July 23, 2019

The Japanese Communist Party Standing Executive Committee on July 22 issued a statement on the results of the July 21 House of Councilors election. Below is the full text of the statement.

Statement on the Upper House election result
Standing Executive Committee,
Japanese Communist Party
Tokyo
July 22, 2019

We deeply appreciate all the voters who supported the JCP and the united opposition candidates. We passionately express our solidarity and gratitude to all the people who joined in our common efforts.

(1)
The important point concerning the results of the Upper House election is that the constitutional revisionist Liberal Democratic Party, Koumeito, Nippon Ishin no Kai failed to maintain a two-thirds majority, which is procedurally required to formally propose constitutional revision.

Although Prime Minister Abe Shinzo still sticks to his ambition of realizing constitutional revision during his term of office, the verdict shown by the election result demonstrates the reluctance of the general public to allow constitutional revision in such an impetuous manner.

The JCP demands that Prime Minister Abe accept the public verdict shown by the results in this election and abandon the attempt to revise the constitution.

(2)
The alliance between citizens and opposition parties played a crucial role in achieving this result. We successfully fielded united opposition candidates in all the 32 single-seat constituencies, and won close races in 10 of them. It is an extraordinary achievement that the opposition parties won 10 seats compared to winning 2 in the previous election. In particular, we recognize the power of the alliance between citizens and opposition parties which dealt a severe blow to the attempt to revise the constitution by Prime Minister Abe and changed the political situation.

The opposition party alliance continued to grow during this election. The 13-point common agenda agreed to by the opposition parties with the Civil Alliance allowed the policy contents of the united alliance to be enriched. In many electoral districts, we saw heartwarming relationships emerging and activities supporting each other developing. Throughout this election campaign, we forged a lot of new bonds and trusting relationships, which is great treasure to hold for the future.

The JCP worked hard for the success of the united front throughout the nation and contributed to its advancement.

Given this achievement, we are determined to exert further efforts to make great progress on the united efforts between citizens and opposition parties to defeat the Abe government in the next general election and to open a new chapter in Japanese politics.

(3)
Regarding the outcome of JCP seats, we managed to keep the incumbent seats in the Tokyo and Kyoto constituencies and gained our first seat in Saitama in 21 years. Although it is truly regrettable that we lost our seat in Osaka, the campaign was so inspiring, with citizens and the party jointly working to overcome the forces of reaction, that we renewed our commitment to reclaim the lost seat in the next election. Overall, it is a favorable outcome that we kept the same 3 seats in constituencies as before.

In the nation-wide proportional representation constituencies, it is regrettable that our pre-election total of 5 seats dropped to 4 seats. At the same time, it is important to evaluate the number of votes and the share of the vote in this election within the context of the trend in a series of recent national elections.

In this election, we were aiming at obtaining 8.5 million votes or over 15% of the total votes cast and surpassing the achievement of 4.4million votes or 7.9% in the general election in 2017. With this goal in mind, despite the decrease in overall voter turnout, we gained 4.48 million votes or 8.95% of total votes cast in proportional constituencies. Compared with the result of the general election in 2017, we are convinced that this is a step forward toward the advancement in the next general elections.

The JCP made great efforts in this election with our two goals, the victory of the alliance between citizens and the opposition parties and the JCP’s own advancement. Overall, we believe we made substantial progress.

(4)
Political issues that the JCP brought to the public attention such as, among other things, the threat to the public pension system, the planned consumption tax hike, the deteriorating living standard, and the controversial constitutional revision scheme, became a focal point in voters’ areas of concern and the JCP played a leading role in the intense policy debates by defeating the Abe-LDP-Komei bloc in the debates.

The JCP’s pioneering policy proposal, including doing away with the macro-economic slide formula in order to create a sound public pension system without imposing benefit reductions, presenting a governmental funding plan without any more consumption tax hike, and creating a gender-equal society by ending divisive rhetoric and discrimination gained considerable public support. In particular, the JCP’s policy proposal to raise hope for the future had a special political resonance among the younger generations, which is very important when we lay out our political plans in the next phase.

We will put forth every effort to realize our campaign pledges by developing and refining policy proposals into a more comprehensive package in the new Diet session.

(5)
While we successfully gained support in the election thanks in part to the considerable efforts made by all the party members, we encountered some regrettable results. We have become painfully aware of the importance of strengthening the base of the party. This must be a shared understanding among all the party members.

Emboldened by the successes we made, but at the same time, learning from the bitter experience, let us move forward with a renewed commitment to create a party which “can advance itself under any political circumstances” and “can achieve the double mission of engaging in cooperation with other opposition parties while increasing our own party presence simultaneously.”

We sincerely call for all party members to start immediately the mission to create a powerful and great party by expanding the party membership and the AKAHATA readership in order to win in the next general elections.