Japan Press Weekly

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2014 February 12 - 18 [JCP]

JCP Osaka seeks to build civil cooperation to break through Hashimoto’s policies

Japanese Communist Party Osaka Prefectural Committee Chair Yamaguchi Katsutoshi on February 14 announced the party’s opposition to the holding of an Osaka mayoral election with the resignation of Mayor Hashimoto Toru.

At a press conference held in the city office building, Yamaguchi also pledged that the JCP will seek to field a candidate together with a wide range of forces in order to break away from the policies promoted by Hashimoto and his Japan Restoration Party.

Even if such a joint election campaign is not be realized, the JCP will not put up its own candidate and do its utmost to give the JRP a crushing blow jointly with a wide range of Osaka citizens, said Yamaguchi.

The mayoral election campaign will officially start on March 9, and the voting day will be on March 23.

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Hashimoto is pushing a scheme to abolish the administrations of Osaka and Sakai cities and give their finance and authorities to a new administrative unit he calls “metropolitan Osaka”. He calls for the election to be held in order to move ahead with this scheme.

In September, a JRP candidate who pledged to promote the “metropolitan Osaka” scheme lost the mayoral election in Sakai City. In November, the JRP also lost the mayoral election in Osaka’s Kishiwada City. Last month, Hashimoto’s “metropolitan Osaka” scheme was rejected in the Osaka City Assembly with all parties except the JRP in opposition.

Failing to achieve the assembly’s support, Hashimoto announced his resignation and the holding of the mayoral election which will take away 600 million yen of tax money. Meanwhile, February and March are an important time of the year for the assembly to discuss the new fiscal year’s budget which will have an influence on the living conditions of 2.6 million residents.

Hashimoto says that if he wins the upcoming election and again fails to receive approval for his “metropolitan Osaka” scheme in the post-election assembly, he will again resign and hold another mayoral election.

This indicates that he has no intent to defend citizens’ livelihoods but only wants to use election as a tool to promote his style of dictatorship.

Past related articles:
> Civic power rebuffs anti-people candidate in Kishiwada
(November 26, 2013)
> Japan Restoration Party candidate defeated in Sakai mayoral election (September 30 & October 1, 2013)