Japan Press Weekly

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2017 February 1 - 7 [JCP]

JCP Koike granted the highest rank of ‘3-star lawmaker’

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira, member of the House of Councilors, on February 1 received the highest rating of three stars for a Dietmember, also attaining first place among other top-rating parliamentarians in the popular vote.

The organization “Man’nen Yato”, headed by well-known political commentator Tahara Soichiro, is an NPO making policy proposals from the standpoint of “structural reform”. Founded in 2014, the NPO every year evaluates the activities of all lawmakers in the National Diet on a scale of one to three.

This year, it decided to grant a highest 3-star award to 16 out of the 727 legislators in the Diet, including JCP Koike and JCP member of the House of Representatives Takahashi Chizuko for their engaging in Diet activities which the NPO judged as remarkably high in quality.

Koike received the award three years in a row. As for Takahashi, it was the second year in a row that she has been granted the award.

The NPO on the same day also released its evaluation results on assembly activities of all 127 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly members and selected five JCP assemblypersons among the top ten legislators of 2016.

The NPO and its general members survey all Dietmembers’ activities in each session of the Diet in terms of how many times and how long they took the floor or questioned ministers or bureaucrats, how many bills they presented to the Diet, and how many written inquiries they submitted to ministries. The award has a special section rating the quality of Dietmembers’ discussions. Nominees for the special award are chosen by a popular vote of the NPO general members and a recommendation by the NPO board members and advisors.