Citing a July 2, 2018 article by Shinjuku Accountant, this post criticizes the Constitutional Democratic Party’s repeated boycotts and its handling of the Morikake and sexual-harassment controversies as “struggle tactics” that paralyze national politics.
Beginning with a Jiji Press report in which former Defense Minister Gen Nakatani explicitly criticized Kiyomi Tsujimoto, it argues that the party inherited the worst DNA of past opposition politics, failed to learn from the collapse of the former Democratic Party, and that the Diet should be a place for substantive debate rather than obstruction.

February 16, 2019.
Opposition lawmakers who do nothing but hinder proceedings bring one harm after another and not a single benefit.
I believe that the Constitutional Democratic Party, an extreme-left party standing alongside the Japanese Communist Party, is precisely the party that should be excluded from the Diet.
The following is taken from a truly useful article I just found online.
https://shinjukuacc.com/20180702-03/.
[Midday Edition] Do Not Allow Representative Kiyomi Tsujimoto’s Obstruction Strategy.
Delivery time: 2018/07/02 11:45 (Last updated: 2018/07/02 11:48).
Is Representative Kiyomi Tsujimoto the true culprit behind the “armed struggle line” that is stalling national politics?
1 An opposition that never learns.
1.1 Former Defense Minister Gen Nakatani criticizes Representative Kiyomi Tsujimoto.
1.2 Morikake, sexual harassment, and boycotting deliberations.
1.3 The self-destruction of the former Democratic Party and a CDP that learns nothing.
2 The CDP is the party that should be excluded.
An opposition that never learns.
Former Defense Minister Gen Nakatani criticizes Representative Kiyomi Tsujimoto.
Regarding domestic politics, there was a report last weekend that I found extremely noteworthy.
Criticism of Tsujimoto over the Constitutional Review Committee, says LDP’s Nakatani.
(Jiji Press, 2018/06/30 18:20).
According to Jiji Press, on Saturday the 30th, former Defense Minister Gen Nakatani of the Liberal Democratic Party gave a speech in Tsu City, Mie Prefecture.
Concerning the fact that deliberations have been halted on the proposed amendments to the National Referendum Act related to constitutional revision submitted by the ruling parties and others, he reportedly stated as follows.
“The one stopping it is Kiyomi Tsujimoto, chair of the Diet affairs committee of the Constitutional Democratic Party.
Even an entirely ordinary bill that seeks to improve convenience for voters is being blocked in the Diet.”
As far as I can remember, it is unusual for a sitting LDP Diet member to criticize by name the chair of another party’s Diet affairs committee.
It is also unusual for Jiji Press, which occupies a place within the mass media, to report it.
While this website usually criticizes the stance of the mass media harshly, I would like to say “excellent” when an article is excellent.
That said, because it is a short article, it does not report the full scope of Mr. Nakatani’s remarks, and I do not know what intention lay behind them.
If I may offer my own “reading between the lines,” it may be that exasperation with the CDP’s posture is spreading among Diet members.
Morikake, sexual harassment, and boycotting deliberations.
If you think about it, the current “largest opposition party” is the Constitutional Democratic Party in the House of Representatives and the Democratic Party for the People in the House of Councillors.
There have been times when a “twist” existed between the ruling and opposition camps across the two chambers, but is it not rare for the “largest opposition party” itself to be twisted between the two chambers?
However, both the CDP and the DPFP mainly originate from the Democratic Party or the former Democratic Party (Minshin).
If one were to label them bluntly, the “left wing of the former Minshin” would be the CDP, and the “right wing of the former Minshin” would be the DPFP.
Their commonality is that both parties are not a reservoir of “talent,” but rather a reservoir of “human liabilities.”
Even in the Minshin era, the party still maintained something like pride, and there were at least some lawmakers who thought they should not engage only in extreme nitpicking and should respond to proper policy debate.
But the CDP, now the largest opposition party in the House of Representatives, clearly inherited the bad DNA of the old Socialist Party.
That DNA is “endlessly obstructing national politics over trivial matters,” which may be described as “struggle tactics.”
The so-called Morikake issue refers to suspicions that Shinzo Abe abused his position as Prime Minister to provide illegal favors to private schools run by his friends.
Yet despite Asahi Shimbun and the CDP making a huge commotion for a year and a half, not a single conclusive piece of evidence has appeared that Prime Minister Abe committed a crime.
The “sexual harassment issue” refers to the matter in which Junichi Fukuda, then administrative vice minister of the Ministry of Finance (who has already resigned at the end of April), was alleged to have sexually harassed a TV Asahi female reporter.
Despite the fact that not one conclusive piece of evidence has emerged here either, the opposition demanded the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso.
When their demands were not accepted, opposition lawmakers then took it upon themselves to secure a 20-day vacation around Golden Week under the name of “boycotting deliberations,” thereby earning the honorable title online of “enemies of the people.”
The self-destruction of the former Democratic Party and a CDP that learns nothing.
When I watch the CDP’s behavior, what comes to mind first is the self-destruction of the former Minshin Party.
Looking back now, in opinion polls conducted around July last year, the approval rating for the Abe administration was hitting record lows.
Of course, the Morikake issue had a major impact, and in addition, it cannot be ignored that Defense Minister Tomomi Inada (at the time) became a target of attacks by the mass media.
But what was the situation of the Minshin Party, the largest opposition party at that time?
Did it seize the moment of falling approval for the Abe administration and look poised to become the leading party in a general election?
In fact, approval ratings for the Minshin Party were already at historically low levels.
The reason was a string of scandals, such as the dual-nationality issue involving Minshin leader Renho Murata (Murata Renho, whose Chinese name is given as “Xie Lianfang”), and the gasoline-card issue and an affair issue involving Representative Shiori Yamao.
Indeed, in the July 2017 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, the LDP suffered a major defeat, but the party that surged was not Minshin.
It was “Tomin First no Kai,” led by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.
In other words, Governor Koike became the “dark horse.”
There were rumors that she might create a new national party and achieve a change of government.
But as soon as the dissolution and general election were decided last September, party leader Seiji Maehara concluded that “Minshin will not field candidates for the House of Representatives election,” and the Minshin Party collapsed.
Minshin then tried to merge entirely into the “Party of Hope” led by Koike, but under the “logic of exclusion,” Minshin’s left wing was excluded.
The people who were excluded created the Constitutional Democratic Party, and those excluded even from there formed groups such as the “Group of Independents” after the election.
Thus Minshin truly fractured into pieces.
But fundamentally, why did Minshin fracture in the first place?
It was because it adopted a strategy that simply stalled Diet deliberations without any policy debate, and because the general public strongly disliked that approach.
Looking at today’s CDP, I cannot help thinking that they truly learn nothing.
The CDP is the party that should be excluded.
By the way, this is a somewhat older article, but there was an interesting remark by Representative Tsujimoto.
Tsujimoto: “We will create a twist in the Upper House election.”
(Jiji Press, 2018/06/09 18:18).
Her “armed struggle line” seems thorough.
According to Jiji Press, at a political fundraising party held in Takatsuki City, Osaka Prefecture, in early last month, she reportedly said the following.
“In the next Upper House election, we will unite the power of the opposition and strike the ruling parties, and we want to create a twist (where the ruling and opposition sides reverse across both chambers).”
In short, it is not “realizing a change of government,” but “creating a twisted Diet.”
Takatsuki City is Tsujimoto’s electoral base, and it is also the local area where, in the Osaka Northern Earthquake on the 18th of last month, a block wall collapsed and a young girl died.
There are claims that various problems may be hidden within the city administration, but one might say it is exactly what you would expect from her home ground.
Of course, what is actually occurring is not a “twist between ruling and opposition parties across the two chambers.”
It is a “twist of the largest opposition party across the two chambers.”
The reason for that twist is likely that many former Minshin lawmakers prefer to belong not to the CDP, which advocates the “armed struggle line,” but to the DPFP, which they regard as “still better.”
In any case, the Diet is not originally a place for nitpicking.
It is a place for healthy debate.
Opposition lawmakers who do nothing but hinder proceedings bring one harm after another and not a single benefit.
I believe that the CDP, an extreme-left party standing alongside the Japanese Communist Party, is precisely the party that should be excluded from the Diet.
Of course, it is undeniable that other opposition parties such as the DPFP also have various problems.
However, even if there is no dissolution of the House of Representatives, a regular election for the House of Councillors will be held next summer.
By that time, I hope the internet will have spread even further and that the danger of the Constitutional Democratic Party will have permeated among the people.