Japan Press Weekly

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2012 September 12 - 18 [POLITICS]

JCP needs to expose true nature of ‘Ishin-no-Kai’ and talk to voters

Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Toru on September 12 declared at a fundraising party in an Osaka hotel that he has set up a political party, “Nippon Ishin-no-Kai”, with seven lawmakers who belonged to the LDP, DPJ, and People’s New Party, just a rehash of old-style politics.

Thanks to the media hype, many voters are placing expectations on his new party. They and the Japanese Communist Party share the same demand for political change. It will be increasingly important for the JCP to present the true picture of the “Ishin-no-Kai” and inform the general public.

‘Ishin Hassaku’

Hashimoto has placed the already-released “Ishin Hassaku” as the party’s program with its policies favoring Japanese business circles and the United States unchanged.

Economic policy in the “Ishin Hassaku” adopts neo-liberalism, which is even more extreme than ex-PM Koizumi’s “structural reform” line, and calls for easing regulations on the use of contingent workers and giving corporations a free hand to lay off employees.

Regarding foreign policy, the “Ishin Hassaku” looks to remove or radically revise war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, and proposes that Japan strengthen its military capability and take part in multinational free trade centering on the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

Democracy denied

Hashimoto seeks to conduct politics with an iron fist as he asserted, “Japan now needs a dictator,” in June last year.

He describes public teachers and other public workers as vested interests, and presents himself as a hero who fights against them. He has already enacted ordinances in order to allow political intervention in public education and to crack down on outspoken city workers.

He has no hesitation in doing what he wants by stating, “I was chosen to do so by election.” As a result of such a distortion of democracy, he reduced nearly 40 billion yen in the city budget related to the people’s everyday lives.