Japan’s general election is scheduled for October 27 – Tokyo Review

As new Liberal Democratic Party leader Ishiba Shigeru is sworn in as prime minister on October 1 and announces his new cabinet, attention will now turn to the country’s upcoming general elections – Ishiba has confirmed he will hold them on Sunday 27 . October, wants to hold. These will be the first general elections in the country since October 2021, when Fumio Kishida called an early election shortly after taking office.

Although the election date has been set, the state parliament will continue its extraordinary session (an additional, shorter legislative session that normally takes place towards the end of the year and opened today to formally elect Ishiba as prime minister) until October 9. when the state parliament will be dissolved before the official start of the election campaign on October 15th. During this abbreviated parliamentary session, Ishiba will make his first general policy speech on October 4th and face his opposition colleagues for a question time with the heads of state and government on October 7th. All campaign activities must cease by midnight on October 26th. On election day, October 27th, any form of election campaigning is strictly prohibited.

The problems

This will be the first nationwide election since support for the LDP was rocked by a series of high-profile scandals and problems, particularly the party’s ties to the Unification Church and the involvement of many of its members and prominent factions in a “slush.” “Funds” scandal involving kickbacks and underreporting of political funds. Nonetheless, the party is not widely believed to be in danger of losing power, and LDP lawmakers hope that Ishiba’s public image as a principled and honest politician will help the party emerge from its scandals and prevent it from taking too many seats loses in the election.

While much of the election is likely to be fought around scandals and public trust, most voters are also concerned with everyday issues – soaring consumer prices, shortages of staples like rice and security concerns due to regional tensions are likely to come up again and again in the campaign.

The electoral system

All 465 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election, with 289 of the seats in single-member districts (SMDs) being elected using the first-past-the-post system. The remaining 176 seats are elected through proportional representation in 11 large regional constituencies.

At the polling station, voters are given two ballot papers, one for their local SMD constituency (where they vote for a single candidate) and one for their PR constituency (where they vote for a party). This means they are able to split their ballot if they wish – voting for one party’s candidate in their local district but for another party in the PR district.

It is not uncommon for candidates in SMDs to also be on their party’s PR list, allowing them to “resurrect” a PR seat even if they lose their SMD seat, provided the party itself receives enough votes to to make this possible.

The campaigns

The campaign for Japan’s general election is unusually short, with candidates having less than two weeks to make their case to voters. Campaigns for the Upper House (the house of councilors) take slightly longer, ostensibly because the constituencies are larger and therefore candidates need more time to discuss all the different areas, but campaigns in the Lower House only last 12 days. Of course, parties and candidates try to reach voters before official campaigns begin, but this short time frame and the Japanese Prime Minister’s extensive power to call early elections at any time have meant that opposition parties often do not have enough time to prepare a proper campaign before. On this occasion there is no such excuse for the opposition, as the likelihood of an election in October or November has been widely telegraphed for almost a year.

Once the election campaign begins, the candidates’ activities are severely restricted by strict electoral regulations. These determine what they are allowed to do, down to the details of how large their posters can be and how many cars can be used for election campaigns and how many people can speak at a campaign event. Political advertising in the media is strictly controlled, and until 2013, candidates were banned from using the Internet to campaign.

Visitors to Japan during election season often wonder how many sound trucks drive through urban areas from dawn to dusk, chanting candidate and party names from their loudspeakers. However, this is one of the very few public, high-profile campaign activities that candidates are actually allowed to undertake. Confirming candidates’ names in voters’ minds is a surprisingly important task for election campaigns, because Japanese ballot forms require voters to type in the name of their preferred candidate, not just check a box next to it.

The results

Vote counting generally occurs very quickly in Japanese elections, and most results are expected to be announced on the evening of October 15, with only a few seats requiring a recount or other special measures due to be announced on October 16 .

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