Japan Press Weekly

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2015 December 16 - 22 [POLITICS]

Opposition parties in Kumamoto agree to field joint candidate in Upper House election

Akahata Sunday edition

The Japanese Communist Party and four other opposition parties in Kumamoto Prefecture confirmed on December 15 that they will field a joint candidate in next summer’s Upper House election with the aim of repealing the unconstitutional national security legislation. This is the first time that opposition forces reached such an agreement at the prefectural level.

This move is in response to the request of civic groups opposing the war legislation. The “Kumamoto Net”, a local network consisting of 50 civil organizations opposing the legislation, held a news conference on December 5 and published a statement calling for opposition parties to collaborate in the coming national election in order to abolish the war laws.

On December 15, the five opposition parties - the JCP, the Democratic, Japan Innovation, Social Democratic, and New Socialist parties - held a meeting in Kumamoto City and agreed to jointly support an independent candidate in the election. After the meeting, JCP Kumamoto Prefectural Committee Chair Hidaka Shinya told reporters that the JCP will make utmost efforts so that a joint candidate will win.

Regarding the latest agreement, a 40-year-old man raising three children, who is a member of a parents’ group objecting to the security legislation, said, “When the ruling coalition railroaded the war bills through the Diet, I felt as if Japan had turned into ‘a lawless country’. If we leave such unconstitutional legislation untouched, we can’t come up with any excuse to offer our children. If we act now, there’s still time.”

A pacifist group member, Murata Asuka, said, “I’m really glad that the five opposition parties responded to our request. Kumamoto Prefecture has been called ‘a kingdom of conservatives’, so the governing Liberal Democratic Party is extremely influential. In order to defeat the LDP in Kumamoto, it is essential for opposition forces to join hands to defeat them. I’ll work hard to back a joint candidate in the campaign.”

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Representatives of the civic network and the five opposition parties held a press conference on December 23 and announced that they will support lawyer Abe Hiromi as their joint candidate in the single-member constituency in Kumamoto in the Upper House election.

Past related article:
> 50 civic groups in Kumamoto call for opposition parties’ cooperation in Upper House election [December 13, 2015]