Town and village heads gather in Nagano to oppose compulsory mergers

Determined to stop the central government policy of forcing small municipalities to merge, about 620 people, including 46 town and village heads, held a forum on February 22 and 23 in snowy Sakae Village in Nagano Prefecture.

The Sakae village head is one of five persons who proposed holding the forum. For the first time, many village heads convened to discuss municipal mergers, and it was an expression of their dynamism to defend local self-government in defiance of the government policy of discarding small municipalities whose population size fails to meet the set standard.

The head of Ueno Village in Gunma Prefecture, who is among the five initiators, stated, "Compulsory mergers violate the principle of local self-government."

Head of Yamatsuri Town in Fukushima Prefecture, where the town assembly resolved not to merge, said, "There are no good reasons for merger. The only possible explanation is that the government parties want to shift national funds to larger cities because they have found it difficult to win elections in rural villages."

The ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei Parties give lip service to "decentralization of power", but they actually force municipalities to merge, with the bait that they can have big public works projects if they merge.

Criticism has increased against this policy, that depriving small-sized municipalities of their power undermines the postwar principle of local self-government. (end)