March 5, 2021

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on March 4 said, "Our party will proactively field women candidates with the goal of having half our candidates women in the upcoming general election."

Koike made this remark in an in-Diet rally to promote a "quota system" aiming at proportionality in the number of women and men representatives in the Diet. The executive officers in ruling and opposition parties also participated in this gathering.

Activist Akamatsu Ryoko pointed out that women’s participation in the field of politics in Japan ranks 144th out of 153 countries, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 of the World Economic Forum. She demanded that politicians work harder to achieve gender parity in politics by saying, "At any rate, there are few women in Japan's political arena. You should be more concerned about achieving gender equality in politics."

Koike said, "Equal participation of women and men in decision-making processes is the way a mature democracy should be," adding, "It is especially important to achieve gender parity in the Diet, the highest organ of state power."

Koike noted that the ongoing coronavirus crisis is highlighting gender inequality in Japan, and that many women lost their jobs and fell into poverty due to the pandemic. He referred to the fact that across-the-board coronavirus-related cash benefits of 100,000 yen were provided per capita with the head of household as the only recipient, not directly provided to each individual, which caused controversy. He said, "The prewar-like family system should be abolished."

Ruling party lawmakers showed a negative stance toward gender parity in the Diet. They said, "In the general election, we won't set a numerical target," and "Realistically, gender equality in politics is very difficult to achieve."

Past related article:
> Slow progress on women’s political empowerment widens Japan’s gender gap: Koike [December 18, 2019]