Among political parties, JCP has longest list of female candidates for Upper House election

2019 July 3 - 9 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Among political parties, JCP has longest list of female candidates for Upper House election

July 6, 2019

In the House of Councilors election, for which campaigning officially started on July 4, 104 women are contesting for seats. The percentage of female candidates hit a record high of 28.1%.

Pro-constitution opposition parties, including the Japanese Communist Party, actively nominated women as their candidates for the July 21 Upper House election. Among political parties, the JCP fielded the largest number of female candidates at 22, making up 55% of the party’s candidates. The number of female candidates supported by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan stood at 19 (45.2%), the Democratic Party for the people at 10 (35.7%), and the Social Democratic Party at 5 (71.4%).

In contrast, the ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei parties were shy about putting up female candidates, though they in their election platform promised to promote women’s empowerment. The LDP included 12 women in its candidate list. The Komei party selected only two women as candidates. The proportion of female candidates to all candidates in the LDP and Komei party is 14.6% and 8.3%, respectively. The LDP-Komei supplementary force, Nippon Ishin no Kai party endorsed seven female candidates (31.8%).

In May 2018, the law requiring political parties to draw up a gender-balanced candidate list for national and local elections was implemented. The government set a goal of increasing the percentage of women in leadership positions to 30% by 2020.

Currently in Japan, the percentage of female Dietmembers is 10%. “The rate is too low,” United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said early this month at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo. The high-ranking UN official pointed out that it is important for political parties to take special measures to encourage women to become candidates and offer them support.

Past related articles:
> JCP has the most female local assemblymembers among political parties [February 4, 2019]
> Law for gender equality in politics enacted [May 30, 2018]