WORLD'S BIGGEST CITY VOTES SOCIALIST.
Following its impressive victory “in the guly 4 national elections to the upper house of parliament, the Japan Socialist party scored a notable advance in the municipal elections in Tokyo. The voters of the world's biggest city [estimated 1963 population, 10,355,000] gave the Socialists the leading position, ending the. ma jority held by the Liberal-Democratic party which holds power in Japan and reducing it to a / minority status in the Metropolitan Assembly.
The results were as follows:
| Seats Held at Time
Seats of Dissolution
Secured __ (June 14)
Japan Socialist party 45 31
Liberal-Democraty party 358 45
Komeito 23 . 17
-. Japan Communist. party 9 2
Democratic Socialist party 4 fe)
Independent _i "el
Total Poy: 120 116
‘4 vacancies.
A vote-buying scandal involving 17 Liberal-Democratoc assemblymen accounted in part for the:heavy defeat suffered by the former “majority party. papas was probably the reason for the gains regis-. tered by Komeito LClean Government party]. )
However, more fundamental trends appear to have been reflected in the election, Two factors especially are to,be noted, ©
(1) The swift onset of a depression has had big compact on
the low-income sectors of the population. Up to now the Sato government has proved incapable of reversing the decline.
(2) The Sato government's support of Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam has enormously increased fear among all sectors that Japan might be sucked into another world war. Mass demonstra-~ tions in opposition to the war in Vietnam and in support of the Vietnamese people have occurred repeatedly since Johnson began his escalation of the war last February.
Evidence of the political effect in Japan of U.S. aggression in Vietnam is to be seen not only in the heavy vote cast for the Japan Socialist party in the Tokyo elections but also in the vote cast for the Japan Communist party, which boosted the number of seats it holds in the Metropolitan Assembly from.2 to 9.
The Liberal-Democratic party is still able to run the assembly through a coalition with the other bourgeois parties, Komeito, the Democratic Socialist party, and the lone independent.
But the coalition, if it is gained, is obviously an unstable one.
The turnout to the polls was the lowest recorded in any postwar assembly election, 58.58%. This was generally considered to be a silent protest vote against the corruption that had been exposed. But it could also be taken to signify a sign of the readiness of the people to turn away from the electoral road. Are the Japanese workers beginning to think of a revolutionary answer to the threat of economic catastrophe and nuclear destruction?
"DREAM ISLAND"
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