Permanent foreign residents of Japan may finally face a realistic chance of being granted local-level suffrage under the administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan, which has signaled a willingness to pursue such rights.
Foreign nationals at present can't vote in national or local-level polls, and changing the law has been a bone of contention over the years, particularly under the administrations of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, whose conservative ranks lined up against granting suffrage by arguing that permanent foreign residents must first become naturalized citizens.
But DPJ heavyweights Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa are all advocates of giving foreigners the vote at the local level, and after knocking the LDP out of power last August the DPJ is now in a position to craft legislation it has been pushing since 1998, when the party was launched.