Latest Diet session receives 6.5 million more petition signatures than last session

The 154th ordinary Diet session, which ended on July 31, received about 57.72 million signatures for petitions, 6.5 million more than the last ordinary Diet session got.

Among all parties in the Diet, the Japanese Communist Party held first place for the number of the signatures it endorsed. About 32.84 million signatures or 56.9% of all signatures were endorsed by JCP members. The Democratic Party held second place by obtaining 14.78 million signatures (25.6%), followed by the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Democratic Party.

A petition opposing the adverse revision of the medical insurance system collected the largest number of signatures, 19.55 million. 34.4% of them or 6.72 million were brought to the Diet by the JCP.

17.85 million signatures, the second largest number, were for petitions demanding more funds for private schools or classrooms with less than 31 students. The JCP members presented 92.8 % of them (16.6 million).

3.48 million people signed for the petition against the wartime legislation, which made a great contribution towards preventing the bills from being enacted. 61.8% (2.15 million) were handled by the JCP.

In the Diet session, the opposition parties for the first time jointly ran a petition to call for legislation of urgent measures to deal with the BSE problem. By collecting 1.22 million signatures in a short time, the petition became a powerful force for enacting the bill. (end)