Japan Press Weekly

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2017 December 20 - 2018 January 9 [JCP]

JCP activists willing to go anywhere to make JCP better known to more people

Japanese Communist Party activists, including its Dietmembers and local assemblypersons, have been taking the initiative in making the party known to as many people as possible by cooperating in "get-togethers", no matter how small, held throughout Japan by party branches to welcome new members.

JCP members hosting such gatherings always invite their neighbors and people whom they feel they want to join the party.

Ohira Yoshinobu, a former Lower House lawmaker, is busy attending such gatherings. He said, "Even if only three persons are getting together, I will hurry to go wherever it is being held." Over the past two months alone, he has already attended 28 meetings and many more branches are asking him to come.

These meetings vary in size, from large with a lot of people held by JCP supporters' associations to small with a few or maybe ten people at a maximum held at the home of a JCP member. The meetings also vary in style from chatting with each other over tea and cookies to sharing a hot pot dish to enjoy each other's company. Many people in such a casual atmosphere state their candid opinions, present their ideas, make comments, and ask questions about the JCP.

A participant in a get-together hosted by a Yamaguchi City branch said he had a negative image of the party name. Ohira said, "In the end, however, the conclusion is always that we should organize more events like this so that more people come to understand our party better."

A Hiroshima City branch hosted a meeting in which more than half the participants were not JCP members. One person said with resignation, "I ventured to vote for a JCP candidate, but in vain. I knew my ballot wouldn't change politics anyway." One asked, "What do JCP Dietmembers do every day? And what about other parties' Dietmembers?" One voiced a complaint, "My part-time wages are so low that I can no longer put up with it." The former JCP Dietmember sincerely responded to each one. Then, a woman in her 30s who took part in the JCP gathering for the first time said, "I used to believe that the JCP is a scary organization. But, listening to Ohira, I have realized that it was all a misunderstanding."

A JCP supporters' association in Hiroshima City organized a gathering and invited a woman who worked to help a JCP candidate to win in the October general election. Responding to the effort made by JCP city assemblypersons and local branch members to persuade her to join the party, she decided to become a JCP member. She said, "I want to do what I can to change politics."

Ohira said, "Such gatherings are held repeatedly in a fun and relaxed manner and the holding of them has been spreading so that we can make our party better known to more people and can use this opportunity to build a stronger party."