House of Councillors (Japan)

House of Councillors
; House of Councillors ; ; .mw-parser-output .noitalic{font-style:normal}; .mw-parser-output .nobold{font-weight:normal}; 参議院; ; ; Sangiin;
Type
Type	; Upper house
Leadership
President	; Chūichi Date, LDP (caucus: independent) ; Since 1 August 2016
Vice President	; Akira Gunji, Independent ; Since 1 August 2016
Structure
Seats	242
Political groups	; ; Government (151); ; ; LDP–PJK (126); ; Kōmeitō (25); Opposition (91); ; ; DPFP (24); ; CDP (23); ; JCP (14); ; Ishin (11); ; SDP–LP (6); ; Kibo (3); ; Energize (2); ; Okinawa Whirlwind (2); ; Independents (6);
Elections
Voting system	; Parallel voting:; Single non-transferable vote (146 seats); Party-list proportional representation (96 seats); Staggered elections;
Last election	10 July 2016
Next election	July 2019
Meeting place
	Chamber of the House of Councillors
Website
	www.sangiin.go.jp

Coordinates: 35°40′35.5″N 139°44′40.5″E / 35.676528°N 139.744583°E / 35.676528; 139.744583

The House of Councillors (参議院, Sangiin) is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, or designation of the prime minister, the House of Representatives can insist on its decision. In other decisions, the House of Representatives can override a vote of the House of Councillors only by a two-thirds majority of members present.

The House of Councillors has 242 members who each serve six-year terms, two years longer than those of the House of Representatives. Councillors must be at least 30 years old, compared with 25 years old in the House of Representatives. The House cannot be dissolved, as only half of its membership is elected at each election. Of the 121 members subject to election each time, 73 are elected from the 47 prefectural districts (by single non-transferable vote) and 48 are elected from a nationwide list by proportional representation with open lists.^[1]

Current composition[edit]

(as of 23 October 2018 [before opening of 197th Diet])^[2]

Caucus (English name) (domestic name)		Members
		Term expires		Total
		July 25, 2022	July 28, 2019	Total
	TBD Jiyūminshutō・Kokumin no Koe (Liberal Democratic Party, Voice of the People)	57	69	126
	Komeito Kōmeitō (~"Justice/Fairness Party")	14	11	25
	Constitutional Democratic Party and the Minyūkai Rikkenminshutō・Minyūkai	16	8	24
	The Democratic Party for the People and the Shin-Ryokufukai Kokumin-minshutō・Shin-Ryokufūkai	14	9	23
	Japanese Communist Party Nihon Kyōsantō	6	8	14
	Nippon Ishin no Kai (~"Japan Innovation/Restoration Association")	6	5	11
	Hope Coalition Kibō no kai (jiyū, shamin) (~"Assembly of Hope (LP, SDP)")	4	2	6
	Kibō no Tō (~"Party of Hope")	0	3	3
	Independents Club Mushozoku kurabu	0	2	2
	Okinawa Whirlwind Okinawa no kaze (~"Wind of Okinawa")	1	1	2
	Independents (Members who do not sit with a caucus, includes Pres., Vice Pres.)	3	3	6
Total		121	121	242

For a list of individual members, see the List of members of the Diet of Japan.

Latest election[edit]

e • d Summary of the 10 July 2016 Japanese House of Councillors election results^[3]^[4]^[5]
Party				Pre-election			SNTV/FPTP majoritarian			D'Hondt proportional			Seats won	New total	Change from
Party				Total	Not up	Up	Votes^[6]	%	Seats	Votes^[6]	%	Seats	Seats won	New total	Before	2013	2010
	Ruling parties			135	76	59							69	145	+10	+10	+42
		Liberal Democratic Party	LDP	115	65	50	22,590,793	39.94 %	36	20,114,788	35.91 %	19	55	120	+5	+5	+36
		Komeito	K	20	11	9	4,263,422	7.54 %	7	7,572,960	13.52 %	7	14	25	+5	+5	+6
	Revisionist opposition parties			10	8	2							7	15	+5	(new +15) +6 from JRP	(new +15)
		Initiatives from Osaka		7	5	2	3,303,419	5.84 %	3	5,153,584	9.20 %	4	7	12	+5	(new +12)	(new +12)
		Party for Japanese Kokoro		3	3	0	535,517	0.95 %	0	734,024	1.31 %	0	0	3	0	(new +3)	(new +3) 0 from SPJ
	Anti-revisionist opposition parties (joint nominations in single-member districts)			79	27	52							40	67	-12	n/a	n/a
		Democratic Party	DP	62	17	45	14,215,956	25.14 %	21	11,751,015	20.98 %	11	32	49	-13	(new +49) -10 from DPJ	(new +49) -57 from DPJ
		Japanese Communist Party	JCP	11	8	3	4,103,514	7.26 %	1	6,016,195	10.74 %	5	6	14	+3	+3	+8
		People's Life Party	PLP	3	1	2	not contested independently			1,067,301	1.91 %	1	1	2	-1	-1	(new +2)
		Social Democratic Party	SDP	3	1	2	289,899	0.51 %	0	1,536,239	2.74 %	1	1	2	-1	-1	-2
	New Renaissance Party		NRP	2	0	2	60,431	0.11 %	0	580,653	1.04 %	0	0	0	-2	-1	-1
	Happiness Realization Party		HRP	0	0	0	963,585	1.70 %	0	366,815	0.65 %	0	0	0	0	0	-1
	Seitō shiji nashi ("no party supported")			0	0	0	127,367	0.23 %	0	647,071	1.16 %	0	0	0	0	(new 0)	(new 0)
	Angry voice of the people			0	0	0	82,357	0.15 %	0	466,706	0.83 %	0	0	0	0	(new 0)	(new 0)
	Others			0	0	0	279,681	0.49 %	0	not contested			0	0	n/a	n/a	n/a
	Assembly to Energize Japan		AEJ	3	2	1	not contested						0	2	-1	(new +2) -16 from YP	(new +2) -9 from YP
	Okinawa Social Mass Party		OSMP	1	1	0	not contested						0	1	0	0	0
	Independents (incl. some joint opposition-endorsed "independents" & 1 successful LDP-endorsed "independent")			11	7	4	5,739,452	10.15 %	5	n/a			5	12	+1	+9	+10
Total (valid votes)				241	121	120	56,555,393	100.00 %	73	56,007,353	100.00 %	48	121	242	+1 (vacant)	0	0
Turnout out of 106,202,873 eligible voters							58,094,005	54.70 %		58,085,678	54.69 %

Historical notes[edit]

Article 102 of the Japanese Constitution provided that half of the councillors elected in the first House of Councillors election in 1947 would be up for re-election three years later in order to introduce staggered six-year terms.

The House initially had 250 seats. Two seats were added to the House in 1970 after the agreement on the repatriation of Okinawa, increasing the House to a total of 252.^[7] Legislation aimed at addressing malapportionment that favoured less-populated prefectures was introduced in 2000; this resulted in ten seats being removed (five each at the 2001 and 2004 elections), bringing the total number of seats to 242.^[7] Further reforms to address malapportinoment took effect in 2007 and 2016, but did not change the total number of members in the house.^[7]

From 1947 to 1983, the House had 100 seats allocated to a national block (全国区, zenkoku-ku), of which fifty seats were allocated in each election.^[7] It was originally intended to give nationally prominent figures a route to the House without going through local electioneering processes.^{[citation needed]} Some national political figures, such as feminists Shidzue Katō and Fusae Ichikawa and former Imperial Army general Kazushige Ugaki, were elected through the block, along with a number of celebrities such as comedian Yukio Aoshima (later Governor of Tokyo), journalist Hideo Den and actress Yūko Mochizuki.^{[citation needed]}Shintaro Ishihara won a record 3 million votes in the national block in the 1968 election.^{[citation needed]} The national block was last seen in the 1980 election and was replaced with a nationwide proportional representation block in the 1983 election.^[7] The national proportional representation block was reduced to 96 members in the 2000 reforms.^[7]

References[edit]

Specific

^ Hayes 2009, p. 50

^ House of Councillors: Members Strength of the Political Groups in the House (only caucus totals and female members; full Japanese version partitioned by class/end of term and election segment 会派別所属議員数一覧)

^ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: Results of the 24th regular election of members of the House of Councillors (in Japanese)

^ Yomiuri Shimbun: 2016 election results

^ Asahi Shimbun: 2016 election results

^ ^a^b Decimals from proportionate fractional votes (按分票 anbunhyō) rounded to full numbers

^ ^a^b^c^d^e^f "参議院議員選挙制度の変遷" [Changes to the electoral system of the House of Councillors] (in Japanese). Retrieved 12 December 2016..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}

Bibliography

Hayes, L. D., 2009. Introduction to Japanese Politics. 5th ed. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
ISBN 978-0-7656-2279-2

External links[edit]

House of Councillors Website (in English)

House of Councillors internet TV - Official site (in Japanese)

[1] Hayes 2009, p. 50

[2] House of Councillors: Members Strength of the Political Groups in the House (only caucus totals and female members; full Japanese version partitioned by class/end of term and election segment 会派別所属議員数一覧)

[3] Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: Results of the 24th regular election of members of the House of Councillors (in Japanese)

[4] Yomiuri Shimbun: 2016 election results

[5] Asahi Shimbun: 2016 election results

[anbun-6] Decimals from proportionate fractional votes (按分票 anbunhyō) rounded to full numbers

[history-7] "参議院議員選挙制度の変遷" [Changes to the electoral system of the House of Councillors] (in Japanese). Retrieved 12 December 2016..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}

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