JCP leaders begin nationwide speaking tours

Japan Press Weekly

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

>JCP leaders begin nationwide speaking tours

To win in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election scheduled for July 12 and also win in the general election of the House of Representatives to come, the Japanese Communist Party started its election campaign with JCP Chair Shii Kazuo speaking on March 29 in Ota Ward, Tokyo.

Shii said that the media forcing voters to choose between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan is a false choice because the LDP-Komei government under Prime Minister Aso Taro has lost its ability to govern, and the DPJ led by Ozawa Ichiro is suspected of being involved in corrupt money politics, including illegal donations from Nishimatsu Construction Co.

Shii emphasized that the real choice should be between two major parties which have a similar political orientation and the JCP which is calling for fundamental political change.

Referring to focal national political issues over shady money and politicians, and job losses in the economic downturn, Shii called for a drastic clean-up of corrupt money power politics with the advance of the JCP which has nothing to do with donations from business corporations and organizations and calls for a redress in "capitalism without rules."

Shii said that the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election has an easier structure for voters to see. In the assembly, the ruling LDP and Komei parties always get help from the DPJ which is an opposition party in the national Diet, and the three parties have supported Governor Ishihara's policies of harming citizens' livelihoods for ten years. Shii stated that the choice is clear, the three parties or the JCP.

Shii said that the Tokyo metropolitan administration requires four points: (1) restore impoverished social services and education budgets, (2) use tax money on people's livelihoods instead of building roads for the Olympics, (3) never be insensitive to the value of tax money, and (4) more JCP assembly members so that people can move the metropolitan administration through JCP assembly members.

The audience filled the lecture hall of the Kamata Primary School used for the event as well as an additional room, and some people sat on the playground and watched the speech on TV monitor.

A man of 61 said, "My son has recently lost his job. I want a future Japan in which the weak can also harbor a dream."

- Akahata, March 30, 2009