Hurdles remain before nuke referendum could be called

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Although a citizens group said it has met the legal requirement calling for a referendum on the use of nuclear power in Tokyo, the Tokyo metropolitan electoral management committee said it won't be able to confirm until late April if there are enough valid signatures.

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Hurdles remain before nuke referendum could be called
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Although a citizens group said it has met the legal requirement calling for a referendum on the use of nuclear power in Tokyo, the Tokyo metropolitan electoral management committee said it won't be able to confirm until late April if there are enough valid signatures.

A citizens group seeking a local referendum on the issue said it will likely have collected 300,000 signatures, more than enough to ask the assembly to call a referendum, if enough are verified as valid.

As of Feb. 8, Minna de Kimeyo Genpatsu Kokumin Tohyo had collected 260,094 signatures, the group told a news conference on Feb. 9.

The number surpassed the 214,236 signatures required for petitioning the governor of Tokyo for a referendum.

The group, whose name translates as “Let Everyone Participate in a Referendum on Making Decisions About Nuclear Power,” started the signature campaign on Dec. 10, 2011, aiming to collect more than 300,000 by the two-month deadline of Feb. 9.

The group said if signatures collected on Feb. 9 and those uncounted, which will likely number about 40,000, are added, the total number would reach 300,000. Hajime Imai, a journalist who heads the group, estimated that invalid signatures would total about 15 percent.

If there are enough valid signatures, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara will likely submit the ordinance bill for the referendum around late May to the Tokyo metropolitan assembly.

The governor will give his opinion on the proposed bill, which to date has been a negative one. He criticized the proposed referendum as “sentimental and hysterical” at a news conference in December.

“We will discuss the contents of the bill starting from now,” said a Tokyo government official in charge of the referendum.

Many Tokyo metropolitan assembly members, who will have to approve a referendum before it makes it to the ballot, are taking a cautious approach.

“If nuclear power generation were to be abandoned right now, we would have to considerably restrict power usage,” said a senior official of the Democratic Party of Japan, which has the largest group of assembly members. “I wonder how much Tokyo citizens could tolerate.”

A senior official of the Liberal Democratic Party agrees.

“I don’t think Japanese society can do without nuclear power generation,” he said. “Can we accept rolling blackouts? Is an electric rate hike acceptable?”

A New Komeito senior official said, “It’s too early (to make a decision on the use of nuclear power). We should decide after prospects for the stabilization of the accident at the (Fukushima No. 1) nuclear power plant and compensation are better known.”

Along with its effort in Tokyo, Minna de Kimeyo Genpatsu Kokumin Tohyo said a signature campaign will begin in Shizuoka Prefecture in early April, while a campaign is being prepared for Niigata Prefecture starting in March.

(This article was compiled from reports by Kosuke So and Yoshitaka Unezawa.)

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