Abe gets his own app

Akiko Fujita has an entertaining piece on Japanese politicians' awkward attempts to leverage social media:

The Abe app

For a country known for its high-tech prowess, Japan has had surprisingly archaic election laws.

Political parties have traditionally been banned from using the internet to aid their campaigns, thanks to a decades-old law that dictated  everything from the amount of fliers a candidate could hand out to the exact size of campaign posters allowed, to ensure parity. In place of get-out-the-vote campaigns online, candidates armed themselves with megaphones, attached them to compact vans, and drove around cities and rural towns to trumpet their cause.

A legal change this spring reversed the trend, allowing politicians to tweet and Facebook their way to victory. Now candidates are getting their first taste of what’s been dubbed Internet Elections here, with the two-week campaign period officially underway for the upcoming Upper House Elections.   ...

The introduction of cyberspace into politics has pushed campaigns to find creative ways to woo voters.

Last week the ruling Liberal Democratic Party unveiled a new smartphone game application, featuring Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopping and somersaulting his way to the sky. In “Abe-Pyon,” the popular Japanese leader’s avatar is seen jumping from one platform to another, with players racking up points while gaining access to information about the LDP’s campaign platform.

Not to be outdone, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan released an application that allowed voters to take virtual photographs with their favorite candidates, and create their own campaign posters on smartphones. The pitch from the DPJ? “Now you can be famous too!”