Japan Press Weekly

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2008 April 16 - 22 [ELECTION]

All JCP candidates returned in April 20 local elections

In the April 20 local assembly elections in 5 cities and one town, all 11 Japanese Communist Party candidates were elected.

In the by-election to fill one vacant seat at Misato Town in Saitama Prefecture near Tokyo, JCP candidate Tsunoda Asae (a former assembly member) was elected. With her victory over the three other candidates, the new two-member JCP assembly group can exercise the right to submit bills.

Tsunoda garnered seven times the number of votes that the JCP obtained in this town in the 2007 House of Councilors election.

The JCP also won the right to submit bills in Uotsu City in Toyama Prefecture and Mizuho City in Gifu Prefecture.

Compared to the previous elections in these local assemblies, the votes cast for the JCP increased from between 20 to 70 percent.

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In the Agano City (Niigata) mayoral election on April 20, Amano Ichiei, a former prefectural government official, was elected.

He ran in the election supported by the Association to Establish a New Agano City Administration, which includes the Japanese Communist Party.

Amano received 14,384 votes (or 57.33 percent), defeating a former vice mayor by a large margin.
- Akahata, April 22, 2008