PULLING THE PLUG:

DISSATISFACTION EASY TO FIND: Pension reform, SDF weigh on voters' minds (TOMOKO OTAKE, HIROSHI MATSUBARA and YUMI WIJERS-HASEGAWA, July 12, 2004, The Japan Times)

Fresh in voters' minds as they headed to the polls were the contentious government pension reform plan and its decision to place the Self-Defense Forces contingent deployed to Iraq in a multinational force. [...]

Kojima and his 24-year-old wife, Akane, said they are also unhappy with the government's pension reform plan.

"We don't feel like having children in Japan, as things are," the doctor said. "We can't possibly side with the view suggested by some old-guard politicians that couples should bear more children for the country's sake." [...]

[M]any young people, including a couple from Chiba Prefecture, both 20, expressed apathy toward the election.

"We don't have jobs and the society is in shambles," Kosuke Sato said. "Nothing is going to change, no matter who takes charge."