Japan Press Weekly

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2013 March 27 - April 2 TOP3 [ELECTION]

JCP gets 1st assembly seat in conservative town of Yamagata

The Japanese Communist Party has successfully sent its first ever representative to the local assembly of a conservative town in Yamagata Prefecture, known as the hometown of two former Lower House members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

In the assembly election of Mamurogawa Town on March 24, JCP candidate Hirano Masazumi received the second largest number of votes among 13 candidates running for 11 seats. A local paper had predicted that he would be ranked the 12th and lose the election.

The JCP has had local branches but never put up a candidate for assembly elections in Mamurogawa Town. Hirano, who worked for a labor union in Yamagata City, moved to the town 21 months ago in order to run for the election.

How did the newcomer successfully receive such strong support in a town where he had no local connections?

As soon as he moved to the town, Hirano started visiting each household to ask them to read newsletters he publishes for JCP supporters. The number of households who became subscribers of the newsletters rapidly increased from 70 last year to 660, amounting to one-fourth of all households in the town. Most of them had never voted for the JCP in elections.

Handing out the newsletters directly to residents, he listened to their concerns and urgent demands.

One morning, Hirano met a woman on the street who consulted him about her living condition taking care of her disabled family member. He made a detailed note of her story and called the town office to ask if a public assistance could be made available to her.

Yamagata has a bitter cold winter. In February, Hirano made representation to the town office to convey residents’ demand for financial support for purchasing heating oil. Two weeks later, the local government decided to provide 5,000 yen each to 388 households with low incomes.

Hirano’s effort to listen to residents’ concerns and convey them to the local administration in order to solve issues they are facing became a popular topic of conversation among residents.

One of the tasks Hirano is engaged in is to launch a public support program to an area where residents have to clear away heavy snow by themselves.

Trying to remove a four meter-high wall of snow, a 77-year-old man desperately told Hirano that his hands are practically paralyzed since he suffered from a cerebral infarction. He went on to say that it is hard to deal with the snow because the number of houses has diminished by half in the area.

Amid the aging population and the loss of local industries in the town, JCP branches are making efforts to strengthen their ties with residents with the House of Councilors election scheduled for July in mind. “In order to realize residents’ demands, we’d like to keep working to build a bigger party presence here,” said Hirano.