Campaigning starts for Japan Upper House poll

July 4, 2019

Tokyo--The 17-day official campaign period started on Thursday for the July 21 election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of Japan's parliament.

Voters will give their verdict on six-and-a-half years of rule by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the poll, with campaign debate likely to center on the planned consumption tax hike, the pension system and proposed constitutional revisions.

As of 3:40 p.m. Thursday (6:40 a.m. GMT), 370 people--215 for prefectural constituencies and 155 for proportional representation only--had filed their candidacies for the Upper House election. The total compares with 389 people who filed their candidacies in the previous poll for the chamber in 2016.

The ruling bloc of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito, aims to secure a majority of contested seats in the Upper House, by stressing to voters the need for a stable government.

Half of all Upper House seats are contested in every triennial election for the chamber.

With the number of seats on the chamber having been boosted by six through a revision to the public offices election law, a total of 124 seats will be up for grabs in the upcoming poll and the Upper House will have 245 seats after the election.

The majority of the contested seats, aimed for by the ruling bloc, are 63 seats or more.

Meanwhile, the prime minister has set the win-or-lose bar for the ruling coalition at a majority of the total 245 seats in the post-election Upper House. This target can be achieved if the ruling parties win 53 seats in the election.

Abe has reiterated his wish to ask the people, through the Upper House poll, whether the government should move forward with discussions on the proposed constitutional revisions.

To maintain a two-thirds majority, the minimum required to propose a constitutional revision, the ruling bloc and other parties supporting the revisions, including Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), will need to secure a combined 86 seats.

The key to the election will be constituencies where one seat each will be contested. Major opposition parties will field unified candidates in all 32 such single-seat constituencies to take on ruling camp candidates one on one.

On Thursday, party leaders visited various parts of the country to deliver their first speeches in the official campaign period.

Speaking to voters at a fruit farm in the northeastern city of Fukushima, Abe, president of the LDP, underscored his stance of giving top priority to the reconstruction of areas affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s <9501> Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

Also touching on the efforts to amend the constitution, his long-cherished political aim, Abe said, "This is the election to decide whether to choose a party that will discuss (constitutional revisions) or not."

The LDP's campaign pledge package shows four revision items for the top law, including clarifying the existence of the Self-Defense Forces in its pacifist Article 9.

Delivering a speech in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi said, "For ensuring political stability in Japan, Komeito must be in the coalition government."

Yukio Edano, head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, spoke before voters in Tokyo.

"Let's make this election a fight to protect our lives," Edano said. "If politics change, we can live better lives."

Democratic Party for the People head Yuichiro Tamaki, speaking to voters in Kakegawa, Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, said, "Let's return to politics that will protect people's lives."

Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii criticized the consumption tax hike, from 8 pct to 10 pct, planned in October.

"Raising the tax further when the economy is deteriorating is a complete nonsense," Shii said in his speech in Tokyo.

In the western city of Osaka, Ichiro Matsui, head of Nippon Ishin, said his party hopes to stop the tax hike.

Hajime Yoshikawa, secretary-general of the Social Democratic Party, touched, in his speech in Tokyo, on a controversial government report that said an elderly couple needs about 20 million yen in life savings, besides pension benefits. He called for the abolition of an adjustment scheme known as "macroeconomic slide," designed to keep the growth of pension benefits below the paces of price and wage increases. Jiji Press