Japan Press Weekly

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2014 September 24 - 30 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Shii at JCP lawmakers’ assembly calls for Diet action to counter Abe’s policies

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on September 29 at a JCP Dietmembers’ assembly called for Diet debates that will contribute greatly to public movements countering Prime Minister Abe’s policies harming the nation.

On this day, the 187th extraordinary session of the Diet was convened. This is the first Diet session since the Abe Cabinet in July went ahead with making a decision to enable Japan to exercise the collective self-defense right.

Chair Shii said that the extraordinary Diet session was called under a situation where Japan is reaching a critical juncture between peace and war in its post-war history, and expressed his determination to work together with the public to achieve the retraction of the Cabinet decision which could open the door to Japan’s exercise of armed force abroad.

Shii pointed out that PM Abe’s runaway policies, such as the Cabinet decision to create a war-fighting Japan, a plan to further increase the consumption tax to 10%, and forcible launch of the construction of a new U.S. base in Okinawa, are causing serious concerns among the general public and, consequently, getting the Abe administration into a tough corner.

Shii also said that the Liberal Democratic Party-style politics subservient to U.S. demands and defending extremely large corporations’ interests has reached an impasse.

The JCP chair stressed that in the Diet, the JCP is the only political party capable of responding to the public demand to put an end to the LDP-style politics and the Abe government’s anti-people policies.

He emphasized the need to strengthen single-issue joint struggles in various fields and develop them into a broad-based public movement to bring down the Abe government, and called on JCP lawmakers to conduct Diet debates to further that aim.

The 63-day extraordinary session of the Diet will close on November 30.