******************************************************************** This is Satoko Watanabe from Japan. Mr. Ryuhei Kawada, the steering committee member of Greens Japan and GG2001 and GYG2007 participant, has won the last seat of five of Tokyo electoral district in the Upper House Election 2007. We are so excited with this first step of Greens!!! Three years ago, we challenged the Upper House Election, but could not win a seat. Because of high hurdles of Japanese Election system, we had to give up nominating us as a party this time. We decided to concentrate our resources and energy on Tokyo electoral district, which has five seats and is quite influential to Japanese politics. Ryuhei ran as an independent without any support from parties or big organizations. In Japan it is very difficult to win national elections without those supports. Actually the four other winners of the district are all from big parties. The core members of the campaign office were members of the Greens Japan and the Rainbow and Greens Japan. They cooperated to make the manifestation and to plan the campaign. Ryuhei’s campaign which was carried out by many volunteers was so impressive that many media covered it. Ryuhei’s speech was very persuasive, since he talked based on his own experiences as a victim of HIV-infected bloodproduct, fighting against the government and the company. It often moved the audience on the street to tears. I was very happy to see many young people who are believed to be very indifferent to politics responded to Ryuhei’s appeal positively. This is the very important first step of Greens Japan. We will keep working together and supporting Ryuhei to achieve Green politics. The LDP suffered from the huge defeat. Here are the article and the editorial on the election. Satoko Watanabe Spokesperson Rainbow and Greens Japan
