JCP chair comments on new Prime Minister Koizumi's political line

Commenting on the election of Koizumi Jun'ichiro as the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo said on April 24 that he puts forward no plans that will help LDP politics get out of the crisis, indicating how serious the LDP's problems are.

Shii pointed out that Koizumi's policy for overcoming the present economic recession is one of implementing the Emergency Economic Package which the Mori Cabinet recently announced for the purpose of benefiting major banks and general contractor construction companies.

Recalling that Koizumi as health and welfare minister in the second Hashimoto cabinet (1996-98) endorsed an increase in the consumption tax rate to 5% from 3%, an increase in the people's share of medical costs, and a reduction in financial assistance to patients of incurable diseases, Shii said, "All these steps are causing damage to the people's livelihood and worsening the economy."

On Koizumi's call for an early "revision" of the Constitution, a study of Japan's right to collective self-defense, a "revision" to the Fundamental Law on Education, and cabinet ministers' official worship at Yasukuni Shrine (which was used during WWII as the spiritual base of militarism to mobilize the people to the war of aggression and encourage them to die for the emperor), Shii said that Koizumi has no fixed principle but a hawkish line without covers or brakes, and that the JCP will keep a watch on and confront them.

Predicting that the gap between the people and the LDP led by Koizumi will further widen, Shii expressed the JCP's determination to confront the Koizumi cabinet and do its utmost to end the LDP-Komei Party coalition government. (end)