Japan Press Weekly

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2016 March 2 - 8 [POLITICS]

JCP in Miyagi will back DPJ candidate for Upper House election

The Japanese Communist Party and the Democratic Party of Japan in Miyagi Prefecture on March 2 signed an agreement on the election platform and decided to choose DPJ incumbent Sakurai Mitsuru as a joint candidate for the House of Councilors election scheduled for this summer.

JCP candidate Iwabuchi Ayako, who was to contest with Sakurai and other rivals in a single-seat election district in Miyagi, will seek to win an Upper House seat from the proportional representation block in the summer election.

Under the agreement, the two parties’ joint candidate will work to abolish the war legislation, correct economic inequalities, break Japan’s dependence on nuclear energy, reform the unfair tax system, oppose the construction of a new U.S. base in Okinawa, and bring down Prime Minister Abe Shinzo from power.

The signing ceremony took place in Sendai City on the same day and it was attended by JCP Prefectural Committee chair Nakajima Yasuhiro, DPJ prefectural federation chief Azumi Jun, as well as Sakurai and Iwabuchi.

At the ceremony, joint candidate Sakurai expressed his determination to work hard together with the general public to put a halt to the Abe government’s runaway policies. JCP Iwabuchi said that she is now standing at the starting line of a joint struggle between opposition parties and citizens in Miyagi to overthrow the Abe government and that she will do her utmost to win an election victory in the proportional representation block.

The JCP prefectural committee chair said that the two parties will discuss whether to work together to oppose the Abe government’s moves to obtain a Diet approval to the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact and to raise the consumption tax rate to 10%.