Japan Press Weekly

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2016 July 13 - 19 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Opposition alliance totals 5 wins and 1 loss in farming prefectures

Candidates backed by the opposition alliance, including the Japanese Communist Party, in single-seat constituencies in the July 10 House of Councilors election achieved five victories and conceded one defeat in Japan’s northeastern agricultural prefectures.

The Liberal Democratic Party sent a number of party executives as well as Prime Minister Abe Shinzo himself to its election campaign in the Tohoku region. During the campaign, the LDP tightened its control over many different industries in the region by encouraging them to support the LDP candidates but ended up losing in the battle due to the rising strength of the pro-agriculture movement jointly supported by the opposition alliance.

The electoral districts where united opposition candidates won in the region are: Aomori, Yamagata, and the 2011 disaster-hit Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures. The only district the joint candidate lost in is Akita Prefecture.

More and more farmers and agriculture-related persons in this region have become dissatisfied with the “broad agreement” made over the TPP free-trade pact concluded in October last year by the Abe government. Discontent has also been growing with the declining price of rice and the Abe government’s high-handed policies such as its attempt to dismantle agricultural cooperatives under the name of “agricultural reform”.

Local agricultural cooperatives in the postwar period have been the LDP’s support base. However, agricultural cooperatives-related organizations in the five prefectures, with the exception of Fukushima, decided not to support the LDP in the latest election.

They instead put their support behind the joint struggle of the opposition parties and citizens working for better agricultural policy options. Without the emergence of this joint struggle, they could not have voted the LDP out of Tohoku.

However, soon after the election, the business circle submitted a request to Prime Minister Abe for approval of the TPP as early as in the autumn extraordinary Diet session. Abe positively responded to this request by stating, “Japan will take the leadership and heighten the momentum toward the early entry into force of the TPP.”

The outcome of five wins and one loss has the critical meaning. It is necessary to continue raising voices of protest against the Abe government which pays little attention to farmers and the election outcome favoring farming interests in the Tohoku region.

Past related article:
> Basic agreement on TPP separates farmers from LDP [June 18, 2016]
> Japan Agricultural Cooperatives: basic agreement on TPP is regrettable [October 7, 2015]