JCP will give full play to its new Program in parliamentary struggle: JCP chair

Hours before the opening of the 159th ordinary session of the Diet on January 19, Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee Chair Shii Kazuo spoke at the JCP Dietmembers Group's general meeting and called on JCP representatives to incorporate the results of the recent JCP 23rd Congress in their activities.

Shii said, "This Diet session is crucial in that the results of the JCP Congress will be tested and that it is taking place at a time when political parties are gearing up for a heated battle in the House of Councilors election in July."

Shii said that JCP representatives in the Diet should make use of the new JCP Program. He said, "Every burning issue, ranging from the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq and calls for an adverse revision to the Constitution to the adverse revision of the pension system and the plan to increase the consumption tax rate, is linked to what the new JCP Program explicates as the characteristics of present Japanese society."

"The new JCP Program most profoundly exposes the social distortions and provides guidelines for a breakthrough," Shii said.

He called on JCP Dietmembers to carry out deliberations by applying this political and theoretical guide to immediate issues so that people will come to know that the JCP is the party of real reforms.

Shii also stressed that JCP parliamentary discussions need to cooperate with people's struggles and encourage them.

He reported that anti-SDF dispatch rallies and demonstrations were held in 203 locations in all of the 47 prefectures including Tokyo since last December and that 443 local assemblies adopted resolutions expressing opposition to the SDF dispatch to Iraq or calling for the dispatch plan to be suspended. He said, "Let us discuss this issue in the Diet as a vital issue that affects the lives of both the peoples of Iraq and Japan."

Referring to the JCP Congress decision to increase the Akahata readership by 30 percent from the readership at the time of the House of Representatives general election in November 2003, Shii said that JCP Dietmembers are being asked to take an active part in the effort to achieve a steady JCP advance in the House of Councilors election. (end)