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 …
Tag: Kanagawa
Matsuzawa Shigefumi’s experiments
Working out in Kanagawa-ken , I had the opportunity to become familiar with Matsuzawa Shigefumi, Kanagawa's reformist DPJ-backed governor. Mr. Matsuzawa, who worked for former Congresswoman Beverly Byron (D-MD-6) when he was younger and won three elections to the House of Representatives before being elected governor of Kanagawa in 2003, is one of those Japanese …
Reading the local elections with an eye on July
I have held off from posting on the results of Sunday's local elections because I am not entirely sure what conclusion should be drawn.I think it would be a mistake to draw too-firm conclusions about the prospects for July's Upper House elections from the results.Is Ishihara's reelection a clear precursor of LDP victory in July? …
Continue reading Reading the local elections with an eye on July
Life in Japan’s grass roots
The Japan Times on Sunday ran a long profile of the American-born wife of a local politician in Kyoto, which provides an excellent account of Japanese local electoral politics.It pretty much confirms what I've seen over the past month. Electoral politics at all levels are low-tech affairs, for the most part lacking TV or internet …
Tobias S. Harris 