 All JCP candidates elected in Koganei, Tokyo In the Koganei City Assembly election on March 27, all four Japanese Communist Party candidates, who campaigned in opposition to wasteful use of taxpayers' money, were returned to their previously held seats. At issue in this election in the city with a population of 110,000 was the city government's wasteful use of 20 billion yen tax money to redevelop the area near the southern exit of Japan Railway Musashi-Koganei Station. The city assembly in its March session rejected the FY 2005 draft budget partly allotted for the redevelopment. Assembly chair Morito Yohko, JCP representative, voted against the draft when the count was tied at 11. Twelve years ago, Koganei's conservative government purchased land for 12 billion yen to construct a new city office. However, the government has paid a total of 5.3 billion yen for city office space in rent over the ten years. It has a plan to construct a new city office building. Thus the city is to spend a huge amount of money to build two office buildings. What is worse, the city sold the land it once bought at 12 billion yen to a semi-pubic corporation for only 4.3 billion yen. Yet, the 9.2 billion yen cost for the construction of the new office is estimated at only 3.8 billion yen by a third company. Also, the city government is asking citizens to pay an extra of 289 million yen in garbage collection fees. The JCP's strong campaign in opposition to these absurd policies attracted citizens' support. In this election, the Liberal Democratic, Komei, and Democratic parties secured their majority that supports the conservative mayor. (end) |