68 Women Elected to Japan’s Lower House, 2nd Highest on Record

Tokyo, Feb. 9 (Jiji Press)–Sixty-eight women were elected to Japan’s House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, in Sunday’s vote, the second highest figure. Women accounted for 14.6 pct of successful candidates, also the second highest on record. The previous Lower House election in 2024 saw the highest number of successful female candidates, at 73, and the highest proportion of female winners, at 15.7 pct. In the latest election, 21.7 pct of female candidates won seats. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party had the largest number of women who clinched seats, at 39, followed by the Centrist Reform Alliance, the Democratic Party for the People and Sanseito, all at eight. Team Mirai and the Japanese Communist Party had two successful female candidates each, while the Japan Innovation Party saw one female candidate elected. The number of female candidates who were elected for the first time came to 27–15 from the LDP, six from Sanseito, three from the DPFP, two from Team Mirai and one from the Centrist Reform Alliance. LDP’s Hikaru Fujita, who announced her pregnancy just before the start of the campaign period, won her first term. The Centrist Reform Alliance’s Eri Igarashi, who gave birth in October, failed to retain her seat. Women accounted for a record 24.4 pct of all candidates, still short of the government’s goal of raising the proportion of female candidates in a Lower House election to 35 pct by 2025. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]