One thing I did know was that we had to sort out our enrolment. It's compusory to be enrolled and to vote in Australia, so as we move in and out of the country, it's one of those things we have to take care of each time. However, there is a loophole for expats living abroad—we don't have to vote if we tell them that we might not (I guess it covers problems like postage being slow etc.). In our rush to get back to Japan, we didn't get around to notifying the Australian Electoral Commission of our move, and then the election announcment last week meant we needed to act, so we downloaded, filled out, scanned, and emailed our forms over the weekend.
It turns out that Tokyo's having local elections too. We found that out last week as we saw these boards erected around the city, and then from yesterday political campaingers driving around the streets with their loudspeakers. I now know that there is a local candidate by the name of Rieko Abe, she's driven past our house multiple times, repeatedly stating her name. I saw her car again while I was out today too, complete with a lady with white gloves in it, waving to all those she saw, even foreigners who will not be able to vote this coming Sunday.I learnt more when a Google search turned up this Japan Times article. Turns out, according to the article, there are 86 mayors being voted for this coming Sunday! Tokyo is not a city, it's a prefecture, a rather large one at that (though not geographically). With a population of 13.8 million, it's got more people living in it than 159 countries, or nearly 70% of the countries of the world. It consists of 23 special wards, 26 cities, one district and four subprefectures, including two sets of islands south of Tokyo. I'm really not sure how you get 86 mayors of of that...
Anyway. Here's what one of these electoral cars sounds like:
Thankfully the local elections appear to only get one week to campaign!
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