On June 5th, it was revealed that AKB48's Maeda Atsuko, who is not participating in the fourth general AKB48 elections due to her upcoming graduation, will be appearing on a live broadcast of the election on Fuji TV as a special guest to cheer on her fellow members from a studio in Odaiba.

For the first time ever, AKB48 will be broadcasting the entire election live on TV for all of their fans. During the Fuji TV program, multiple announcers from Fuji TV will be broadcasting both from Nippon Budoukan as well as their main studio to give full coverage of the event. At 7 PM JST, Fuji TV will look back on the history of AKB48, discussing the results of last year's elections in addition to the predictions for this year's elections.� At 8 PM, the results of the 2012 elections will be revealed one by one.

Maeda won AKB48's first general election in 2009, while Oshima Yuko took the lead in their 2010 election. Last year during the high-tension 2011 elections, Maeda took her spot back as number one and assumed her position as the center of the group. For the fourth general elections this year, the spots have been expanded from 40 to a whopping 64 for the largest AKB48 election to date. Since 'definite ace' Maeda Atsuko is out of the game, the huge focal points of this year's elections are the change of generations and the excitement of seeing a new star rise to the top as the new center.

The "Fourth General Election Live Broadcast SP" will be broadcast on Fuji TV from 7 PM to 9:09 PM JST.

Source + Photo: Oricon