Japan Ruling Camp Submits Bill to Reduce Lower House Seats by 10 Pct

Tokyo, Dec. 5 (Jiji Press)--Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, also known as Nippon Ishin no Kai, submitted Friday a bill to cut the number of seats in the House of Representatives by about 10 pct.

The bill stipulates that at least 45 seats will be slashed from the current total of 465.

If the ruling bloc and opposition parties fail to reach a conclusion on the issue within the next year, the 289 single-seat constituencies and 176 proportional representation seats will be automatically cut to 264 and 156, respectively, according to the bill.

Although the ruling parties hope that the bill will be enacted during the ongoing extraordinary Diet session, which will end on Dec. 17, they have been faced strong pushback from opposition parties.

The bill calls for the current number of Lower House seats to be reduced to a figure not exceeding 420, with the goal of achieving a 10 pct reduction.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]