Japan Press Weekly

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2012 October 17 - 23 [POLITICS]

7 opposition parties call for Diet debate and a snap election

Secretaries-general of seven opposition parties, including the Japanese Communist Party, on October 18 issued a joint appeal demanding the immediate opening of the Diet to discuss a number of pressing issues first and then to call a snap election.

They met together in the Diet building and agreed on the appeal to demand that the government soon hold the extraordinary session of the Diet to discuss what to do with such issues as the consumption tax increase, post-disaster recovery budgets, nuclear power plants, the territorial disputes, and vote-value disparity, and then seek voters’ response through a general election. The appeal was given to the Democratic Party of Japan soon after the 7-party meeting.

Criticizing the DPJ, Liberal Democratic, and Komei parties for having colluded to steamroller through the tax hike bill in the last Diet session, the appeal considers the Noda Cabinet continuing to break its own word as “deserving non-confidence”.

JCP Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at a joint press conference said, “The DPJ, the LDP, and Komei are consulting only among themselves in regard to the extraordinary Diet and dissolution of the Lower House, but the seven parties are determined to push the House to be dissolved by means of Diet deliberations.”

The seven opposition parties are the JCP, the People’s Life First, the Your Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Kizuna Party, the New Renaissance Party, and the New Party Nippon.