Japan Town To Cast Votes For Most Popular Seafood On Same Day As Election

SAPPORO (Japan), Jan 28 (Bernama-Kyodo) --  As Japan gears up for an election that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hopes will give her a public mandate, a town on the northernmost main island of Hokkaido is set to decide the slippery issue of its most popular seafood, Kyodo News reported.

The online "kaisan" election in Toyoura, a play on the words for "dissolution" and "seafood" in Japanese that are pronounced the same but written with different Chinese characters, will take place on Feb. 8, the same day as the snap election for the lower house called by Takaichi last week.

It will be the fourth seafood popularity contest in the town famous for scallops and is part of the local tourism association's drive to encourage people to vote in elections and revitalise the town.

A total of eight candidates are vying to land the most votes, including herring, mackerel and trout. Around 26,000 people voted in the previous contest in 2024, with scallops, unsurprisingly, triumphing for a third time.

"I will swim, swim, swim, swim and swim," a campaign poster for the trout candidate reads, a nod to Takaichi's pledge to "work, work, work, work and work" that was declared the country's top catchphrase of 2025.

A poster for the octopus and squid alliance states, "We've joined forces," an apparent reference to the merger of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Komeito party.

Voting on the tourism association's website will also ensure that the weather does not mar the contest, amid concern that snow could affect turnout in the other election.

-- BERNAMA-KYODO