election

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

All five JCP candidates returned in Machida City election

All five Japanese Communist Party candidates were returned in the 36-seat Machida City Assembly election in Metropolitan Tokyo on February 26.

In Tokyo's suburban city with a population of 400,000, the JCP candidates received 16,916 votes (12.1percent), and successfully maintained the five seats it previously held.

The vote ratio for the JCP was up by 0.5 percent point from the previous election, and a 4.4 percent point up from the 2005 House of Representatives Proportional Representation Constituency Election that includes Machida.

JCP candidates with its members and supporters opposed the plan to construct a new city office with 20 billion yen. They criticized all the other parties for supporting measures that undermine the city's welfare services, including the cut in the payment to aged people of monetary gift when they are hospitalized.

JCP assembly members showed voters how they succeeded in having the city to replace old desks and chairs with new ones for public schools.

Voter turnout was 44.1%.

In elections on the same day, the JCP won two seats in Umi Town Assembly in Fukuoka Prefecture and one in the Tokigawa Town Assembly in Saitama Prefecture.
-Akahata, February 28, 2006