Almost 50 percent of major municipalities believe the central government should determine whether foreigners are granted suffrage in local elections rather than leaving the decision to local authorities, a Kyodo News survey said Saturday.
Forty-three of the 95 prefectural and major city governments surveyed said they were embarrassed by the plan, which was proposed earlier this week by some senior LDP members. The plan, which is a revision of a bill on granting permanent foreign residents -- most of whom are Korean -- voting rights in local elections, proposes that each local municipality decide whether to grant suffrage to permanent foreign residents.
The same group of 43 municipalities agreed that the protection of foreigners' human rights is a diplomatic matter best handled by the central government.