JIP Proposes Cutting 45 Lower House Proportional Representation Seats

Tokyo, April 24 (Jiji Press)–The Japan Innovation Party, the junior member of Japan’s ruling bloc, has proposed reducing House of Representatives seats by 45, all from the proportional representation system. The JIP presented the plan at a working-level meeting with the Liberal Democratic Party, which leads the coalition, on Thursday. The two parties aim to reduce the number of seats in the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, by 10 pct under their coalition agreement. At the meeting, the LDP, which is cautious about reducing only proportional representation seats, stopped short of submitting a specific idea while explaining its position of trying to realize a Lower House seat reduction through deliberations at an electoral system reform council between the ruling and opposition camps. It was the first LDP-JIP working-level meeting on the envisaged Lower House seat reduction since the Feb. 8 general election, in which the two parties together won three-fourths of the chamber’s 465 seats. Of the total, 289 are single-seat constituency seats, and 176 are proportional representation seats. Thursday’s meeting was attended by those including Katsunobu Kato, chairman of the LDP’s Headquarters for Political System Reform, and Yasuto Urano, acting head of the JIP’s election strategy committee. “First of all, we should fully focus on discussions at the ruling-opposition council,” Kato told reporters after the meeting. The JIP last October agreed with the LDP to form a ruling coalition on condition that a cut in the number of Lower House seats is achieved without fail. LDP lawmakers, mainly those elected under the proportional representation system, are cautious about a reduction in Lower House seats. On Tuesday, the LDP kicked off internal discussions on reforms of the electoral system. But the party is set to put priority on working out a draft reform plan for the entire election system while effectively postponing debates on cutting the number of Lower House seats. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]