Japan Press Weekly

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2019 January 30 - February 5 [JCP]

JCP has the most female local assemblymembers among political parties

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo claims that he is committed to women's empowerment, but his Liberal Democratic Party is largely male-dominated, as shown in the fact that the party has several times less female members in local assemblies than the Japanese Communist Party.

Among 2,763 JCP members in prefectural and municipal assemblies across Japan, 1,000 or 36.2% were women (as of the end of 2018). No other political party has such a large number of female representatives. In prefectural assemblies alone, women made up of 80 or 54.1% of 148 JCP local lawmakers. In particular, 13 of 18 JCP Tokyo Metropolitan assembly members were women.

In contrast, the LDP has only 178 female members in all local assemblies in Japan, which is 5.4% of 3,275 LDP assemblymembers (as of the end of 2017).

In April, regular assembly elections will take place in many prefectures and municipalities. The upcoming elections will be the first nationwide simultaneous local elections after a law for gender equality in politics took effect, which requires political parties to make efforts to balance the number of female and male candidates running in elections. It is important for political parties to even work harder to increase women's presence in politics.

The JCP has long tackled the issue of the underrepresentation of women in politics based on the constitutional principle of gender equality and the goal of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The JCP in its recently-published platform for the April local elections expressed its determination to increase the number of JCP female members in local assemblies. Citing the small percentage of women among LDP local legislators, the JCP pointed out that it is highly inappropriate and deceptive for the LDP to present itself as an advocate of women's empowerment.

Past related articles:
> Law for gender equality in politics enacted [May 30, 2018]
> Japan lags behind international community in gender equality [March 6, 2018]