Tomoko Tamura

Tomoko Tamura (田村 智子) is a Japanese politician who is the current chairperson of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). She is a JCP member to the House of Councillors, having been elected in 2010 and again in 2016 for the National party list block.

Early Life
Tamura was born July 4, 1965 to parents who owned a stationary shop. In college at Waseda University, after a series of protests and strikes against an increase in tuition, she joined the Democratic Youth League of Japan, the youth wing of the Japanese Communist Party.

Political career
After she graduated, she took full time employment with the Democratic Youth League of Japan, organizing anti-war protests and pro-peace rallies. From 1995, she had switched to the main Japanese Communist Party and worked as the secretary and deputy secretary respectively for House of Representative members Ikuko Ishii and Mito Inoue. She ran unsuccessfully for the House of Councilors in 1998, 2001, and 2007, and for the House of Representatives in 2005.

Tenure
Tamura was successfully elected to the House of Councilors in the 2010 election. Before becoming the party's leader, she served as the vice chair of the executive committee and the chair of the policy committee. She criticized former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's female cabinet picks, saying that they were performative instead of advancing women's empowerment. She also criticized Abe over his involvement in the Cherry blossom scandal.

Chairman
On January 18, 2024, she replaced Kazuo Shii as chair of the Japan Communist Party. She became the party's first female chair in history. Tamura was selected to replace Shii after he was caught in a scandal after expelling two members of the Japanese Communist Party who had called for the democratic election of the party's leadership by party members. Tamura's selection has been viewed by some as an attempt to repair the Communist Party's image in this scandal's wake.