LDP Resumes Internal Talks on Reducing Lower House Seats

Tokyo, March 6 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party resumed discussions Friday to reduce the number of seats in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, by 10 pct. The LDP held the first general meeting of its Headquarters for Political System Reform since the Feb. 8 Lower House election. The Japan Innovation Party, the coalition ally of the LDP, argues that only the number of Lower House seats under the proportional representation system should be cut, but some LDP members are still cautious. Against this background, participants in the general meeting merely reviewed past discussions without mentioning the JIP’s position. “Reducing the number of Lower House seats was written in the coalition agreement (with the JIP) and in the policy pledges for the election,” Katsunobu Kato, chairman of the LDP’s political system reform headquarters, said at the beginning of the meeting. Kato later told reporters that when to submit legislation necessary for the Lower House seat reduction would be decided after assessing progress on deliberations on the government’s fiscal 2026 draft budget. Last year, the LDP and the JIP introduced a bill to the Diet to automatically cut 25 constituency seats and 20 proportional representation seats if the ruling coalition and opposition parties failed to conclude discussions within a year. The bill was scrapped, however, as the Lower House was dissolved in January for a snap general election. The JIP has shown a policy of seeking support from the LDP to limit the scope of seats to be automatically reduced to those under the proportional representation system. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]