Japan Press Weekly

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2016 May 18 - 24 [POLITICS]

Diet seat reduction bill enacted

A bill to cut the number of House of Representatives seats by 10 was enacted on May 20 after passing through the House of Councilors by a majority vote of the ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei parties. The Japanese Communist, Democratic, Social Democratic, and People’s Life parties all voted against the bill.

The bill was presented by the ruling coalition in response to a report compiled by an advisory panel to the Lower House Speaker.

The report proposed to slash the number of Diet seats. However, this proposal has no rational grounds because the report itself stated that the number of members of the Lower House is not large compared with that of lower houses in other countries. In addition, during the Diet deliberations, even some of lawmakers of the bill’s initiator expressed the same view as the panel report and disputed the assertion of a favorable climate to enact a Diet seat reduction.

The JCP in the Diet insisted that the reduction in the number of Diet members will lead to neglect of representing people’s voices. The party demanded that the current election system centering on the single-seat constituency system which generates the gap between vote share and seat share be changed to one properly reflecting voters’ will in Diet seats.

Past related articles:
> Even LDP and Komei lawmakers express concern over Diet seat reduction [April 28, 2016]
> JCP Kokuta opposes bills to slash number of Diet seats [April 23, 2016]