Local assembly members have an important role to play, reflecting residents' opinions in governance and protecting their daily lives. Efforts must be accelerated to secure people who are willing to take on the job.
The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry has set up a panel of experts to tackle the shortage of local assembly members. Based on the panel's conclusions, the Local Government System Research Council will consider concrete ways to revise the current system.
In this spring's unified local elections, the number of candidates who won seats in town and village assemblies because they ran unopposed accounted for more than 23 percent of all those elected, setting a record high. In assembly elections for eight towns and villages, there were fewer candidates than seats. If this trend continues, there can be no alternative but to reduce the number of local assembly seats.
In Urahoro, a Hokkaido town with a population of about 4,700 where all the assembly seats could not be filled in the election four years ago, assembly members worked together irrespective of party to find rookie candidates, and as a result, the town managed to avoid falling below the number of assembly seats this year.
In areas where the population is declining, there are many cases in which assembly members planning to retire due to old age were encouraged to change their minds and ran for office.
It is important for the government to review the system so that a variety of people, including young people and women, can make a bid for office.
The priority is to ease the restrictions on working simultaneously as a public servant or having an additional job.
Local assembly members are not allowed to serve concurrently as public servants or as executives for companies that have contracts with local governments, in order to secure the monitoring function of each assembly. However, in rural areas, many people work for companies whose main customers are local government offices.
Ease restrictions on serving
A system should be studied to allow executives of companies that have dealings with local governments to run as candidates, on condition that the transparency of contracts is secured. Another option would be for local government officials to become local assembly members in towns and villages other than where they work.
The average monthly salary of city assembly members is 410,000, yen while that of town and village assembly members is 210,000 yen. For full-time assembly members, this is not enough.
The Liberal Democratic Party is discussing a plan to allow local assembly members -- who currently can only join the national pension system -- to subscribe to the employees' pension program. It is worth considering because it would guarantee a certain level of livelihood after retiring as local assembly member.
Flexible operation of assembly sessions should also be promoted, by such means as holding meetings at night or on weekends.
It is also desirable to expand opportunities for local assembly members to teach classes at elementary and junior high schools. In such classes, students are exposed to local problems and deepen their interest in them from a young age. This will lead to the expansion of local politics.
Last year, the ministry proposed new systems for local assemblies -- an intensive, professional model composed of a small number of selected full-time members who receive higher remuneration, and a mass participation model comprising a number of members who serve as a side job.
The proposal was aimed at providing a variety of assembly styles and creating an environment in which more people find it easier to become candidates. But local assemblies objected to the proposal, saying such systems would "lessen the autonomy of regional areas." It is necessary to listen adequately to the opinions of local governments when discussing how to revise the system.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, July 28, 2019)
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