Japan Press Weekly

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2017 February 8 - 14 [JCP]

All 7 JCP candidates win in 2 local elections

All seven Japanese Communist Party candidates won seats in local elections held on February 12 in two cities. In one of the races for city assembly seats, the JCP made a one-two finish and achieved one more victory, making three in total.

In Urasoe City in Okinawa, JCP incumbents took 1st and 2nd places, and the first-time candidate came in 15th place out of the 27 contested seats. The local JCP secured three seats for the first time, acquiring the right to introduce ordinance bills to the city assembly. The number of votes they received was a record high of 7,489, up 1,277 from the previous race four years ago.

In Maebashi City in Gunma, all four incumbents succeeded in staying in the 38-seat city assembly, maintaining the right to submit ordinance bills.

In the city of Urasoe, the mayor expressed his intent to accept the transfer of the U.S. military port to Urasoe from Naha City although he became the mayor by promising in the mayoral election that he would resist the relocation of the port. JCP assemblypersons have strongly protested his breach of promise. During the election campaign for the city assembly, the three candidates pledged to represent residents’ voices of opposition to the plan.

Soon after the campaigning for the local election kicked off, the national government started the preparatory work for the new U.S. base construction in Nago City. Amid most rivals choosing to not talk about this issue in their canvassing speeches, the three straightforwardly called for the cancellation of the Henoko base construction and for the withdrawal of the Osprey deployment to Okinawa.

As for the city of Maebashi in Gunma, anti-communist attacks such as distributing disinformation about the JCP took place all throughout the campaign period. In addition, most local media reported that no major issue of contention arose in the campaign. However, the JCP tenaciously kept criticizing the city government which promotes wasteful large public works projects, including a costly streetcar system. The four JCP candidates emphasized to voters their commitment to improving the existing means of public transportation. The four also promised that they will reform the present way of using tax revenues and that they will put priority on residents’ livelihoods, welfare, and childcare services, such as the provision of free school lunch meals and cuts in the national healthcare insurance tax.