election

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

JCP gets 13 seats in Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election

In the July 3 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, 13 Japanese Communist Party candidates were elected, two fewer than the previous election.The voter turnout was 43.99 percent.

Two former JCP assembly members were returned in two-seat constituencies of Bunkyo Ward and Hino City. Kotake Hiroko's 19,000 votes was the largest in Bunkyo. Muramatsu Mieko won in a close race in Hino.

The Liberal Democratic Party won 48 seats, a loss of five from the previous election. The Komei Party won 23 (unchanged), the Democratic Party 35, an increase of 13, and the Tokyo Seikatsusha (living people) Network 3 (down three).

JCP's vote ratio

The JCP in this election received about 680,000 votes or 15.57 percent of the total, showing a recovery from the two recent national proportional representation constituency elections in Tokyo: 9.3 percent in 2003 (Lower House), and 9.4 percent in 2004 (Upper House). The JCP's vote ratio in the 2001 Tokyo Assembly election was 15.63 percent.

By contrast, the DPJ's voting strength has declined to 24.5 percent from the 39.9 percent and 38.9 percent it received in the two recent national elections.

The ruling LDP received 1.34 million votes or 30.7 percent, a 5 percent decrease from the previous 2001 election in which it got 1.72 million or 36 percent by fully taking advantage of a surprising boom for Koizumi Jun'ichiro.

The number of uncommitted voters stood at 22 percent among the July 3 voters. The Asahi Shimbun poll showed that 18 percent of undecided voters cast their votes for the JCP and 23 percent for the DPJ. Similar results appeared in reports by Tokyo Shimbun and NHK. -Akahata, July 4, 5, 2005