Tokyo, Nov. 15 (Jiji Press)–Political jockeying over a bill to reduce the number of proportional representation seats in Japan’s House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, is expected to intensify. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, are aiming to launch Lower House deliberations on the bill as early as Tuesday and pass it through the chamber within this month. Opposition parties, except the Democratic Party for the People, are preparing to mount strong resistance to the bill. The expected standoff may affect deliberations in the Senate, the upper Diet chamber formerly called the House of Councillors, on a bill to cut the consumption tax rate on food and beverage products from 8 pct to 1 pct for two years from April 2027, leaving the ruling bloc struggling to manage the situation. In talks with reporters Friday, Keitaro Ono of the LDP, the ruling side’s leader of the board of the Lower House’s special committee on political reform, stressed his party’s intention to launch deliberations as soon as possible. The current extraordinary Diet session is scheduled to end Dec. 12. Some within the LDP have called for sending the seat cut bill to the upper chamber by Nov. 27, taking into account the fact that the ruling bloc lacks a majority in the chamber. However, the special committee already has three bills on a review of political donations from corporations and other organizations, which have been carried over into the current Diet session, and the ruling and opposition sides have yet to reach agreement on which legislation should be given priority. At a meeting of the special committee’s board on Friday, the ruling bloc proposed starting deliberations on the Lower House seat cut bill Monday after holding a vote on the political donation bills. The Chudo parliamentary group in the Lower House, mainly comprising the Democratic Reform Party and Komeito, both opposition parties, rejected the proposal, saying it would effectively bring discussions on reviewing political donations to an end. The ruling bloc plans to resume talks with opposition parties soon with the aim of beginning Lower House deliberations on the seat cut bill Tuesday. The bill mainly calls for shedding 31 of the 176 proportional representation seats in the 465-seat Lower House. Enacting the legislation during the current Diet session is nonnegotiable for the JIP, which has placed a seat reduction at the heart of its reform agenda since forming the ruling coalition with the LDP in October 2025. The ruling bloc agreed to measures including a plan to allow the creation of joint proportional representation candidate lists by multiple parties in order to woo the DPFP, and the three parties jointly submitted the bill to the Lower House on Thursday. Other opposition parties have strongly opposed the bill, with Komeito policy chief Hiromasa Nakano arguing that reducing only proportional representation seats would increase the number of wasted votes. Criticizing the ruling coalition for abandoning efforts to build consensus and voicing his determination to block the enactment of the bill, Democratic Reform Party chief Junya Ogawa said, “There are no rules that allow unilateral changes to the playing field (for democracy).” Some ruling bloc members have argued that they should not hesitate to force a vote if opposition parties refuse to cooperate. During the previous extraordinary Diet session that ended in July, however, opposition parties boycotted deliberations in protest against the ruling side’s referral of a similar seat reduction bill to a parliamentary committee, making Diet proceedings deadlocked. There are concerns that repeating the same mistake could jeopardize the passage of the consumption tax cut bill, which is currently under deliberation in the Senate. Yoshitaka Saito, Diet affairs chief of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, warned Friday that developments regarding deliberations on the seat reduction bill may impact talks on the tax cut bill. Some ruling coalition members envision enacting the consumption tax cut bill in early December and then pushing through the seat reduction bill before the current Diet session ends. But it is uncertain whether this could be achieved as a vote on the tax bill may be delayed. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
