April 6, 2019

State Minister of Land Tsukada Ichiro on April 5 announced his resignation in the face of widespread public criticism against his remark that he promoted a public works project in order to benefit the hometowns of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and Deputy Prime Minister Aso Taro.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo commented on Tsukada’s resignation in a street speech which he gave in Tochigi’s Utsunomiya City to support JCP candidates running in the prefectural assembly election. He said that the deputy land minister stepped down, but it does not put an end to a problem exposed by his remark that he budgeted taxpayers’ money for research on a project to construct a road between the hometowns of Abe and Aso, dubbed the “Abe-Aso road”, which is often criticized as a political carrot. Shii stressed that Tsukada’s remark represents the very essence of the corrupt nature of the Abe government and called for replacing it with a new government.

Later in the same day, Shii visited Niigata Prefecture to raise support for JCP candidates in the April 7 prefectural assembly election. Concerning the fact that Tsukada, who is a Liberal Democratic Party member of the House of Councilors, will run for this summer’s Upper House election, Shii said to the press, “Tsukada is unqualified to be a parliamentarian. We will work to bring about the success of a joint electoral struggle of opposition parties and concerned citizens in order to block Tsukada from serving another term.”