The Democratic Party of Japan plans to field Okinawan singer Shokichi Kina, who held a peace concert last year in Baghdad, as a candidate in the House of Councilors election in July, party lawmakers said Saturday.
The DPJ is expected to make the decision official at an upcoming executive members' meeting to put the 55-year-old musician on the party's proportional representation list, they said. The election is expected to be held July 11.
Kina and his band, Shokichi Kina and Champloose, held a peace concert called "No Wars But Celebration!" in February last year in the Iraqi capital, a month before the United States invaded the country.