Japan Press Weekly

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2017 September 20 - 26 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Tokyo Governor’s new party is rightwing constitutional revisionist

Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko on September 25 newly launched the Hope Party (Kibo no To) and emphasized that her new political party is “free of political shackles”. However, her party’s member lineup features those with questionable fetters.

Nakayama Kyoko, the head of “The Party for Japanese Kokoro”, intends to merge her party with the governor’s new party. Nakayama and her husband Nariaki, former Minister of Education, are both former Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers and core members of the parliamentary league of the Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi), Japan’s largest ultra-rightist organization. Nariaki, when serving as Construction and Transport Minister under the Aso Cabinet, was forced to resign due to a string of gaffes regarding the Japan Teachers’ Union. After he left the LDP, he joined minor parties such as the Sunrise Party of Japan (Tachiagare Nippon) and then changed to the Japan Restoration Party (predecessor of the current “Ishin no Kai”), unalterably as an LDP supplement.

Watanabe Yoshimi, yet another former LDP Dietmember, also belongs to the Nippon Kaigi legislators’ group. He once worked as State Minister for Regulatory Reform under the first Abe Cabinet. In 2009, he inaugurated the Your Party (Minna no To) that advocated extreme neoliberal policies as well as constitutional revision.

Nagashima Akihisa, Matsuno Jin, and Ryu Hirofumi, all Democratic Party members of the House of Representatives, are also on the Diet membership roster of the Nippon Kaigi. They declared that they will leave the DP and join the Hope Party. Hosono Goshi, former acting leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (current: DP), calls for the strengthening of the Japan-U.S. military alliance. He made a turnabout to accept the national security legislation (war laws) after he quit the party.

Lower House lawmaker Wakasa Masaru, who was supposed to assume the position as the Hope Party head, together with Koike Yuriko has consistently supported the war laws, the state secrets protection law, and the anti-conspiracy law.

Thus, Governor Koike’s new party consists of right-leaning politicians who were either in the LDP, the DP, or the “third-pole” political force.