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2026 February 11 - 17 [POLITICS]

Single-member district system gives LDP ‘false supermajority’ in Feb.8 general election

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

In the February 8 general election, the Liberal Democratic Party secured 316 seats, more than two-thirds of the 465-member House of Representatives. However, this is a “false majority” due to weight given to the single-seat constituencies over proportional representation blocs.

In the proportional representation system in the general election, the LDP received 36.7% of the vote. If the election had been conducted only under the proportional representation system alone, the LDP would have won only 170 seats.

In the single-seat constituency system, the LDP won 86% of single-member districts despite receiving only 49.2% of votes. This highlighted the fact that the single-seat constituency system disregards votes for minor parties and creates a massive number of so-called “wasted” votes.

The single-seat constituency system was introduced in the 1996 general election.

In the 1990s, a series of money-power corruption scandals involving the LDP, including the Recruit Cosmos shares-for-influence scandal, occurred. Ostensibly aimed at reacting to public anger over this matter, the House of Representatives election system was changed under the banner, “political reform” to the current one combining a first-past-the-post single-seat voting system with the proportional representation voting system.

The election system that does not reflect the public will has generated distrust in and a sense of powerlessness toward politics as well as a feeling of resignation among the public.

Recently, some political parties capitalize on public distrust of politics and seek to slash the number of Lower House seats, especially the number of proportional representation seats. As the LDP and its coalition partner “Ishin” party hold the supermajority in the Lower House, this is becoming a real danger. If the number of proportional representation seats is reduced, it will lead to further disregard of the public will and create a situation of enabling a dictatorship by the largest party.

The need now is to change the election system to one accurately reflecting the public will.