Japan Press Weekly

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2013 June 19 - 25 [POLITICS]

Bill to cut Diet seats enacted with voting inequality unchanged

A bill to reduce the number of Lower House seats by five in single-seat constituencies without bridging the disparity in vote value became law on June 24 by the majority approval of the ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei parties along with the Japan Restoration Party. The Japanese Communist Party voted against it.

At present, all the 480 seats in the House of Representatives consist of 300 seats from single-member constituencies and 180 from proportional representation districts. In some single-seat districts, the discrepancy in vote value has more than doubled, and courts have repeatedly ruled this to be unconstitutional.

JCP Lower House member Kokuta Keiji stated in a House plenary session that the proposal is just a makeshift measure to temporarily limit the inequalities. “What is needed is to abolish the single-member constituency system itself,” he stressed.

On the same day, JCP Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi told reporters that the single-member electoral system violates the equality of votes which the Constitution requires, as it allows a leading party to command about 70 to 80% of all seats with only 40% level of the vote. He argued that the single-seat constituency system should be replaced by a proportional representation system in order to accurately reflect voter preferences.