Amid stalled efforts to promote the participation of women in national politics, opposition parties are considering submitting a draft bill to establish a gender quota for candidates, while the Liberal Democratic Party is focusing on fostering female candidates rather than introducing legislation.
With women comprising only 9.9 percent of the lower house, Japan ranks 166th among 193 countries, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
A law enacted in May 2018 to promote gender equality in politics, which was led by a bipartisan alliance of lawmakers, calls on political parties to field an equal number of male and female candidates in elections.
However, a senior opposition party member has said the law "is not very effective as it is not legally binding and lacks a penalty clause."
The opposition bloc is considering a bill amendment that would include a gender quota and system to allocate political subsidies based on the number of female candidates, among other measures.
But many LDP members are reluctant to introduce a quota system or other mandatory measures in the law. "The decision is ultimately up to voters," a senior LDP member said.
Former Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Seiko Noda, who helped to pass the law, has also distanced herself from a swift introduction of a quota.
"Fostering many female candidates is something we should do first," she said.
Opposition parties can easily field women who are first-time candidates as there are many constituencies for which they have not yet chosen candidates. However, the reason why there are fewer opportunities for women in LDP is that many incumbents get official nominations. Another reason is that when an incumbent candidate retires, they often choose their own successor by themselves, sometimes selecting relatives.
These reasons might explain the difference in stance between the ruling and opposition parties.
Hakubun Shimomura, chairman of the LDP's Election Strategy Committee, said last month he wants 30 percent of the LDP candidates to be women in the future.
However, it is widely believed that there will be no significant improvement in the participation of women in the next House of Representatives election.
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