Journalist, Line Producer & Filmmaker based in Japan
A few days before the LDP leadership election: collecting vox pops in a Tokyo park © Sonja Blaschke | Collecting vox pops in a suburban park in Tokyo © Sonja Blaschke
Collecting vox pops in a suburban park in Tokyo © Sonja Blaschke

LDP leadership election 2025 – vox pops for DW

On 4 October 2025, the governing Liberal Democratic Party of Japan elected a new leader – and prime minister-designate. A few days before, I went out to collect vox pops. I usually just do the interviewing, but this time also filmed the participants.

Trying to find Japanese women in their 20s to 40s to talk about anything remotely politicial is challenging, to say the least. „Ask men, they like to talk about politics,“ I was told by one. I had asked well over a dozen women in a suburban park the other day to tell me about their feelings about the current issues in Japanese society, a few days before the LDP leadership election on 4 October 2025. While some agreed to say something off camera (and what they said would have been very useful!), they declined to be filmed.

So as much as journalists try to collect a variety of voices – there is only so much one can do. Eventually, a woman in her early 50s agreed, however, she went into a slightly different direction and did not make it into the final piece – and so it was, as so often, male voices only. There are a number of possible reasons for that of course, and one for sure is living in a country where for women speaking about social and political issues is not seen as common.

The result of my first attempt at filmed vox pops you can find here, in the beginning of 3-minute piece in English on the two main candidates by DW’s Taiwan-based correspondent Rik Glauert.

dw.com/en/japans-ruling-party-to-choose-new-prime-minister/video-74230781

An engineering company employee near Shinjuku station in the center of Tokyo © Sonja Blaschke