SDP aims to win 6 or more seats in upper house election+

TOKYO, Jan. 24 Kyodo -
The Social Democratic Party said Sunday it will aim to win six or more of the
seats up for grabs in the House of Councillors election this summer, with the
hope of at least doubling the tiny party's current share of those seats.

In a set of policies for 2010-2011 adopted on the second and last day of its
party convention at its Tokyo headquarters, the SDP also said it will seek the
unconditional return of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station site in
Okinawa Prefecture.
The SDP will also continue to call on the Japanese government to rescind a plan
agreed with the United States in 2006 to build a new military facility at
another Marine base, also in Okinawa, to relocate the air station's heliport
functions.
The SDP, one of the two junior coalition partners of the Democratic Party of
Japan, currently has five seats in the upper house, of which three will be
contested in this year's election. Upper house elections are held every three
years, with half the chamber's 242 seats up for grabs each time.
SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima holds one of the three seats, while another is held
by deputy leader and election bureau chief Sadao Fuchigami, who is set to
retire as a lawmaker when his current six-year term expires in the summer.
Fuchigami, however, was retained in his posts as the party will look to the
72-year-old veteran for campaign leadership during the upper house election,
while Fukushima also retained Yasumasa Shigeno as SDP secretary general.
On the Futemma issue, the SDP has long opposed the 2006 Japan-U.S. agreement to
build a new airfield in a coastal area of Camp Schwab in Nago's Henoko district
for the relocation, calling for the air station's functions to be moved out of
Okinawa or abroad.
The DPJ-led government, which came to power last September, is considering
alternative sites for relocating the Futemma base, currently located in a
densely populated area in Ginowan, including the possibility of moving it out
of Okinawa or overseas.
The United States, however, has pressed Japan to follow through on the 2006 deal.
==Kyodo
2010-01-24 22:16:20