As The World Turns
July's
elections were the first in Japan where online campaigning was
permitted, and it was Japan's Communist Party that is widely seen as
having made best use of it.
A smiling, smartly attired 30-year-old woman sits at an
expansive table in a meeting room decorated with simple elegance on the
fourth floor of a modern office building in central Tokyo.
Only the sunflower broach – an anti-nuclear symbol – on the woman’s
suit, and perhaps that the large calligraphy scroll on the wall behind
her that isn’t hung perfectly straight, betray the fact that this isn’t a
scene from corporate Japan.
Yoshiko Kira doesn’t look like she intends to dismantle capitalism, but this is the headquarters of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), and she is one of its rising stars, and that’s her plan.
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.
Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso caused consternation in some quarters
this week when he appeared to suggest, during a speech to a conservative
think tank, that the current controversy around the constitution could
have been avoided if Japan had changed it in secret, as was done in Nazi
Germany.
“When I was a child there were a lot of books in my house with
pictures of the war and the atomic bombing. I used to worry that planes
flying overhead might be carrying bombs. Then one day my mother told me
that Japan can’t have wars anymore because of the Constitution, and I
thought I was lucky to be born in this country,” Kira says. “But now the
Abe government wants to change the Constitution so that Japan can start
wars again.”
“It’s not just about war. When I was looking for work I applied to a
large number of companies, and was told during interviews that hiring a
woman was a risk. I realized there were many things about Japanese
society that need changing,” says Kira.
ONLINE MASCOT CHARACTERS
Founded in 1922, the JCP is the oldest political party in Japan, and
has enjoyed constant representation in parliament for longer than any
other. But until recently, its image was one of older activists and it
struggled to attract younger voters.
July's elections were the first in Japan where online campaigning was
permitted, and it was the JCP that is widely seen as having made best
use of it. As well as savvy leveraging of social networks and video
streaming platforms, the party created a series of online mascot
characters that addressed individual issues such as the planned
consumption tax hike, shady business practices, the heavy US military
presence on Okinawa, and constitutional change.
“We were able to use the Net to reach out to younger people, many of
whom don’t read newspapers or watch TV much. Through the characters, we
could communicate issues simply and appeal to young voters,” says party
spokesperson Toshio Ueki, who reports that the characters’ webpages got
1.5 million hits in the weeks before the poll.
While the party has embraced new technology in its campaigning, it
can still lay claim to a consistency in both policy and personnel that
sets it apart from other parties in Japan. Kazuo Shii has led the party
since 2000, during which time Japan has seen nine different prime
ministers. And while some politicians have turned anti-nuclear since the
accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant, the JCP was always
against
nuclear power.
'REFRESHING'
“One of the appeals of the Communists has been the clarity and
consistency in their pledges; people find it refreshing,” suggests
Takashi Inoguchi, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo. “It’s
healthy for the political development of the country that there is a
party that is at least clear in what they say, whether you agree with
their positions or not.”
Although Japan is not yet on the road to a workers’ paradise, having
struck a chord with the electorate, the JCP may now have the opportunity
to establish itself as the most cohesive opposition to the current
government.
“If we did take power, the JCP wouldn’t try to implement a Communist
economy immediately. It would require huge changes and we would seek the
support of the people for each step,” Kira says. “And we would want to
use the best parts of the current economic system, too.”
