Communist Party makes a comeback … in Japan

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party cemented its grip on power with a victory in the upper house elections on July 21, the unlikely other winners were the Communists. Ms. Kira was one of the party’s newly elected lawmakers who saw the JCP raise its representation in the House of Councilors from six seats to 11, giving it a large enough bloc to propose legislation. She was the first Communist to win in the five-seat Tokyo constituency in 12 years, while another young JCP candidate won in Osaka, the party’s first victory there in 15 years. Overall, the Communists came in second to the ruling party in terms of votes collected in Japan’s two giant metropolises.

How?  Part of the reason has to do with the deterioration of the main political parties.

DISARRAY

What had been the main opposition, the left-of-center Democratic Party of Japan – which spent three years in government until its defeat in December’s general election – is in almost utter disarray.

Two of the founding members have left the party, while the third, Naoto Kan – the prime minister at the time of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters – has just been suspended from the party for three months after supporting an independent candidate in the recent election. Some voters appeared to have seen the Communists as the only party able to counterbalance the nationalism of the Abe administration and its talk of amending Japan’s pacifist Constitution.

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