Reform measures, as long as they are superficial, cannot win over the people. The ruling and opposition parties need to seriously acknowledge that they failed to realize a drastic reform of the House of Councillors election system.
A bill to revise the Public Offices Election Law -- submitted by the Liberal Democratic Party and a group of independent lawmakers -- has been passed by the upper house and sent to the House of Representatives. The bill was also approved by Komeito. It will most likely be enacted during the current session of the Diet.
For the revised law to be applied beginning from an upper house election scheduled for next summer, the LDP seemed to hasten the legislation, considering that a period of time is required for making the law known among the people.
The revised Public Offices Election Law, enacted in 2015, stated in a supplementary provision that "a conclusion will be drawn" on drastic reforms. The LDP, however, abruptly submitted a revision bill that is advantageous to itself about one year ahead of the upper house election and is trying to realize the legislation, a move regarded as questionable.
The revision bill is nothing but a stopgap measure and does not deserve to be called reform.
An especially problematic point is that the revision bill calls for introducing a special quota for candidates who can be elected preferentially in part of the proportional representation election.
Under the current open-list voting system, successful candidates are decided in the order of the number of votes gained in the names of individual candidates. Under the revision bill, however, whether to set a special quota and how many candidates to field in the quota would be left to the judgment of individual parties. It would be possible for them to decide on the order of almost all candidates. In that case, it would amount to a de facto closed-list system of voting.
The possible mixed existence of two systems is hard for voters to understand. Individual parties and election administration commissions should work toward making the revised system thoroughly known among the people to avoid confusion.
Consensus-building vital
The LDP intends to use the planned special quota system to salvage its incumbent lawmakers who will not be able run in the combined Tottori-Shimane and Tokushima-Kochi prefectural constituencies.
It is understandable that there is strong discontent in the prefectures to be combined for creating one constituency that "it has become difficult for local voices to be reflected in national politics." But an attempt to resolve issues left pending for elections in constituencies by reforming the proportional representation election system cannot evade criticism that it is motivated by partisan interest.
Introduction of a special quota might rather result in the entrenchment of combined prefectural constituencies.
The revision bill calls for increasing the number of seats in the Saitama prefectural constituency by two for the purpose of rectifying the vote-value disparity. Due to this reform, the disparity that stood at a maximum of 3.08 to 1 in the 2016 upper house election would drop to less than 3 to 1.
An upper house election is held every three years for reelection of half of its seats. Therefore, at least two seats must be allocated to each constituency. There is a limit to what can be done to correct vote-value disparities while maintaining the current number of total seats in the upper house. So it is unavoidable that the LDP has decided to increase the number of upper house seats.
Affected by the confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties, the prospects of a drastic reform have yet to be ascertained. The ruling and opposition parties should be severely aware that if an electoral system with many problematic points is left unaddressed, the raison d'etre of the upper house will be called into question.
The LDP is compiling a constitutional revision proposal aimed at dissolving combined constituencies. Komeito and Nippon Ishin no Kai separately insist on the introduction of a large constituency system under which the nation's constituencies are divided into 11 blocs.
The parties should make efforts to form a consensus by deepening open discussions.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, July 13, 2018)
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