Japan Press Weekly

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2017 November 15 - 21 [POLITICS]

Kakushinkon holds exchange gathering on ways to develop opposition parties/concerned citizens cooperation

About 1,600 people from local, workplace and youth organizations of the National Association for a Peaceful, Democratic, and Progressive Japan (Kakushinkon) on November 19 in workshops exchanged their views and experiences on ways to further advance united efforts between opposition parties and concerned citizens.

The workshops took place in Nagoya City in Aichi Prefecture as part of the Kakushinkon national assembly which began on the previous day.

In a workshop for youth Kakusinkon associations, discussions among participants focused on the argument that the younger generation has become conservative as shown in their high support for the PM Abe-led Liberal Democratic Party.

Horikawa Akiko of the youth Kakushinkon in Kyoto reported on her experiences in street campaigns and said, “Many of the young people who favor the LDP appear to feel anxieties about the political and economic chaos in the world and about their futures which causes them to fear political turmoil.” She stressed the need to develop a way to reach out to youth by informing them of PM Abe’s intent to revise the Constitution.

College senior Tamaki Fumiya, who is a founding member of the Civil Alliance in Aichi Prefecture, said, “It is unproductive for us to label young people as conservative and turn a deaf ear to them. The need is to keep an open-minded attitude toward those people in order to raise their awareness of pressing political issues.”

On the first day of the two-day event, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo gave a special report to the opening plenary.

Shii in his report emphasized the importance of the role that the Kakushinkon movement should play under the situation where the October general election produced a huge constitutional revisionist force obtaining a two-thirds majority in the Diet.

Shii first pointed out that the Kakushinkon movement should function as a driving force for advancing the opposition parties-citizens collaboration at the grassroots level and bringing down the Abe government. In this regard, Shii called on Kakushinkon members to work hard for the success of the 30 million-signature campaign to block PM Abe’s move to change the pacifist clause of the Constitution.

Shii also said that the promotion of the Kakushikon movement which seeks to form a majority consensus to achieve peace, democracy, and a better life for all should contribute to furthering progress in the opposition parties-concerned citizens alliance.

Past related article:
> Progressive forum calls for bringing down of Abe administration [May 21, 2017]