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On November 17, a national meeting of DPJ secretaries general attended by members of the party executive from the 47 prefectural branches was held at party headquarters.
After a minute’s silence was observed to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris, DPJ President Katsuya Okada addressed the meeting.
Okada raised the following points in his speech.
(1) Next year’s House of Councillors is an important challenge facing the DPJ in route to its goal of regaining the reins of government, particularly considering that the party has lost the last three national elections. The DPJ must do its utmost to produce results this time round.
(2) With regard to relations with the other opposition parties, we have no intention of dissolving the DPJ by the end of the year. We intend to move in the direction of forming as large an opposition bloc as possible in the next Diet session, and so we will aim to form a joint parliamentary group in the Diet.
(3) The Japanese Communist Party has proposed forming a “National Coalition Government”, and coordinating candidates for single-seat districts. However, forming a government means taking our responsibilities towards the electorate, and so we cannot form a government together while differences in philosophy and policy exist. Moreover, the House of Councillors election is not an election that determines the party of government. Still, if we have a situation where more than one opposition candidate is standing in each single seat district thereby cancelling each other out, this can only be to the advantage of the ruling parties who currently hold a huge majority. It is my personal view therefore, that if we hold talks regarding this one issue [of candidate coordination] then we should be able to achieve results.
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