The Japanese Communist Party more than doubled its seats in the lower house of parliament as its pacifist, anti-nuclear platform provided the clearest opposition to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies.
The JCP won 21 seats in yesterday’s lower-house election, up from 8 before the vote, even as the ruling coalition maintained its two-thirds majority. The Communists won their first single-seat district in 18 years, claiming a seat in the southern Okinawa island chain. The party can now submit legislation to parliament.
The Communists have called for a sales-tax increase planned for 2017 to be scrapped and for Japan to stay out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional trade agreement favored by Abe. Party leader Kazuo Shii has opposed restarting nuclear power plants closed after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, as well as the reinterpretation of the U.S.-imposed pacifist constitution to allow Japan to defend other countries.
“It’s the only opposition party that really acts like one,” said Tomoaki Iwai, a professor of politics at Nihon University in Tokyo. “It will be the choice of disgruntled voters.”
