Japan Press Weekly

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2018 February 21 - 27 [JCP]

Shii at SDP convention: Let’s work to field joint opposition candidates in Upper House election

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on February 24 attended the Social Democratic Party convention in Tokyo for the second time after the previous party convention two years ago. He called for strengthening joint struggles among opposition parties in order to bring down the Abe government.

At the SDP convention, along with Shii, Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan chief Edano Yukio, Democratic Party leader Otsuka Kohei, and Liberal Party co-head Ozawa Ichiro spoke as guests.

Shii in his guest speech expressed his gratitude for SDP chief Yoshida Tadatomo who attended the JCP Congress last year. He noted that in recent years’ national elections, the cooperation between the JCP and the SDP increased. Shii said, “I expect that this convention will be a good opportunity for the solidarity and collaboration to further grow.”

Shii stressed, “In the last two years, citizens-opposition parties collaboration overcame various difficulties and made an advance step by step.” Shii said, “Let’s work to enable our joint struggle to become even stronger in next year’s House of Councilors election.” He expressed support for the draft resolution in the SDP convention which states that the SDP will make efforts to run joint opposition candidates in 32 single-member constituencies in the Upper House election scheduled for 2019. Shii underscored the need to build a full-scale collaboration among opposition forces to defeat the Liberal Democratic Party.

SDP chief Yoshida in his opening address said that with the House of Councilors election slated for next year, “We need to strengthen again cooperation among opposition parties and field as many joint candidates as possible. Let’s unite to put an end to the Abe government.”

Other opposition party leaders in their speeches as invited guests underlined the importance of running joint candidates in the scheduled House of Councilors election. After the speeches, the five opposition party leaders joined hands on stage and gave a shout out in solidarity.

On February 25, the second day of the two-day convention, the convention elected House of Councilors member Mataichi Seiji as the new party leader.

Past related article:
> Shii attends SDP convention for first time in JCP history [February 21, 2016]