Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2012 January 11 - 17 [JCP]

JCP has largest number of female local assembly members

A survey result recently issued by a civic women’s organization shows that the Japanese Communist Party has the largest number of female local assembly members among all Japanese political parties.

According to the survey conducted by the Fusae Ichikawa Center for Women and Governance in 2011, the number of local assemblywomen is 3,942, accounting for 11.1% of the total of 35,447 local assembly members.

It was in 1946 that Japanese women were finally given local suffrage. More than 60 years have passed and the rate of female members in local assemblies has finally reached the low rate of 11%.

Independent female local politicians make up the largest portion with 1,453 or 36.9%. The JCP tops the ranking with 989 female local assembly members (25.2%) as a political party followed by Komei with 892 (22.6%), the Democratic 237 (6.0%), the Liberal Democratic 127 (3.2%) and the Social Democratic 51 (1.3%).

Regarding the summary of survey results, the Center said that since 1975 when it started to record the number of each political party’s female local assembly members, JCP members and independent members have represented 70% of local assemblywomen.

The JCP in its Program seeks to realize gender equality. It also considers that promotion of women’s participation in politics is an important task to strengthen Japan’s democracy. From this point of view, the JCP has taken a proactive stance in fielding female candidates in both national and local elections.