Japan Govt OKs Bill to Redraw Lower House Electoral Map

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government Friday adopted a bill to reduce vote-value disparities by redrawing single-seat constituency boundaries for the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Japan's parliament.

The bill to revise the public offices election law was approved by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's General Council on Oct. 14 despite internal opposition. It is expected to be enacted during the current parliamentary session running until December.

Following Supreme Court rulings that found past elections to be in a state of unconstitutionality due to vote-value gaps, Japan decided in 2016 to rezone constituencies under the so-called Adams method.

The planned redrawing will eliminate one seat each in 10 prefectures--Miyagi, Fukushima, Niigata, Shiga, Wakayama, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Ehime and Nagasaki--while five seats will be distributed to Tokyo, two to Kanagawa Prefecture and one each to Saitama, Chiba and Aichi prefectures. The move will reduce the maximum vote-value gap to under 2.0 times.

Some LDP members had opposed the bill, arguing that it would lead to voices from regional areas not reaching parliament.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]