Japan Press Weekly

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2016 September 21 - 27 [POLITICS]

Toyama City Assembly to hold by-election over money scandals

A by-election to fill vacancies of the Toyama City Assembly (Toyama Pref.) will be held in early November after nine of its members resigned due to involvement in political fund scandals. The Japanese Communist Party plans to field two candidates in a bid to double their strength in the assembly.

In early September, a Liberal Democratic Party member of the city assembly announced his resignation following the revelation that he had illegally obtained city funds for political activities. Within the next three weeks, a total of eight LDP and Democratic Party assemblymembers stepped down due to similar allegations. The by-election will take place on November 6 with the election campaign scheduled to start on October 30.

The JCP plans to run two candidates in the by-election in order to fulfil citizens’ demand for a full accounting of the money scandals. One of the two candidates was announced on September 21. If its two candidates win in the by-election, the JCP will have a total of four seats in the assembly and thus obtain the right to introduce bills.

The JCP members of the city assembly have worked hard to expose the whole picture of the money scandals by using the information disclosure system to obtain account books on political activity allowances and related payment slips of all city assemblymembers. The JCP efforts successfully forced the city assembly to set up a task force to investigate the political activity allowance system.


Past related article:
> Toyama citizens protest against city asssemblypersons’ money scandals [September 14-16, 2016]