Japan’s LDP Mulls Cutting 45 Lower House PR Seats

Tokyo, June 4 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is considering cutting 45 proportional representation seats in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, a senior LDP official said Thursday. At a meeting of the LDP’s Headquarters for Political System Reform, LDP Secretary-General Shunichi Suzuki said that Prime Minister and LDP President Sanae Takaichi had instructed him to build consensus within the party on reducing Lower House seats through cuts to proportional representation seats. “There are concerns that local voices could be lost amid population decline,” Suzuki also said. “I would like to invite discussion on cutting 45 proportional representation seats,” he said. During an extraordinary Diet session last year, the LDP and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, jointly submitted a bill to reduce the number of Lower House single-seat constituencies by 25 and proportional representation seats by 20, based on their agreement to reduce the lower chamber’s 465 seats by about 10 pct. Bu the bill was scrapped after the dissolution of the Lower House in January this year. The JIP later called on the LDP to cut 45 Lower House proportional representation seats. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]