Japan Press Weekly

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2007 February 7 - 13 [JCP]

JCP making advances in local elections

The Japanese Communist Party has been making advances in the local elections that have taken place across the country since the beginning of this year.

Despite large-scale reductions in the number of seats in many municipal assemblies, 55 JCP candidates stood in 29 constituencies, and 51 of them won while the Liberal Democratic Party secured 14 seats, Komei Party 34, Democratic Party 3, and Social Democratic Party 5. As a result, the percentage of JCP members in local assemblies rose to 8.63 percent from 6.74 percent.

In total, the JCP received 122.7 percent of the votes it received in the 2005 House of Representatives proportional representation election while the LDP received 49 percent, Komei Party 70, DPJ 17, and SDP 47.

The JCP has drawn local residents’ support for its vital role as their “lifeline” because of the JCP assembly members’ consistent efforts to respond to residents’ various demands.

In Aso City in Kumamoto Prefecture, a JCP candidate won a seat in the city assembly, where it had no seat in the previous term, with more than triple the number of votes he had received in the previous election.

Based on the findings of JCP surveys, he promised voters that he will work for meeting residents’ demands, including cuts in national health insurance and nursing-care insurance premiums as well as providing free medical care for children under 12 years old. The voters supported his concrete policies that are financially feasible if the wasteful use of tax money is ended.

In Gobo City in Wakayama Prefecture, all three JCP candidates won, increasing party representation by one seat, with a 66.2 percent increase in votes the JCP received in the previous election.

With approximately 20,000 eligible voters, 7,000 signatures have been collected in opposition to the privatization of school lunch program, 14,000 signatures calling for the cancellation of the plan to close down a municipal day care center, and 10,000 signatures against a plan to attract a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. The JCP has taken a lead in these struggles and fostered solidarity with the residents.

In Shimonoseki City in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which is the stronghold of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s constituency, a total of 59 candidates fiercely contested for 38 seats, and all five JCP candidates won. Influential people in a former town that had been annexed to the city, including a former assembly chair (LDP), assembly members, and a shrine priest, expressed their support for JCP candidates.