June 26, 2000

Kiyoshi SASAMORI
General Secretary
Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-RENGO)

The government parties such as the Liberal Democratic Party fell back significantly and the opposition parties including the Democratic Party of Japan went ahead at the 42nd election of the House of Representatives which took place on June 25.

The result was that the LDP decreased their seats substantially. Although the three government parties including the New Komei Party and the New Conservative Party maintained the majority, they lost seats drastically from 336 to 271. On the contrary, the Democratic Party of Japan increased seats largely from 95 to 127. The Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party fought well. 136 candidates were elected out of 270 whom RENGO recommended.

The general election was a verdict on the 3 year and 8 month rule by the LDP and the selection of its coalition partners. In particular, this election asked people if they would accept the ruling of the LDP which has ignored people's lives and has neglected democracy resulting in a long term recession, the worst unemployment ever, pensions changed for the worse, postponing a complete reform of medical treatment and a ban on check-off of trade union dues.

The poll suggests that people expressed their disapproval of the coalition of the three parties, the LDP, the New Komei Party and the New Conservative Party, and their policies, although there was no increase in the voting rate, which had been expected. The LDP should listen to these people's voice. On the other hand, The Democratic Party of Japan received people's support primarily in the big cities with the expectation to change the regime. The election result advanced Japanese politics towards the two party system and paves the way to change the regime in the 21st century.

RENGO considered that this election campaign would decide the fate of Japanese trade union movement. All its affiliates and Local RENGO Federations fought with all their strength and we achieved the advance of opposition parties based on the Democratic Party. It brought a good result as RENGO promoted the opposition parties based on the Democratic Party of Japan throughout the election campaign. However, this leaves our task unfinished in the co-ordination of the campaign due to conflicts in the organisation.

We believe that we will pave the way to establish the regime based on the Democratic Party of Japan at the election of House of Councilors and next general election, using this advance at this election as a spring board which we fought for the first time in 10 years since the foundation of RENGO under the unified policy by the Political Centre. We will continuously make the effort in realising our policy.