Hatoyama, as ever on the back foot, says that he won’t push during this Diet session to pass a bill giving foreign permanent residents the right to vote in local elections.
This issue makes me uncomfortable. A fellow Englishman, one Alan Higgs, may have been the first foreigner in Japan to sue the government for not letting him vote (or rather the mental distress he suffered as a result), but I’m afraid I don’t grok his frustrations. (The courts didn’t either; they summarily dismissed his motion and two appeals, I suspect while stifling giggles. Wikipedia’s worryingly extensive J article has details.)
Rather, I accept my inability to vote as a non-citizen. It makes me uncomfortable to think that there are noisy protests occurring because the DPJ is trying to give me a right I don’t want. I understand the idea of giving local voting rights to zainichi Koreans, sure; and they were the original intended recipients, not all holders of permanent residence. But I suspect targeting just that community would have made the issue even more heated and politicized than it already is.
For myself, I’d prefer more relaxed rules on dual citizenship. That’d solve far more problems, and through the front door rather than the back.
