Posts resurface years-old video of opposition party leader following Japan’s snap poll

"The leader of the left-wing woke party Reiwa Shinsengumi performed a very funny dance to win voters' support. As of now, the party has completely lost all its seats, not a single one left. Well deserved," reads the simplified Chinese caption of a video shared on X on February 9, 2026.

The clip shows Taro Yamamoto, the founder of opposition party Reiwa Shinsengumi, dancing on a stage while wearing a yellow cap and pink bathrobe.

In December, he criticised remarks Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made the previous month that Japan could intervene militarily if Beijing sought to take self-ruled Taiwan by force (archived link).

China regards the democratic island as part of its territory and has not ruled out force to annex it.

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Screenshot of the false post captured on February 10, 2026, with a red X added by AFP

The same clip was also shared in similar Weibo and Sina posts, as well as by Japan-based accounts on X, after Takaichi's LDP secured a two-thirds supermajority in parliamentary elections on February 8 (archived link).

"If I were Japanese, I would also vote for someone who is mentally sound after watching it," read a comment on one of the posts, while another said: "How would someone with common sense vote for these people?"

Takaichi's  LDP won 315 seats in the lower house, the best result in its history, allowing Japan's first woman prime minister to stamp her mark on the country of 123 million people over the next four years.

After the election, Takaichi said she would bolster Japan's defences, including through creating a new intelligence bureau and revising key security policy documents (archived link). She also said she was "open to various dialogues" with Beijing (archived link).

Reiwa Shinsengumi, meanwhile, won one seat, down from the eight it held prior to the vote (archived here and here).

The video circulating online, however, was filmed in 2022.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same clip shared on Instagram on July 4, 2022 with a chyron that read, "The House of Councillors Election 2022" (archived link).

The House of Councillors is the upper house of Japan's national parliament (archived link)

A subsequent search on Reiwa Shinsengumi's YouTube channel found the original video published on July 3, 2022 (archived link).

"The voting day for the 2022 House of Councillors election is July 10!" reads its caption.

Yamamoto is not shown dancing in other videos shared on the party's YouTube account in the leadup to the February 2026 elections (archived link).

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Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared X post (L) and the party's video

The LDP and its coalition partner Komeito won more than 75 of the 125 upper house seats up for grabs in the July 10, 2022 elections (archived link). Reiwa Shinsengumi won three seats in the polls (archived link).

AFP previously debunked other misinformation linked to elections in other countries.