Abe's control of media leaves election tainted

There can be no focus on any election in Japan as long as the ruling government maintains its stranglehold on the media's freedom of speech ("Economy in focus as campaign starts for Upper House race," June 23). The electorate has been denied any objective understanding of the cunning or depth of deception that the Liberal Democratic Party has resorted to. It has effectively become a mere mouthpiece for the Abe government, which will resort to any subterfuge to extend its illicit and immoral rule.

Every day that passes presents a new and even more depraved perversion of democracy, which lost even the illusion of legitimacy decades ago. Today the news featured Shinzo Abe feigning concern about the American military's presence in Okinawa, when all along he has endorsed their presence there to placate the World War II victors while keeping them at arm's length from the major Japanese conurbations.

Abe has long touted Abenomics as Japan's sole salvation, when it is quite the opposite — just a catchy name to dazzle an ill-informed electorate about their declining economy. Now after years of abject failure he is thumb-screwing the media into vindicating his continued fiefdom by claiming that it will succeed if he is allowed to full-throttle his arcane policy, when only worse results can be expected.

Even cosmeticized data about his financial policies spells doom for all but the rich and powerful, who thrive off the hardship of the flimsiest imaginable pretenses for a solution.

Until and unless Japanese voters see this reality, Japan is doomed to ever greater record debt and increasing hardship for all those outside the tiny inner circle of power.

The only sad question that remains is: "When will the media stop allying itself to Abe and cease hoodwinking one of the most gullible publics in the world today?"

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.