Efforts to narrow the steep gap in the value of votes between constituencies in Upper House elections are going nowhere as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party remains unable to come up with a proposal due to internal discord that borders on personal recriminations between the party's top leaders in the chamber.
Lawmakers in the ruling and opposition parties should realize that time is running out before they can correct the imbalances — judged by courts to run counter to the constitutional principle of equality — in time for the next triennial election of the Upper House.
Last week, Kensei Mizote, head of the LDP's Upper House caucus, sacked Masashi Waki as secretary general of the caucus, effectively killing the proposal that Waki had earlier made for reform of the election system as head of the chamber's council on electoral reform.