In dissolving the Lower House in mid-November, the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and the Democratic Party of Japan agreed to discuss election system reform for the Diet chamber and a reduction in the number of Lower House seats. But the talks among them are not making any progress.
They should start discussions at once to drastically change the election system because, under the current system, there is a great discrepancy between the number of votes a party could receive and the number of seats it could win. The current system combines single-seat constituencies and proportionally represented multi-seat constituencies.
There is a view that the LDP, which won overwhelmingly in the Dec. 16 Lower House election, has lost interest in electoral reform. No political party should evaluate the election system according to whether it can enjoy an advantage from it. An election system is for choosing representatives in a fair and rational manner.