Tokyo Approves Plan for Foreigners to Vote in Local Referendum

A committee of Musashino, a city located in western Tokyo metropolis, approved on Monday a plan that would allow foreign residents to vote in local referendums if they have lived in the community for a minimum of three months, Japan’s Kyodo News reported Tuesday.

The six members of the Musashino assembly’s general affairs committee “were evenly split on the plan” during an initial vote on the matter on December 13, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun detailed. “The committee chair then cast a ‘yes’ vote to break the tie.”

“The three committee members who voted in favor of the proposal included a member of the [leftwing] Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and a member of the Japanese Communist Party,” the newspaper revealed.

The Musashino city assembly will decide on the proposed ordinance through a plenary vote scheduled for December 21. If the ordinance passes, it would go into effect starting April 2022.

Musashino Mayor Reiko Matsushita submitted a proposal to the Musashino city assembly on November 12 asking the body to consider an ordinance to allow foreigners aged 18 years or older to vote in local referendums if they have been listed in Musashino’s basic resident registration system for at least three months prior to voting. The same conditions are currently required of Japanese citizens wishing to vote in Musashino city referendums.

Japanese citizens both within Musashino and without have criticized the proposal as “a step toward granting suffrage in national elections to foreigners,” Kyodo News observed on December 14.

“From a commonsense perspective, it is nonsense to treat people who have lived in Japan for a long time and foreigners who have only stayed in Japan for three months at the same level,” Taro Kikuch told the Asahi Shimbun on December 14.

Taro belongs to Japan’s right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and was an opposing member of the Musashino committee that tentatively approved the ordinance granting foreigners voting privileges in the suburb on December 13.

“Hidenori Dojo, another opponent, warned that the proposal could give short-term foreign residents a say on national security issues or energy policies in a public referendum,” the Asahi Shimbun noted on Tuesday.

If the ordinance passes when put to a plenary vote by the Musashino city assembly on December 21, the community will join two other Japanese cities — Zushi and Toyonaka — that already allow foreigners to vote in local elections. Zushi is located in Kanagawa Prefecture about 40 miles southwest of Tokyo. Toyonaka is located in Western Japan’s Osaka Prefecture.

In addition to the cities of Zushi and Toyonaka, 40 municipalities across Japan currently allow foreigners to vote in local referendums, “but with some conditions applied such as having the status of permanent residency,” according to Kyodo News.