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On April 2, DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa held a press conference at party headquarters, in which he announced the second group of official and recommended DPJ candidates for the upcoming House of Councillors election. The candidates consisted of 8 official DPJ candidates and 1 recommended candidate in the constituencies, and 1 candidate for the proportional representation (PR) list. All the candidates running for seats in constituencies are first-timers, and the PR candidate is a sitting Diet member. This brings the total of candidates announced up until now to 55 official candidates and 3 recommended candidates in the constituencies and 41 candidates for the PR list.
Ozawa said candidates had not yet been officially announced for the third spot in the Tokyo constituency, the second spot in Osaka, as well as Ehime, Yamaguchi and Okinawa, but he revealed that the party had more or less settled on candidates for half of these seats.
A reporter asked what the significance was of fielding two candidates in two-seat constituencies. Ozawa replied, “There is no point in fielding two candidates who share the same support base, but we have succeeded in putting up contrasting candidates, such as a man and a woman, or a young person [along with more mature candidates], and so I think that we have managed to achieve a line-up that is close to our original target.” He indicated that the object was to increase votes for the DPJ by having contrasting candidates compete with each other.
Another reporter asked whether what he described as the DPJ’s lack of awareness of their position as ruling party would have an impact on the election. Ozawa responded, “The ruling party implements policies to protect people’s livelihoods via the administrative framework, and bears the responsibility for the results of these. 99% [of DPJ politicians] have no experience of government, so it may be difficult for them to transform their way of thinking, but I would like them to engage in efforts everyday to develop an awareness of what it means to be the ruling party.”
Ozawa also responded to a comment that if the current situation continued, Your Party would garner a substantial portion of floating voters, saying, “In the current climate, if Your Party put up a candidate, the floating voters will move in that direction, and in that respect things will become more difficult” (for DPJ candidates in multi-seat constituencies). He added, “This kind of pessimistic argument could apply, but on the other hand, if both candidates can manage to win, that will enable us to deliver twice the amount of appeal to voters, and so I would like [such candidates] to do their best.”
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