Upper house election campaign effectively begins

Upper house election campaign effectively begins

In Japan, candidates have effectively begun campaigning for the upper house election to be held next month.

The 150-day ordinary session of the Diet ended on Wednesday with the Democrat-led coalition and the Social Democrats rejecting a no-confidence motion against the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan. The motion was filed by the Liberal Democratic Party.

The official campaign for the House of Councilors election will begin on Thursday next week and voting will take place on July 11th.

The Democratic Party of Japan led by Prime Minister Kan will hold a meeting of officials on Thursday and confirm they will unite to win the election. The party's main opponents, the Liberal Democrats, will have a similar meeting.

It will be Japan's first parliamentary election since the DPJ won the lower house poll last August, ending over 50 years of almost unbroken government by the Liberal Democrats.

Other parties including New Komeito, the Communists, Social Democrats, the People's New Party and Your Party, will also appeal to voters with policy pledges by senior members at news conferences or through outdoor speeches.

The upper house has 242 legislators whose term is 6 years. Half of them will be up for re-election. Prime Minister Kan's party has 54 seats up for re-election. He has said he wants to win at least 50, the number won by the party in the 2004 upper house election.
The DPJ and its small coalition partner, the People's New Party, have a slim majority in the upper house.

Liberal Democratic Party leader Sadakazu Tanigaki said he will resign as LDP president if his party fails to smash the governing coalition's majority.

2010/06/17 07:27(JST)
(JST: UTC+9hrs.)
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