A popular entertainer in Japan says she’s running for office to protect the animals. However, her love of fur coats has many here raising their eyebrows at her seemingly newfound passion for four-legged creatures.
85-year-old Dewi Sukarno – full name Ratna Sari Dewi Sukarno, and known professionally as Dewi Fujin (デヴィ婦人), or Madame Dewi – is a Japanese entertainer born in 1940 as Nemoto Naoko. The third wife of Indonesian resistance fighter and president Sukarno, she took Indonesian citizenship in 1965, six years after her marriage.
Sukarno is a common fixture on Japanese variety television. She’s also outspoken about her right-wing political opinions. In 2018, she agreed with a controversial article by Diet member Sugita Mio. Sugita deemed LGBTQ people “unproductive” members of society because they couldn’t have children.
She also once on-air blamed infertility on abortions. The pronouncement was so ludicrous that the program’s MC apologized for it during the program. Dewi denounced his apology in real-time, insisting she was right.
Animal rights…for some animals?
Now, Sukarno is raising eyebrows over her announcement of a new political party. She’s dubbed it the 12-Heiwa Party, (１２平和党; wan-nyan heiwa tou). “12” here is pronounced “wan-nyan” – the onomatopoeia for the cries of dogs and cats, respectively. The party will supposedly devote itself to “making animal welfare number one,” in her own words.
Sukarno says she plans to run as a member of the party itself. She’ll via for a seat in the Upper House of Japan’s Diet as part of the proportional representation system. (I.e., she’ll be running under the banner of the party as opposed to running for a specific district’s seat.) To do this, she’s currently in the process of changing her citizenship back to Japan.
However, Internet sleuths soon uncovered that Dewi’s newfound rhetoric doesn’t align with her past actions.
The TV personality is famous for owning a 40 million yen (USD $263K) fur coat made out of 70 weasel pelts. We know this because, as Daily Shincho and many others reported in 2017, Madame Dewi sued the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa in Tokyo for allegedly damaging it at a Christmas party. She claims the coat was returned to her after the reception with part of the right sleeve destroyed.
Strictly dogs and cats, ma’am
Nikkan Gendai also alleges that they found a picture of Sukarno wearing what appears to be a fur coat. This one was posted just this year (three weeks ago, to be precise). The paper said the thread contained multiple comments about her wearing fur despite supposedly leading an animal welfare party.
I found the photo above, which appears to correspond to the picture Gendai mentioned. However, it doesn’t have the comments Gendai mentioned, indicating they may have been deleted. In Sukarno’s defense, it’s not clear if the coat is real or fake fur.
Another Instagram photo identified by Gendai, dating back to January 21st, 2022, shows the celeb wearing a leopard-spotted coat with what appears to be a crocodile bag. Again, it’s unclear if either of the items were made from animals.
In her press conference, when asked about whaling, Sukarno specifically said she wasn’t concerned about whales and was focused on house pets like dogs and cats. So, it’s possible that, in her mind, bedazzling herself with animals is consistent with protecting Momo-kun and Runa-chan.
Of course, the Japanese Diet votes on all matters of things, not just animal welfare issues. While the Upper House is less powerful than Japan’s Lower House, Sukarno holding a seat would potentially give right-wingers in parties such as the Liberal Democratic Party and Sanseito another ally. I’ll be interested to see what other tenets the party promotes – and exactly how deeply retrograde Sukarno’s political thinking is in practice.
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