Japan Press Weekly

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2015 October 14 - 20 [POLITICS]

Opposition parties and civic groups exchange views on ways to repeal war legislation

Five opposition parties and six civic groups opposing the war legislation on October 16 held a meeting at the Diet building to discuss how to further develop public movements to repeal the legislation forcibly enacted last month.

The Japanese Communist, Democratic, Japan Innovation, Social Democratic, and People’s Life parties took part in the meeting. The participating civic groups included a united group of individuals and organizations opposing the war legislation, the Association of Scholars Opposed to the Security-related Laws, a youth group known as Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy-s (SEALDs), a mothers’ group against the war legislation, a group called Save Constitutional Democracy, and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

From the JCP, which is calling on other opposition parties and civic organizations to work together to establish a “national coalition government to revoke the war legislation”, Secretariat Head Yamashita Yoshiki and two JCP lawmakers attended the meeting.

The participants exchanged their views on how to raise public awareness and strengthen movements working on this issue and discussed how to foster cooperation among opposition parties in the House of Councilors election scheduled for next summer. They agreed to keep holding such meetings.

DPJ Secretary General Edano Yukio, who organized this meeting, said, “There are differences in opinions among political parties and civic groups gathered here, but we entirely agreed on the need to protect constitutionalism, democracy, and the rule of law.”

Expressing his support to Edano, JCP Yamashita said that in order to restore constitutionalism, the JCP proposal, the establishment of a “national coalition government to revoke the war legislation”, should be seriously considered.

Yamashita went on to say that the JCP proposal aims to boost public movements against the war legislation and the Abe government, establish a provisional coalition government through single-issue collaboration among political parties, civil groups, and individuals, and form electoral cooperation among opposition parties to achieve this. He added that the JCP will exert efforts to garner support for this proposal from as many people as possible.

A representative of the mothers’ group expressed high expectations for the JCP proposal to work together for a national coalition government. The scholars’ group called for a change in the government. SEALDs requested the opposition parties to unite against the war laws. The united civic group pointed to the need to help opposition parties to obtain a majority of the Diet seats.

Past related articles:
> JCP holds series of talks with opposition parties over a national coalition gov’t to repeal war legislation [September 26 & 29, 2015]
> Shii answers questions from the press regarding a national coalition gov’t [September 21, 2015]
> JCP proposes establishing a national coalition gov’t to repeal war legislation [September 20, 2015]