This is the seventh installment in my general election guide. For an explanation of my purpose in making this guide, see here. For previous installments, see here, here, here, here, here, and here.The Tokai block, comprised of Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi, and Mie prefectures, is Japan's industrial heartland. Aichi, the fourth most populous prefecture, is home …
Continue reading Tokai, Japan’s industrial heartland — and a DPJ stronghold?
This is the sixth installment in my general election guide. For an explanation of my purpose in making this guide, see here. For previous installments, see here, here, here, here, and here.The Hokuriku-Shinetsu region, comprised of Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, and Nagano prefectures, has twenty single-member districts and eleven proportional representation seats.In 2005, opposition parties …
Continue reading Hokuriku-Shinetsu, favorable prospects for the DPJ
Tokyo, the center of Japanese political and economic life, is growing more than any other jurisdiction — mostly by drawing people from other prefectures — and sends forty-two representatives to the Diet between its twenty-five single-member districts and its seventeen proportional representation seats.The LDP won twenty-three of twenty-five SMDS in 2005, with Komeito and the …
The South Kanto regional block, comprised of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Yamanashi prefectures, sends thirty-four representatives to the Diet from single-member districts and another twenty-two through proportional representation. Yamanashi, with only three electoral districts, is an unusual fit alongside Kanagawa with its eighteen districts and Chiba with its thirteen. This block is densely urban: Kanagawa has …
Watanabe Yoshimi and Asao Keiichiro, who, along with Eda Kenji are the three "partners" at the head of the Minna no to (Your Party), gave a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan this afternoon to explain their purposes to the foreign press.The value of the talk was in providing information about how …
Continue reading "The DPJ that does not do any pork-barrel spending"
As the campaign has progressed, the DPJ has shown that it is willing to be flexible as far as its manifesto is concerned. While it has taken the work of building a manifesto that is the result of a consensus within the party — and which a DPJ government will give due consideration when formulating …
For an explanation of my purpose in making this guide, see here. For previous installments, see here and here.North Kanto is comprised of four prefectures to the north of Tokyo: Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, and Saitama. These prefectures have a total of thirty-two single-member districts, and the block has twenty proportional representation seats. Saitama is by …
With eight days until the campaign officially begins, the DPJ continues to hold a commanding position in public opinion polls.A recent Sankei/FNN poll found that the DPJ's approval rating as a party increased three points to 31%, compared with the LDP's 22%, the DPJ is the party of choice in PR voting for 44.6% of …
The Tohoku regional block is comprised of Aomori, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, Fukushima — and Iwate, Ozawa Ichiro's "fiefdom." These six prefectures combine to elect thirty-nine Diet members, twenty-five from single-member districts and fourteen from proportional representation. In 2005, the LDP won seventeen of twenty-five SMDs, with the DPJ taking seven and an independent winning the …
In 2005, the DPJ managed to win eight of twelve single-member districts in Hokkaido, while equaling the LDP with three of the block's eight proportional representation seats. By receiving three of eight seats, the DPJ in Hokkaido outperformed the DPJ nationwide, winning 33% of the vote and 37.5% of the seats, compared with 31.02% of …
Tobias S. Harris 