Shrinking Lower House by 45 seats to hit smaller parties hard

JAPAN / Politics

Shrinking Lower House by 45 seats to hit smaller parties hard

Kazuhiko Shigetoku (third from right), Lower House parliamentary affairs chief of the Centrist Reform Alliance, and other members submit a request to Shunichi Yamaguchi (center), chair of the Committee on Rules and Administration, regarding a bill to reduce the number of seats in the House of Representatives, at the parliament building in Tokyo on Thursday. | JIJI

JIJI

Jun 28, 2026

A cut of 45 House of Representatives proportional representation seats pushed by the ruling coalition will severely affect smaller opposition parties, an estimate shows.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, have recently submitted to parliament a bill on a reduction in seats allocated to the proportional representation format of the all-important lower chamber.

Under the bill, the number of Lower House proportional representation seats would be cut by 45 automatically, from 176 to 131, if a ruling-opposition council to be set up under the Lower House speaker fails to reach a conclusion on electoral reform measures including a reduction in Lower House seats within a year.