaigns is currently banned under the Public Offices Election Law, which sets the rules for election campaigns to ensure fair competition.
The law limits the type of documents and pictures that can be distributed during a campaign to leaflets and postcards, and the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry takes the view that characters and images displayed on computer screens should come under the rule.
So, effective June 24—the start of a 17-day official campaign period for the upper house election—no websites, blogs or Twitter accounts can be updated by parties or candidates in principle. Nor can they send emails as part of their campaigning.
Such a ban has long been criticized as being outdated and out of sync with the Internet-immersed lifestyle that many young people—an untapped reservoir of votes due to their low turnout—seem to have embraced.
Sensing a golden opportunity to connect to as many voters and win their support at the ballot box, politicians in both the ruling and opposition blocs had finally come up with a bill by late May to amend the election law for enactment during the regular parliamentary session that ended on June 16.
Both camps agreed to allow candidates and their parties to update their websites and blogs during a campaign period, while keeping the ban on emails and seeking to refrain voluntarily use of Twitter service due to concerns about the ease with which users can be masqueraded.
The tumultuous political scene triggered by the sudden resignation in early June of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama stood in the way of the legalization drive, however. Time ran out for parliament to legislate the changes in time for the upper house election as the nation went through a sooner-than-expected leadership change.
It remains unclear if or when legislation would be submitted to parliament to effect the changes. A lot would depend on the makeup of parliament after the upcoming poll, and cross-party discussions about the issue are likely to start all over in postelection days, said Oto Hemmi, who heads the public relations department of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.
Analysts have hailed the move to liberalize election campaigns on the Internet, saying it is rather long overdue.
‘‘The Public Offices Election Law hasn’t banned Internet use,’’ Keio University professor Yoshihiro Katayama argued, noting that only the internal affairs ministry’s legal interpretation has done so. ‘‘It’s a law enacted long before the arrival of the Internet,’’ he said.
The former Tottori governor said Internet use should be encouraged because unlike distributing leaflets and postcards, uploading contents on websites and sending emails cost much less—a great equalizer for money-stricken parties and candidates.
Legalizing Internet-based election campaigns also hopes to increase voter turnout for young people, given that the turnout for voters aged between 20 and 24 remained 46.7%, compared with 85% for those between 65 and 69, even in the closely watched House of Representatives election last August.
Masayasu Kitagawa, a professor at Waseda University’s Okuma School of Public Management, said there has long been a ‘‘reverse divide’’ in which young people are prevented from going to polling stations because the Internet cannot be tapped into for election campaigns.
‘‘The nature of elections will completely change with the Internet,’’ the former Mie governor said, adding that politics is changing from one of pork-barrel to a manifesto-centered one, which he says sits more comfortably with the Internet.
Despite the apparent benefits, concerns remain about possible Internet-based smear campaigns and other kinds of abuse that can be unleashed by the envisaged liberalization. Analysts say such concerns can and must be addressed by adapting rules to the realities as they arise, and technological advance is likely to help address them.
Keio’s Katayama says the interactive nature of Internet-based election campaigns will prove to be a benefit because it forces parties and candidates to refine their campaign pledges.
‘‘Because voters will find it easier to point out contradictions in their policies, politicians will be hard-pressed to improve their own quality,’’ he said. ‘‘There is a possibility that with Internet elections, campaigns may be transformed from manual labor into intellectual labor.’’
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