First Female Leader of Communist Party

Japanese Communist Party appointed a member of House of Councillors, Tomoko Tamura, 58, to be new chairperson of the party. Tamura leads the oldest party in Japan, established in 1922, as the first woman. JCP expects Tamura to refresh the party which has been showing decline of political power. Tamura is going to succeed the policy of cooperation with other opposition parties, which her predecessor, Kazuo Shii, promoted.

It has been twenty-three years, since Shii took the chair. In the press conference after the party convention, in which the replacement of chairperson was announced, Shii, 69, explained that he considered baton-pass to new generation and it would pave the way of generational succession. Shii is going to remain as the chair of JCP Central Committee, the post which has been vacant since Tetsuzo Fuwa leave it in 2006.

 

The party picked Taku Yamazoe, 39, for the successor to Tamura as the policy chief. Former chairman of the party Fuwa, 93, known as a theoretical pillar of JCP, will retire from the members of Central Committee. The leadership of communist party in Japan is drastically rejuvenated.

 

Building a long-lived regime, Shii directed the party to a course of realism, represented by cooperation with other opposition parties in the elections. In the election of House of Councillors in 2016, the opposition parties raised integrated candidates in every district with single seat. In the renewal of party platform in 2004, JCP accepted Emperor system and self-defense force.

 

Tamura once questioned that policy of cooperation with the oppositions, when JCP introduced possible coalition with Constitutional Democratic Party with limited support from outside of Cabinet. Having received criticisms from JCP, Tamura deleted her post which expressed anxiety about joining leading coalition. In the party convention last week, Tamura strongly criticized questions on the expulsion of a party member, who had proposed direct election of party chair, as extremely lacking “independence” to be a party member. Tamura is expected to succeed the basic policy of JCP.

 

The gradual decline of JCP is represented by decrease of party members and subscribers of party newspaper, Red Flag. Tamura was spotlighted when she accused Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of his scandal over Cherry Blossom Party in 2019. The ordinary session of Diet, which will be convoked later this month, will be the first match with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is suffering from the slush fund scandal of the factions in ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

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