Japanese Communist Party-Backed Candidate Wins Mayoral Race

Tokyo, March 30 (Jiji Press)–A candidate backed by the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party beat the incumbent in the mayoral election in the city of Kiyose in western Tokyo on Sunday. Hiromi Harada, a 50-year-old former city assembly member, won 13,064 votes, defeating the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito-backed incumbent, Keishi Shibuya, 52, by more than 1,300 ballots. Harada will be the fourth sitting local government head who is a member of the JCP. Some see the result signaling support for a party that has relentlessly criticized Prime Minister Sane Takaichi’s administration. Discontent over whether to maintain local libraries eroded support for the incumbent, Harada told a press conference on Monday. “Expectations and public attention converged as criticism of the Takaichi administration intensified,” she said. “The victory came from emphasizing opposition to war,” Tomoko Tamura, head of the JCP, said, “We want to expand this path nationwide and carry it into national politics.” One central-government official described the result as “unexpected,” adding that a segment of voters critical of the administration “appears to exist to a certain degree.” According to the JCP, the three other local leaders who are party members are the mayor of the city of Warabi in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, the head of the village of Nakagawa in the central prefecture of Nagano and the mayor of the town of Tadaoka in the western prefecture of Osaka. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]