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Japanese lawmakers on Wednesday voted to expel a colleague for not showing up for work — even once.
Yoshikazu Higashitani, better known as celebrity gossip YouTuber GaaSyy, was elected to Japan’s upper house in July and has not entered parliament or the country since.
The 51-year-old has made a name for himself exposing alleged celebrity scandals on YouTube, amassing more than 1.2million subscribers. This following helped him win 287,000 votes and a seat in the House of Councilors for a populist party opposed to royalty funding for public broadcaster NHK.
It also drew his attention to local police, who began investigating celebrity complaints that he had allegedly defamed and intimidated them in his videos. According to Japanese media reports, Tokyo police raided several locations linked to him in January. His YouTube account was suspended over the summer.
GaaSyy launched his campaign from abroad, claiming he was afraid of being arrested by the police if he returned to Japan. On March 7, he announced on Instagram that he was in Turkey to support earthquake relief efforts and would not be returning to apologize to Parliament for his absence, as previously promised.
His expulsion from Parliament was approved by a vote of 235 to 1 on Wednesday. It was the first expulsion from the Japanese parliament in 72 years and the first time a lawmaker has been expelled for continued absence in a country where the work culture requires regular face-to-face interviews and employees are judged on the hours they work.
GaaSyy was paid approximately $149,000, which is his total salary and bonuses calculated from his election to the time of his termination.
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Experts say GaaSyy appealed to some voters because he was a political maverick — an antihero who railed against Japan’s tightly controlled entertainment sector. Prior to his YouTube career and brief foray into politics, he lived a flamboyant lifestyle, mingling with many of the celebrities he would later gossip about in his videos. Some had commented on social media before his election hope he could Bring about changes in Japan’s political system, which is dominated by one party, and reveal any political secrets.
Populist parties have not gained as much traction in Japan in recent years as in other industrialized democracies.
Jeffrey J. Hall, a policy expert at Kanda University of International Studies, said working with GaaSyy helped the NHK party garner a large enough share of the national vote to qualify for a seat in parliament.
“Over a million people voted for this party in the last election,” he said in an email. “It is significant that so many people could be mobilized for a fringe party that spreads its message mainly through YouTube and other social media.”
He noted that GaaSyy’s ouster will not prevent him from running in future elections. Many of those who voted for GaaSyy see him as a truth-teller targeted by the Japanese establishment and “probably don’t care” about his absence, Hall said. “They don’t expect their politicians to sit in (parliamentary) sessions and do the same things as normal politicians.”
Dozens of supporters demonstrated in front of Parliament on Wednesday to protest his expulsion.
However, his party could go on. She recently changed her name to the 48th Party of Women Politicians. Under the Japanese electoral system, another member of the party is appointed to take his seat in parliament.
In a statement read in Parliament on Tuesday, GaaSyy said: “There will continue to be people like me running for office. If you do not want the world you have created to be destroyed, please exclude these people from the candidacy process from the start.”