The Japanese Communist Party is willing to withdraw some of its candidates from this summer's Upper House election as part of efforts with other opposition parties to field unified candidates in single-seat electoral districts to take on the ruling coalition.
JCP leader Kazuo Shii said Monday the party would withdraw "a considerable number of its candidates" from single-member electoral districts on condition that unified candidates promise to scrap the new security laws that the JCP and other opponents claim to be unconstitutional.
The laws enacted last September mark a change from Japan's exclusively defense-orientated postwar security policy and greatly expand the role the Self-Defense Forces can play overseas.