The political parties will likely miss an important deadline in their efforts to reapportion Lower House seats. In March 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the August 2009 Lower House election was held unconstitutionally because of a large disparity in the value of one vote between depopulated rural areas and populated urban areas. Under a relevant law, Saturday is the deadline for the Lower House apportionment panel in the Cabinet Office to submit a reapportionment plan to the prime minister.
Regrettably, secretary generals of the ruling and opposition parties on Wednesday failed to reach consensus on reapportionment. This has made it impossible for the panel to meet the deadline for presenting its reapportionment plan. The parties should hurriedly finish the reapportionment work under the current election system.
In the current Lower House election system, 300 seats are distributed to single-seat constituencies and 180 seats for proportional representation. In the single-seat constituencies, one seat is given to each of the 47 prefectures first and then the remaining 253 seats are distributed in proportion to the prefectures' population. The top court pointed out that this system distorts an equitable distribution of seats.