Japan Press Weekly

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2016 June 15 - 21 [POLITICS]

Opposition alliance demands debates among party leaders during election campaign

The Japanese Communist Party and three other opposition parties on June 16 challenged the Liberal Democratic Party to debates on TV and other media during the Upper House election campaign to emphasize political differences so that voters can decide on who and which party they will vote for. The LDP, however, refused this challenge to engage in debates.

As far as it goes, only one televised debate among party leaders will take place after the official kickoff announcement of the House of Councilors election campaign. After that until the July 10 election, voters will have no opportunity to listen to party heads in policy debates. Furthermore, the LDP has notified each TV station that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo will make an appearance on TV only once sometime between June 19 and June 25.

JCP Secretariat Head Koike Akira together with secretaries-general Edano Yukio of the Democratic Party, Mataichi Seiji of the Social Democratic Party, and Tamaki Denny of the People’s Life Party handed a written demand addressed to LDP Secretary General Tanigaki Sadakazu, seeking to urge LDP President Abe to willingly show up for face-to-face debates not only on TV but other media as well during the lead-up to the elections.

The four secretaries-general demanded that all political party leaders, before the public, debate issues and details of each party’s individual policies/election platform in order for voters to have a sound basis for choosing a political party. They stated that this has to be the basis of democracy. They also stated that a lack of opportunities to broadcast political debates to the general public is extremely problematic.