Yuko Tojo
© AFP/File Yoshikazu TsunoTOKYO (AFP) - The granddaughter of World War II prime minister Hideki Tojo, the petite 68-year-old sees it as her mission to restore the name not only of her ancestor, but of Japan itself.
Her campaign is an increasingly lonely one. Conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who rose to power with a mission to make Japan prouder of its past, has refocused on bread-and-butter issues as his party trails in polls.
"I believe very strongly that restoring honour to my grandfather's name will lead to the restoration of pride and honour for all of Japan," Tojo told AFP in an interview.
Tojo, an independent, is facing an uphill struggle against 18 other candidates for a seat in the upper house of parliament from a Tokyo constituency.
She sits upright in her small campaign office where fluorescent yellow banners -- her "lucky colour" -- clash with the sobriety of her campaign slogan: "Love your country with dignity."
Yuko Tojo
© AFP/File Yoshikazu Tsuno"Please imagine me as a quiet, cute, white dove that flutters in the Yasukuni shrine," she said coyly, referring to the shrine China and South Korea see as a symbol of Japan's militarist past.
Abe has helped repair relations with neighbouring countries by refusing to say whether he will go the Yasukuni shrine, which venerates war dead and war criminals alike.
The most controversial figure to be listed at the Yasukuni shrine is former premier Tojo, who ordered the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and was hanged as a war criminal by a US-led military tribunal.
Abe strongly supported the Shinto shrine in the past and pushed through conservative reforms early in his term, such as requiring schools to teach "patriotism."
But his position has grown weaker as his approval rating has slipped to dangerous lows due to a slew of scandals involving his ministers and mismanagement of the pension system.
Yuko Tojo would like Abe to visit the Yasukuni shrine as premier -- and to go unabashedly.
Hideki Tojo, who was prime minister from 1941 to 1944, during his trial for war crimes
© AFP/File"There are no countries in the world except China and South Korea that complain about a place that honours people who died for their country," she said. "No other countries intervene in another country's religion."
"I simply convey historical truth," she said.
Her truth, however, does not include "comfort women" -- the thousands who provided sex to the wartime Japanese army. Abe caused a furore this year when he said there was no evidence Japan directly forced the women into brothels.
"In any war there will be 'comfort women,'" Tojo said. "There wasn't one single military 'comfort woman.' It's a Korean company that took the women away and offered them to the Japanese army."
Yuko acknowledged she was fighting a lonely battle.
Even Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara -- known for his strident denunciations of China -- has distanced himself. He told a recent luncheon that he considered Hideki Tojo the sole Japanese perpetrator of World War II.
"There is no reason for him to be enshrined at Yasukuni. He caused too many victims," Ishihara said.
The mere mention of Tojo's name makes some ordinary Japanese voters freeze.
"I wouldn't want to support someone who triggered the war," said Koji Yamamoto, 35, a company employee on a lunch break in Tokyo. "The Japanese want to forget the war. Why? Because it's sad."
Tadao Minami, 69, said Tojo had little chance of drawing young voters, who have been particularly disillusioned by Abe.
"If she could match her agenda with issues concerning young people, then perhaps she could win," he said. "But they probably don't know or even care who Hideki Tojo is."
In Tojo's view, her grandfather is a scapegoat -- and she wants to fight on.
"Of course I would like to be endorsed by a political party. But every party is afraid of me -- or perhaps afraid of China."
©AFP