election

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JCP candidate wins city assembly by-election

A Japanese Communist Party candidate was elected as a Takamatsu City Assembly member, Kagawa Prefecture, in a by-election on November 6 in a new one-seat constituency representing former Shionoe Town that merged with Takamatsu in September.

Tanaka Kazuo, a former JCP Shionoe Town Assembly member, beat his conservative opponent by receiving 1,235 votes (53.84 percent) , which was 4.7 times the number of votes he received in the last town assembly election. The number was also six times larger than the votes that the JCP got in the former Shionoe Town in the House of Representatives general election in September.

Shionoe Town with a population of about 3,600 had rich social programs to support child care, elderly people, and farmers. However, most of them were to be replaced with Takamatsu City's programs after the merger with the Kagawa prefectural capital city.

In response to residents' concerns that they will no longer be able to receive the services they enjoyed in the township, Tanaka was urging Takamatsu City to restore services that used to be available in former Shionoe Town.

For the last 24 years, Tanaka was a Shionoe Town Assembly member and made efforts to reflect residents' voices in town policies and realized many residents-oriented services, including the establishment of town-owned housing units and free medical care for children up to 12 years old.

The other candidate was a pro-merger Shionoe Town Assembly member. During the election campaign, supported by conservative Dietmembers as well as prefectural and city assembly members, he chanted anti-JCP slogans, such as, "Don't turn Takamatsu into a communist city!" -- Akahata, November 7, 8, 2005