Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi
The wallet you use is out of stock, your pink pen has gone viral and even your favorite snacks are now a hit. Japanese leader Sanae Takaichi, 64, has unleashed an unlikely youth-led craze that could propel her to a major electoral victory.
The most recent polls suggest that the ‘sanakatsu‘, something like ‘sanamania’, might help Sanae TakaichiJapan’s first female prime minister, to win this Sunday’s general elections decisively, and ensure she is able to move forward with the spending plans she promised will shake up the country’s moribund economy.
According to this week’s polls, the coalition currently in government in the country, driven by Japan’s personal popularity, could win up to 300 places in the lower house, with 465 seats.
This is a remarkable turnaroundsays , after his predecessor as head of the Japanese government resigned from office after losing control of both chambers in successive votes over the last 15 months.
What is maybe even more surprising is Takaichi’s popularityleader of the most conservative wing of his party, among voters under 30 years oldwhich according to a recent survey exceeds 90%. Its global popularity stands at around 60%.
This ‘sanamania’ is notorious: the wallet you use is exhaustedher pink pen has gone viral and even her favorite snacks are in high demand.
Takanori Kobayashidirector of , the company that makes the $900 black leather wallet that Takaichi regularly uses, says that was astonished with young people clamoring to buy the item on a nine-month waiting list.
“The suitcase is normally bought by people in your 40s or 50s“, Kobayashi tells Reuters, at the company’s factory in Nagano, in central Japan, where press clippings of the prime minister are posted on a bulletin board. “But since it became knownprobably through social media, we have seen a lot interest from customers in their 20s and 30s“.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi with her Hamano wallet
There has also been a similar buzz on social media around the pink ball pen which he uses to scribble notes in parliament, and from rice crackers with shrimpwhich she was seen holding while traveling on a train.
Takaichi built a number of followers on social media which overshadows those of its rivals, both within its Liberal Democratic Party and throughout the opposition. It has about 2.6 million followers in his , compared with 64,000 for Yoshihiko Noda, leader of the main opposition party.
The indices of Takaichi’s personal approval ratings are almost double those of the PLD, traditionally a male-dominated partys, according to a survey released on Monday by public broadcaster NHK.
Your viral posts stand out in the usually sober politics from Japan, as is the case with the videos in which the South Korean president appears Lee Jae-myung to the sound of the hit song Golden from the popular series K-Pop Demon Hunters, from Netflix, or singing happy birthday in Italian to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
When Takaichi announced early elections on January 19, he presented the vote as a de facto referendum on his leadership and policiesincluding new fiscal measures and plans to strengthen defenseto counter China’s growing military power.
“You can trust the management of the nation to Sanae Takaichi? I directly ask the people to judge”, said the Japanese Iron Lady at the time.
Takaichi’s approach won over Haruka Okuyamaa 32-year-old office worker who attended her first campaign rally in Akihabara, an anime and gaming culture hub in central Tokyo.
“Many young people follow social media nowadays, and I think there has been a increase in conservative thinking among them“, Okuyama tells Reuters, as he takes out a magazine from his wallet, which he said he bought because Takaichi was on the cover.
At her rallies, in one of which she appeared perched atop a campaign truck, Takaichi spoke about her modest education outside the elite Japanese politics, and addresses topics ranging from hairdresser costs to the control of immigration.
Daughter of a police officer and a car company worker, she says that if inspired by Margaret Thatchera shopkeeper’s daughter who became Britain’s first female and longest-serving modern prime minister.
“He has a clear and decisive way of speaking,” he says Takeo Fujimuraa 24-year-old administrative employee who had volunteered to distribute paper Japanese flags at the event. “Communicates in a bright way and positive and I think that energy resonates with young people.”
Some analysts question whether the young people that the Japanese prime minister attracted will even appear at the pollsto deliver the landslide victory that polls predict he will have on Sunday.
Historically, younger people have been less likely to vote than the older generations, who have sustained the PLD’s almost uninterrupted dominance in the post-war period.
But even a modest victory would highlight how his personal appeal revitalized the fortunes of a party whose long grip on power was slipping away quickly, says David Bolingconsultant at The Asia Group, a strategic consultancy company. “The power of your personality it seems to be transcending politics,” says Boling.
