Japan Press Weekly

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2017 October 18 - 24 [JCP]

JCP fails to make advance in general election

In the October 22 general election, the Japanese Communist Party won eleven seats in proportional representation blocs and one in the Okinawa No.1 constituency. The party, however, decreased its number of seats by nine from its pre-election strength of 21 seats.

The number of JCP seats and votes in proportional representation blocs dropped to 11 with 4.4 million (7.91%) of total vote casts from 20 seats with 6.06 million votes (11.37%) which the party obtained in the previous election at the end of 2014.

Meanwhile, with the aim of bringing down the Abe government through electoral cooperation with other opposition parties and concerned citizens, the JCP decided not to field its own candidates in 83 single-member districts across the nation. In 32 of the 83 districts, including two in Okinawa, united opposition candidates won seats.

When looking at the pro-constitution forces, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan gained 40 seats, bringing its total to 55 seats. The Social Democratic Party secured its two pre-election seats. The three opposition parties, which fought the election jointly with the Civil Alliance by concluding the seven-point policy agreement, captured 69 seats in total, up 31 from the pre-election 38 seats.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party maintain its 284 pre-election seats while the coalition partner, Komei Party, decreased its number of seats by 5 to 29. They, however, retained their two-thirds parliamentary majority. As for the ruling coalition’s supplementary forces, Tokyo governor’s Hope Party and Osaka governor’s Ishin no Kai party lost their number of seats by seven to 50 and three to 11, respectively. The Party for Japanese Kokoro failed to defend its pre-election seats.

The voter turnout rate stood at 53.68%, the second-lowest in postwar national elections.

Past related articles:
> Joint opposition candidates across Japan enter election campaigns to bring down Abe gov’t [October 10, 2017]
> Civil Alliance and new constitutional party confirm common election platform　[October 4, 2017]
> Civil Alliance confirms common election agenda in preparation for selecting united opposition candidates [September 27, 2017]