Comment on “DPP Withholds Endorsement of Shiori Yamao — Press Conference Fails to Quell Criticism” [in Japanese]
On June 11, 2025, a comment by Professor Maiko Ichihara (Graduate School of Law) on the Asahi Shimbun article, “DPP Withholds Endorsement of Shiori Yamao — Press Conference Fails to Quell Criticism” was published. The article reports that the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) decided at its joint parliamentary meeting on June 11 to withhold its endorsement of former House of Representatives member Shiori Yamao, who had been expected to run in the upcoming House of Councillors election under the national proportional representation system. Professor Ichihara noted that Yamao’s past extramarital affair had already been public knowledge before her provisional endorsement, and that party leader Yuichiro Tamaki had faced similar allegations himself. She suggested that the decision to withdraw support may have been driven less by the affair itself and more by unexpectedly strong backlash from the party’s newly acquired soft-right support base. She also pointed out the gendered nature of public criticism surrounding extramarital affairs, warning that the party’s decision could be seen as endorsing that imbalance.
