Japanese Communist Party member disqualified for promoting direct voting

TOKYO - The Japanese Communist Party JCP announced on February 6 that a journalist who wrote about introducing a new way to select the group's leadership has had his membership revoked for reasons that include violating the party's don't create divisions principle.

Nobuyuki Matsutake, 68, is asking to be reinstated and for his removal to be reviewed under the party's rules.

Matsutake wrote in the Shin Nihon Kyosanto Sengen New Japanese Communist Party manifesto released in January that the party should adopt a direct voting system in which leadership is selected by its members, as the JCP has been led by Chairman Kazuo Shii for over 22 years. Matsutake said that this would help bring intra-party disputes to light, and vowed to run for the top spot if such a system was introduced.

The decision to disqualify Matsutake was made by the Kyoto Minami District branch of the party on February 5. The decision was approved by the Kyoto Prefecture JCP at a committee meeting a day later.

In response to the party's decision, the party judged that Matsutake trampled upon several principles, including parts of Chapter 1's Article 3 4 factions and splinter groups, and that there is a duty to work for the party's unity and cohesion, and Chapter 2's Article 5 5 members must not publish without permission opinions in opposition to the party's decisions. At a press conference in Tokyo on February 6, Matsutake criticized the decision, saying if a member is punished for a publication taken as divisive activity, that's the death of freedom of speech and expression of Japan's constitution. If the party is going to be that way, it may be doomed. Akira Koike, the JCP's secretariat head, said in response to a press conference, Voicing a different opinion is forgivable under the party's rules, but Matsutake did not follow procedures, and his book came as a sudden attack.