Japan Press Weekly

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2011 March 2 - 8 [POLITICS]

What are local parties aiming at?

The media has been touting an “existing parties versus local parties” format as if preparing for a showdown battle. Many voters who chose the DPJ to remove the LDP from power have been greatly disappointed. Meanwhile, local parties are creating their own self-images in an attempt to attract these voters. Let’s take a close look at what these local parties are aiming at.

Osaka Ishin-no Kai

The Osaka Ishin-no Kai (Osaka Restoration Group) headed by Osaka Prefectural Governor Hashimoto Toru held a town meeting late last month. The person chosen to boost morale at the meeting’s end was surprisingly a local LDP secretary general. The Osaka Ishin-no Kai is the largest faction in the Osaka Prefectural Assembly. However, nearly 90% of its members are former LDP assemblymen. This political body is seeking to achieve a majority in the prefectural assembly and the Osaka City assembly in the April local elections.

Calling for a metropolitan Osaka government, the Osaka Ishin-no Kai is proposing that the prefectural government invest intensively in airport, harbor, expressway, and railroad infrastructure improvements in order to stimulate corporate participation. It is promoting cuts in corporate taxes and the creation of special deregulation zones in favor of large corporations. Led by Governor Hashimoto, the Osaka Ishin-no Kai is planning to implement a fiscal structural reform that will radically roll back Osaka’s social welfare services and a new zoning plan that will increase national health insurance premiums.

Genzei Nippon

In Nagoya City (Aichi Pref.), Mayor Kawamura Takashi launched his own local party, the Genzei Nippon (Tax Cuts Japan). It is aiming to form a majority in the Nagoya City Assembly in the March 13 local election. The Genzei Nippon is putting up 40 candidates, including business leaders and self-employed individuals.

Mayor Kawamura in his midterm strategy is stressing the need to enhance the city function as an international business hub and push for large-scale development projects such as improving a container terminal in the Nagoya Port, constructing another runway at the Chubu International Airport, and increasing funding for the maintenance of expressways and the construction of beltways. All these are the demands being made by the local business circles.

This local party is featuring across-the-board tax cuts. It has already given some large corporations more than 200 million yen each in tax cuts and more than 10 million yen each to some high-income earners. It is, however, trying to abandon the city’s social welfare services to make up for losses in tax revenues in return for the tax cuts. In fact, national health insurance holders now pay an extra 30,000-70,000 yen in premiums a year. Twenty daycare centers for children are about to be closed down and the plan to downsize and privatize city-owned hospitals is also underway.

DPJ explores closer ties with local political parties in local elections

Facing severe criticism from the public, in the run-up to the upcoming nationwide local assembly elections, DPJ local assembly members are seeking to establish close partnerships with local political parties.

Former Internal Affairs Minister Haraguchi Kazuhiro on February 23 announced that he will form a nationwide political group called the “Nihon Ishin-no Kai (Japan Restoration Group)” which will be composed of local DPJ assembly members.

On top of this, on February 24, 10 DPJ parliamentarians elected from constituencies in Tokyo and 41 DPJ candidates for Tokyo’s local assembly elections inaugurated another political group, “Tokyo Ishin-no Kai (Tokyo Restoration Group)”.

Both political groups call for the reform of local autonomy in the name of strengthening “regional sovereignty.” However, if such a reform policy is carried out, people’s livelihoods, social welfare programs, local economies, and local self-government will be greatly damaged.

In order to win in the upcoming elections, these DPJ local assembly members intend to stage an election campaign under the name of “Ishin-no Kai” instead of the party’s name.

On February 8, former DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro and popular Nagoya City Mayor Kawamura Takashi, who also heads his local political party “Genzei Nippon (Tax Cuts Japan)”, agreed to work together as much as possible.

After this event, Kawamura on February 27 at a news conference announced that in the upcoming Tokyo ward assembly elections, his party will put up three candidates who are former DPJ members and will give endorsement to seven DPJ assemblymen.

Confrontation between JCP and ‘all-are-ruling-parties’ setup is key to local elections

In the upcoming simultaneous local elections, voters will be given two basic choices, the Japanese Communist Party which plays the leading role in local governments working to realize residents’ demands or the “all-are-ruling-parties” camp, including the newly established local political parties representing moneyed interests.

In most local assemblies, the Liberal Democratic, Democratic, and Komei parties form the “all-are-ruling-parties” structure. Although the newborn local political parties criticize this structure, their members are those who moved from the existing parties or those who want to maintain pro-governor local assemblies. These political parties intend to work for major reform policies that will cause damage to local self-government and local economies.

The JCP in every local assembly works hard to change policies to highly prioritizing people’s livelihoods. The JCP also argues that the use of residents’ tax money be changed from inviting in large corporations to developing local industries. Opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade pact and increasing efforts to revitalize the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries industries, the JCP seeks to establish local assemblies that reflect residents’ interests.