...the Upper House election is underway, officially ... (173/365, 22 Jun 2022)
When this morning's class finished, I looked up the public rally plans for the main political parties since the election campaign starts today, 'officially'. I intended to plan out the weekend movements, following the candidates around the city, just to gauge the mood. It is my approach to election observing, reasons for which I will spell out in more detail over on the other blog (along with more detail about each of the rallies) but I find it interesting to see the make-up of the crowd, their reactions, all those things, Occasionally, I get a chance to speak to the candidates too.
I also planned to go to the office to continue the work things...but then I 'discovered' that later today former PMs Abe and Suga would be at Tachikawa station for some LDP rallies. While my research mostly focuses on the key opposition parties, I thought it was probably reasonable, nay, necessary to go and observe the ruling party rally.
Glad I did really. The contrast was interesting. I expected both Abe and Suga would be on the platform together, but they were there quite separately. Not only that, just as I was getting ready to depart, I noticed another party was getting ready to set up, quite literally where I was standing...green bunting...had to be...Koike's group. That is Koike, Governor of Tokyo, appearing there to support her candidate Araki Chiharu (and former staffer, who coincidentally, I spoke to last week at my local station). Quite the score in political terms--two former PMs and a Governor.
Tachikawa is about 50 mins away (when the transfers run on time) and it was raining for much of the time but I took the big cam, having learnt from my experience last week that I'll need the 300mm in the event of the crowd...good thing I did. Anyway, more on the politics over on the other blog soon. Here are a few interesting pics, from a photographic point of view, of the day's work.
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| Not in a great position to capture Abe, the zoom through rows of people in front of me |
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| Got quite close to former PM Suga |
Canon EOS 90D, 70-300mm.
