Japan Press Weekly

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2013 April 10 - 16 [ELECTION]

JCP-backed mayor reelected in Takarazuka City

In the April 14 mayoral election in Takarazuka City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japanese Communist Party-backed incumbent Nakagawa Tomoko secured her second term in office.

She received 43,347 votes or 51.75% of all votes cast, defeating her rivals, including a Japan Restoration Party candidate, by a large margin.

Nakagawa, a former Social Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives, first won the mayoral election four years ago which was held due to the arrest of the former mayor on charges of corruption. In both election campaigns, she was backed by an association seeking a bright and democratic Takarazuka city administration composed of the JCP and civil groups.

Since Nakagawa started her first four-year term of office, the JCP as a ruling party has helped her promote people-oriented policies such as increasing the number of doctors at city-run hospitals.

During the reelection campaign, Nakagawa called on voters to support her, saying, “The local government has a role to work in the interests of its citizens, protect their lives, and support people having difficulties by providing appropriate assistance.”

The JRP for the first time put up its own candidate in the mayoral race in a prefecture outside of Osaka. JRP co-leader and Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru visited the city twice during the election campaign to support the party’s candidate.

The JRP candidate in his campaign repeatedly attacked public workers, saying, “I’ll kick out public workers engaging in unskilled jobs like janitorial jobs from the city office at any cost.”

A JRP executive official also said during the election campaign that the party plans to put Hyogo municipalities adjacent to Osaka under Hashimoto’s “Osaka metropolitan system” as Osaka’s special wards. This provoked severe criticism from Takarazuka citizens.