Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2026 October 21 - 27 [POLITICS]

Only 1 Lower House lawmaker per 260,000 people in Japan vs. 1 per 100,000-150,000 in other major countries

The Democratic Party for the People (DPP) at its meeting on October 26 decided to propose reducing the number of proportional representation seats in the House of Representatives by 19.

Asked by reporters for a comment on this proposal, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira criticized the DPP for effectively accepting the reduction of Diet seats despite the opposition parties’ consensus to unanimously oppose the seat-cut bill submitted by the ruling parties.

The ruling Liberal Democratic and “Ishin no Kai” parties submitted a bill in the current extraordinary session of the Diet to cut 45 proportional representation seats in the Lower House. However, they now offer the opposition parties a compromise to reduce the number of seats by 31.

At a meeting of the House of Representatives Special Committee on Political Reform, JCP Shiokawa Tetsuya argued that the current number of seats in the House of Representatives (465) is low by international standards and demanded an increase.

He noted that major countries generally have one Lower House lawmaker for every 100,000 to 150,000 people, and pointed out that Japan’s ratio in 2025 is one for every 260,000 people.

Internal Affairs Minister Fujii Hisayuki also acknowledged that in terms of the number of parliamentary seats, Japan ranks 36th among the 38 OECD member countries.

Shiokawa argued that reducing the number of lawmakers will weaken the Diet’s important role of overseeing the administration, and demanded that the number of seats be restored to the previous 500.