Japan's Smaller Parties Seek Toehold in Tokyo Assembly as Campaigning Kicks Off

The Yomiuri Shimbun
From left: Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the Democratic Party for the People; Mari Kushibuchi, co-leader of Reiwa Shinsengumi; Shinji Ishimaru, head of the Path to Rebirth
With campaigning having started for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, some parties with no seats in the assembly took to aggressively fielding their candidates. They aim to win their first seats and build momentum for the House of Councillors election that will soon follow.
One such party is the Democratic Party for the People, which had a breakthrough in last year's House of Representatives election, where it quadrupled its number of seats. The party has put up 18 candidates for the Tokyo election, hoping to make up for the last race in 2021, when all four of its candidates lost. In some cases, it has coordinated on which districts to run its candidates with the Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites first group), a regional party for which Gov. Yuriko Koike serves as a special advisor. Calling for 'increased take-home pay of the people of Tokyo,' the party will focus on such policies as supporting households raising children.
'This is a fight to win our first seat in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly. I want to come at this as a challenger,' said party leader Yuichiro Tamaki in his first speech for the campaign. 'We will make sure that what we have worked so hard to earn will, as much as possible, stay in our pockets.'
Meanwhile, Reiwa Shinsengumi put up a total of three candidates in Setagaya, Nerima and Suginami wards, each of which has six to eight seats, as the party looks to ensure that the candidates it does run make it into the assembly.
In its campaign pledges, Reiwa stresses the need for an 'aggressive fiscal policy' in Tokyo, as it does for national politics. The party aims to improve the lives of Tokyo residents by expanding rent subsidies and reviewing large-scale redevelopment projects.
'We'll strive to repair and improve infrastructure such as for the water supply, so that we may build a foundation for Tokyo residents to live with peace of mind,' said Mari Kushibuchi, the party's co-leader.
'We must make metropolitan politics more transparent,' she added, referring to how Liberal Democratic Party members in the assembly failed to report income from political fundraising parties. 'Let's show how intelligent voters are, and kick out the scandal-plagued assembly members in this Tokyo assembly election.'
Another political party, the Path to Rebirth, which was set up in January by Shinji Ishimaru, a former mayor of Akitakata, Hiroshima Prefecture, aims to 'clean out the career politicians.' The regional party is fielding 42 candidates.
In Tokyo's gubernatorial election last summer, Ishimaru was not backed by any political party, but he used social media to gain support from independents and finished in second place. He remains popular, with his party's call for candidates for the Tokyo assembly election drawing 1,128 applicants. He also drew attention when he broadcast the selection process for candidates live on YouTube.
The party is taking an unusual approach to this election. Its platform simply states that elected members will serve only two terms, or eight years in total. There are no party policies.
'Our party is neither a ruling nor an opposition party. Neither right nor left. Let us each take the right path. That's our concept,' Ishimaru said in his first speech for the campaign.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Yomiuri Shimbun

9 hours ago

• Yomiuri Shimbun

Tokyo Assembly Election Candidates Make Last Appeals to Voters on Final Campaign Day in Sweltering Heat

Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election candidates made their final appeals to voters on Saturday, the last day of campaigning for the election on Sunday, while taking precaution against the heat as temperatures rose above 30 C across the capital. A male candidate standing on a sidewalk in Shinjuku Ward wore a white, wide-brimmed hat and vest fitted with cooling fans. He urged the crowd to drink water to stave off heatstroke and vowed in a hoarse voice to 'fight to the very end.' Each party has framed the Tokyo assembly race as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming House of Councillors election, fielding campaign operations as robust as those seen in national elections. Observers are also watching to see whether chronically low voter turnout will improve. Turnout in Tokyo assembly elections has trended downward since peaking at 70.13% in 1959, hovering from 40% to less than 60% since the 2000s. The record low turnout — 40.8% — was logged in the 1997 race. The previous election in 2021 saw the second-lowest voter turnout at 42.39%, a decline attributed in part to voters staying home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Mainichi

4 days ago

• The Mainichi

Japan opposition critical after no deal at Ishiba-Trump tariff talks

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's opposition camp was critical Tuesday of Japan-U.S. tariff negotiations after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and President Donald Trump failed to reach a deal at their summit in Canada, while ruling party members struck a more positive note. A senior member of the largest opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan said the meeting on Monday had been "terrible," while Yuichiro Tamaki, head of the small opposition Democratic Party for the People, said he felt it "showed almost no progress and no substantive content." Ishiba had said his talks with Trump on the sidelines of the Group of Seven leaders' summit in Kananaskis would be a "milestone" in efforts to get the United States to rethink its tariff policy. But they concluded with him saying that bilateral ministerial negotiations would continue in pursuit of a mutually beneficial agreement. As the meeting came before the U.S. president left the G7 summit a day early amid the unfolding Israel-Iran conflict, the CDPJ official added that "for Mr. Trump, it might not have been the right time for tariff negotiations." The Trump administration has slapped on longtime U.S. ally Japan what it calls "reciprocal" tariffs, as well as additional levies on the auto sector and steel and aluminum, raising concerns for Japan's export-driven economy. The tone was more positive in the ruling camp, with Hiroshi Moriyama, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, saying he intends to "continue to offer support and watch developments in the Japan-U.S. tariff talks," and that the leaders had "a candid exchange of views." Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, the government's top spokesperson, said the two sides were "deepening their mutual understanding." He added that intensive coordination toward a mutually beneficial agreement will continue "while firmly protecting our national interests."

Japan Times

4 days ago

• Japan Times

Japan's opposition DPP pledges lower taxes and higher take-home pay

The opposition Democratic Party for the People on Tuesday announced its campaign promises for this summer's election of the House of Councilors, the upper chamber of Japan's parliament, with the focus primarily on boosting people's take-home pay through tax cuts. The party promised a temporary reduction in the consumption tax rate to 5% from the current 10%, the abolition of the provisional gasoline tax surcharge and an increase in the minimum annual taxable income level to ¥1.78 million. "Through wage hikes and the return to the people of national tax revenues that increased due to the yen's weakening, we'll aim to realize 'a summer of increased take-home pay,'" the party said. The DPP emphasized support for young people and the working generation, proposing to double the budget for child-rearing and education by issuing what the party calls "education government bonds" worth ¥5 trillion annually. It also pledged to reduce income tax for people up to the age of 30 who started working after finishing junior high or high school. The party aims to achieve nominal gross domestic product of ¥1,000 trillion in 2035 through investment tax cuts in growth sectors such as semiconductors and storage batteries, along with measures to stimulate consumption. If successful, tax revenues would rise to ¥120 trillion, significantly improving the government's finances, it explained. Regarding agriculture, the party said it would introduce a direct payment system for farmers in order to increase the production of staple rice. On security policy, it promised to enact a law to prevent espionage and a law to regulate land acquisition by foreign nationals. The party also called for rebuilding or newly building nuclear power plants and promoting the research and development of nuclear fusion technology, saying that the country should aim to achieve an energy self-sufficiency rate of 50%. Elsewhere in its campaign pledges, the DPP reiterated its support for a selective dual surname system for married couples. On imperial succession, the party called for continued discussions on the idea of allowing female members to retain their imperial family status even after marrying commoners and on the proposal of adopting as children male members in the paternal line of former imperial family branches to give them imperial family status. It also sought to consider a plan to allow male members in the paternal line of former imperial family branches to directly become imperial family members by law, without going through the process of adoption. DPP leader Yuichiro Tamaki told a news conference that the party had also called for boosting people's take-home pay in last year's election for the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, but has not been able to fulfill the promise due to a lack of strength on its part. He added, "We would like to increase the number of our seats in the Upper House through the coming election and improve our ability to realize our policies."