Cut of 45 Lower House Seats to Hit Smaller Parties Hard

Tokyo, June 28 (Jiji Press)--A cut of 45 House of Representatives proportional representation seats pushed by Japan's ruling coalition will severely affect smaller opposition parties, an estimate by Jiji Press shows.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, have recently submitted to the Diet, Japan's parliament, a bill on a reduction in seats allocated to the proportional representation format of the all-important lower chamber.

Under the bill, the number of Lower House proportional representation seats would be cut by 45 automatically, from 176 to 131, if a ruling-opposition council to be set up under the Lower House speaker fails to reach a conclusion on electoral reform measures including a reduction in Lower House seats within a year.

According to the Jiji Press estimate calculated for the 11 Lower House proportional representation blocs based on the preliminary 2025 national census data, the number of seats to be allotted would decrease by seven in the Kinki bloc of western Japan, the largest fall among the 11 blocs, followed by a drop of six seats each in the bloc covering the southern part of the Kanto eastern region and the Tokai central region.

The number would drop by five each in the northern Kanto bloc and the Kyushu bloc of southwestern Japan, by four in the Tokyo bloc, by three each in the Tohoku bloc of northeastern Japan and the Hokuriku-Shinetsu bloc of central Japan, and by two each in the Hokkaido bloc of northern Japan, the Chugoku bloc of western Japan and the Shikoku bloc, also western Japan.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]