February 23, 2014
Calling for the decommissioning of the Mihama nuclear power plant, the Japanese Communist Party is working to regain its assembly seat in Mihama Town, Fukui Prefecture, in a local assembly election scheduled for March 9.
Since the JCP lost its seat in the assembly in 2003, Mihama Town has been the only NPP-hosting municipality in Fukui where there is no JCP assembly member present. All 14 members in the Mihama Town Assembly support nuclear power generation.
At the Mihama plant, which started its operation in 1970, a pipe explosion occurred in 2004, killing five workers and severely injuring six others.
In 2005, Kansai Electric Power Co., the operator of the Mihama plant, relocated its nuclear energy promotion office from its headquarters in Osaka City to Mihama Town. JCP Fukui Prefectural Assembly member Sato Masao said, “We have been frustrated by the fact that we don’t have a JCP representative on the assembly in Mihama Town when we go there to make representations regarding issues of nuclear power generation.”
The party’s candidate in the upcoming race, Kawamoto Takeshi, 36, was born and raised in the atomic-bombed city of Nagasaki. Ten years ago he moved to Tsuruga City, located adjacent to Mihama Town, to work at a Panasonic factory as a temporary worker.
Facing Panasonic’s forcible dismissals of temporary workers, Kawamoto lost his job in 2009. He then worked with the JCP and a labor union in a struggle to fight against the manufacturer’s unfair labor practice.
In an interim result of a survey Kawamoto is conducting locally, 65% of respondents call for a shift from nuclear to renewable energy. Some of the respondents expressed in the survey that they want local natural resources to be utilized for town development and creation of local employment opportunities so that young people do not have to leave the town to find a job.
In his pre-election campaign, Kawamoto demands that the town administration put an end to its policy depending on nuclear energy and create more local jobs unrelated to the nuclear power plant.
Since the JCP lost its seat in the assembly in 2003, Mihama Town has been the only NPP-hosting municipality in Fukui where there is no JCP assembly member present. All 14 members in the Mihama Town Assembly support nuclear power generation.
At the Mihama plant, which started its operation in 1970, a pipe explosion occurred in 2004, killing five workers and severely injuring six others.
In 2005, Kansai Electric Power Co., the operator of the Mihama plant, relocated its nuclear energy promotion office from its headquarters in Osaka City to Mihama Town. JCP Fukui Prefectural Assembly member Sato Masao said, “We have been frustrated by the fact that we don’t have a JCP representative on the assembly in Mihama Town when we go there to make representations regarding issues of nuclear power generation.”
The party’s candidate in the upcoming race, Kawamoto Takeshi, 36, was born and raised in the atomic-bombed city of Nagasaki. Ten years ago he moved to Tsuruga City, located adjacent to Mihama Town, to work at a Panasonic factory as a temporary worker.
Facing Panasonic’s forcible dismissals of temporary workers, Kawamoto lost his job in 2009. He then worked with the JCP and a labor union in a struggle to fight against the manufacturer’s unfair labor practice.
In an interim result of a survey Kawamoto is conducting locally, 65% of respondents call for a shift from nuclear to renewable energy. Some of the respondents expressed in the survey that they want local natural resources to be utilized for town development and creation of local employment opportunities so that young people do not have to leave the town to find a job.
In his pre-election campaign, Kawamoto demands that the town administration put an end to its policy depending on nuclear energy and create more local jobs unrelated to the nuclear power plant.
