Japan Press Weekly

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2016 March 9 - 15 TOP3 [POLITICS]

PM Abe frantically trying to split opposition parties’ cooperation

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, also the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, on March 13 made a speech at the LDP’s annual congress held in Tokyo, expressing his outright hostility towards the growing cooperation among five opposition parties to work together to scrap the war legislation.

Referring to the Upper House election slated for this summer, PM Abe said, “It will become a showdown between the governing coalition of the LDP and the Komei Party and the opposition alliance of the Democratic and Japanese Communist parties. We must not lose to such irresponsible opposition forces which will do anything in order to win an election.”

Noting that the goal of the JCP is to dissolve the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and abrogate the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, the prime minister stressed, “If the DPJ-JCP coalition abolishes the national security legislation, it will badly damage the Japan-U.S. alliance.”

PM Abe’s remarks clearly show his intent to drive a stake into the opposition parties’ collaboration by launching intensive attacks against the JCP.

In the meantime, Abe did not comment on his aim to revise the pacifist Constitution.

The congress adopted a campaign policy which focuses on constitutional revision and which also states support for the promotion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade framework and of the restart of nuclear power reactors across the country.

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On the following day, JCP Secretariat Head Yamashita Yoshiki criticized PM Abe for seeing the Upper House election from a “provincial point of view”.

At a news conference in the Diet building, Yamashita noted that the coming election will actually be fought between the ruling LDP-Komei coalition and the broad alliance of the five opposition parties plus ordinary citizens and that this confrontational pattern is clearly emerging across the country. “The five opposition parties, each of which has its own political stance of course, are now cooperating to put an end to the Abe government’s runaway policies trampling on the Constitution. This is the greatest cause of concern for the general public,” he added.

Yamashita went on to stress, “We are determined to overthrow the Abe Cabinet by further strengthening the collaboration between citizens and the opposition forces. The JCP will work hard to get a good start to achieve that goal in the upcoming contest.”

Past related article:
> 3 opposition parties endorse JCP-DPJ joint candidate in Miyagi [March 5, 2016]