NAGOYA: Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura said Tuesday that he will run in the next election of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Japan’s parliament.

“I will start a battle to change this society, where taxpayers suffer,” he told reporters after referring to the high-profile slush fund scandal at the Liberal Democratic Party.

He is expected to be an official candidate of the Conservative Party of Japan, a political organization where he serves as co-leader under novelist Naoki Hyakuta as top leader.

Kawamura, 75, was elected to the Diet for the first time in the 1993 Lower House election as a candidate of the now-defunct Japan New Party. He later joined other parties such as the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan. He has been elected five times to the Diet.

Since Japan introduced its current single-seat constituency system for the Lower House in 1996, he had been based in Aichi Prefecture’s No. 1 constituency.

In 2009, he was elected mayor of Nagoya, the capital of Aichi, for the first time. Kawamura, in his fourth term as mayor, also heads regional party Genzei Nippon.

From the Aichi No. 1 constituency, Hiromichi Kumada, 60, a Lower House lawmaker of the LDP, and Tsunehiko Yoshida, 49, a Lower House lawmaker of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, plan to run in the next general election, expected to be held this month. Koichi Yamamoto, 47, a member of Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) who does not have a Diet seat, is also set to run.

JIJI Press