I read an interesting article on the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6292602.stm) about the use of (or lack of) the internet for campaigning during this month’s election of the Japanese upper house.

Japan’s electoral laws were drawn up in the 1950s, clearly before the web was used as a campaigning tool! The electoral commission imposes strict laws on the methods candidates can use, and how many people they can reach, while running for office.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. What initially comes to mind is that for a country as technologically advanced as Japan to limit the use of the net in elections is a little strange; surely opening up candidates as much as possible during elections is a good thing? When you consider that 95% of people in their twenties regularly use the internet yet only a third of that age group vote, targeting them where they are would be the logical thing to do.

However, this puts Japanese politicians in a position which some of their colleagues in other countries may find uncomfortable - they can only use the web to campaign outside of election-times, meaning that if they don’t want to appear behind-the-times they need to uphold their web presence, and thus win elections, outside of election times.