2010 Japanese House of Councillors election

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House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on July 11, 2010. In the previous elections in 2007 the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had lost its majority to the Democratic Party (DPJ), which managed to gain the largest margin since its formation in 1996.^[1] The House of Councillors is elected by halves to six-year terms. The seats up for election in 2010 were last contested in the 2004 election.

Quick facts 121 of the 242 seats in the House of Councillors 122 seats needed for a majority, First party ...

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July 11, 2010

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121 of the 242 seats in the House of Councillors
122 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Naoto Kan	Sadakazu Tanigaki	Natsuo Yamaguchi
Party	Democratic	LDP	Komeito
Last election	109 seats	83 seats	20 seats
Seats won	44	51	9
Seats after	106	84	19
Seat change	3	1	1
Constituency vote	22,756,000	19,496,083	2,265,818
% and swing	38.97% (1.48pp)	33.38% (2.03pp)	3.88% (2.08pp)
National vote	18,450,139	14,071,671	7,639,433
% and swing	31.56% (7.92pp)	24.07% (4.01pp)	13.07% (0.11pp)

	Fourth party	Fifth party	Sixth party

Leader	Yoshimi Watanabe	Kazuo Shii	Mizuho Fukushima
Party	Your	JCP	Social Democratic
Last election	Did not exist	7 seats	5 seats
Seats won	10	3	2
Seats after	11	6	4
Seat change	New	1	1
Constituency vote	5,977,391	4,256,400	602,684
% and swing	10.24% (New)	7.29% (1.41pp)	1.03% (1.25pp)
National vote	7,943,649	3,563,557	2,242,735
% and swing	13.59% (New)	6.10% (1.38pp)	3.84% (0.63pp)

	Seventh party	Eighth party	Ninth party

Leader	Takeo Hiranuma	Shizuka Kamei	Yōichi Masuzoe
Party	Sunrise	People's New	New Renaissance
Last election	Did not exist	4 seats, 2.2%	Did not exist
Seats won	1	0	1
Seats after	3	3	2
Seat change	New	1	New
Constituency vote	328,475	167,555	625,431
% and swing	0.56% (New)	0.29% (1.58pp)	1.07% (New)
National vote	1,232,207	1,000,036	1,172,395
% and swing	2.11% (New)	1.71% (0.44pp)	2.01% (New)

Constituency and proportional representation (bottom right) election result

President of the House of Councillors before election

Satsuki Eda
Democratic

Elected President of the House of Councillors

Takeo Nishioka
Democratic

Background

On 11 June 2008, a non-binding censure motion was passed by parliament's opposition-controlled House of Councillors against then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Filed by the DPJ and two other parties, it was the first censure motion against a prime minister under Japan's post-war constitution. Ahead of the G8 summit, it attacked his handling of domestic issues including an unpopular medical plan and called for a snap election or his resignation. On 12 June a motion of confidence was passed by the lower house's ruling coalition to counter the censure.^[2]^[3]^[4] Fukuda abruptly announced he was retiring as leader. Taro Aso won the subsequent election, which was held on 22 September 2008.^[5]

In the 2009 lower house election, the DPJ gained an historic majority, being the first non-LDP party to hold a majority in that house since the LDP's formation^[6] and is scheduled to lead the second non-LDP government in the aforementioned time period (with upper house allies the Social Democratic Party of Japan and the People's New Party^[7]). Following the election, Aso resigned as LDP president. Sadakazu Tanigaki was elected the leader of LDP on September 28, 2009.^[8]

The House of Councillors election in 2010 was viewed as potentially leading to the extinction of the LDP. Some of the LDP's most popular councillors, such as Yoichi Masuzoe and Kaoru Yosano, left the party prior to the election. However, the DPJ's popularity had been negatively impacted by fundraising scandals surrounding its president Yukio Hatoyama and secretary general Ichiro Ozawa, both of whom resigned on June 2, 2010. Naoto Kan became prime minister after Hatoyama's resignation and proposed a controversial increase in the consumption tax to shore up Japanese public finances. The campaign season was only three weeks long, which frustrated efforts to have policy debates between the two major parties and the numerous third parties in the election.^[9]

Pre-election composition

↓
66	44	7	9	10	51	55
Coalition seats not up	DPJ seats up	O	NK	YP	LDP seats up	Opposition seats not up

Results

The result of the election was declared on July 12, 2010. The ruling DPJ lost many of its seats and the opposition LDP gained more seats in comparison to the last election, held in 2007. Your Party performed well in this election, while the DPJ's junior coalition partner, the People's New Party, performed poorly.^[10]

More information Party, National ...



Party		National			Constituency			Seats
Party		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Not up	Won	Total after	+/–
	Democratic Party of Japan	18,450,139	31.56	16	22,756,000	38.97	28	62	44	106	–3
	Liberal Democratic Party	14,071,671	24.07	12	19,496,083	33.38	39	33	51	84	+1
	Your Party	7,943,649	13.59	7	5,977,391	10.24	3	1	10	11	New
	New Komeito Party	7,639,433	13.07	6	2,265,818	3.88	3	10	9	19	–1
	Japanese Communist Party	3,563,557	6.10	3	4,256,400	7.29	0	3	3	6	–1
	Social Democratic Party	2,242,735	3.84	2	602,684	1.03	0	2	2	4	–1
	Sunrise Party	1,232,207	2.11	1	328,475	0.56	0	2	1	3	New
	New Renaissance Party	1,172,395	2.01	1	625,431	1.07	0	1	1	2	New
	People's New Party	1,000,036	1.71	0	167,555	0.29	0	3	0	3	–1
	Happiness Realization Party	229,026	0.39	0	291,810	0.50	0	1	0	1	New
	Spirit of Japan Party	493,620	0.84	0	296,697	0.51	0	0	0	0	New
	Women's Party	414,963	0.71	0				0	0	0	0
	Other parties				22,150	0.04	0	0	0	0	–
	Independents				1,314,313	2.25	0	3	0	3	–9
Total		58,453,431	100.00	48	58,400,807	100.00	73	121	121	242	0

Valid votes		58,453,996	97.02		58,400,808	96.92
Invalid/blank votes		1,793,766	2.98		1,853,292	3.08
Total votes		60,247,762	100.00		60,254,100	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		104,029,135	57.91		104,029,135	57.92
Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, National Diet

DPJ nomination strategy in multi-member districts

DPJ secretary-general Ichirō Ozawa had decided on an offensive strategy for nominating candidates in multi-member districts (MMDs): The DPJ was to nominate two candidates in all MMDs with the exceptions of Niigata where an SDP-affiliated independent incumbent was in the race and Fukuoka where a PNP incumbent sought reelection. This strategy was reaffirmed after Ozawa's resignation in June 2010^[11] even though the DPJ's support rate had significantly fallen by then and winning both seats in a SNTV two-member district requires a very high margin in terms of party votes and an equal distribution of votes on the two candidates.

The strategy failed: all two-member districts split seats evenly between DPJ and LDP in 2010. In some districts the party even risked losing both seats due to vote splitting,^[12] a danger that did not materialize in the election result.

The LDP on the other hand nominated only one candidate per MMD – exceptions being Miyagi, Chiba and Tokyo –, thus concentrating all LDP votes on one candidate.

The election results in MMDs gave 20 seats to the DPJ, 18 to the LDP, three to the Kōmeitō and three to Your Party. The only districts where the DPJ won two seats and an advantage in seats over the LDP were Tokyo (5 seats) where administrative reform minister Renhō received a record 1.7 million votes and Toshio Ogawa ranked fourth and DPJ stronghold Aichi (3 seats) where DPJ candidates only finished second and third behind LDP newcomer Masahito Fujikawa.

LDP gains

Part of the LDP victory were the results in the 29 single-member districts where the DPJ received roughly 7 million votes winning eight districts while the LDP received 8.25 million votes and 21 seats, among them seven pickups compared to the pre-election composition of the chamber:

Aomori, Akita, Tottori and Nagasaki from the DPJ
Kagawa and Tokushima from the NRP, both from former LDP members, and
Tochigi which had been a two-member district until 2010 with seats held by DPJ and NRP.

The LDP also gained seven additional seats in two-member districts, but exclusively seats it had previously lost by party switchovers or resignations:

in Hokkaidō from the Sunrise Party,
in Niigata where Naoki Tanaka had switched parties together with his wife Makiko from an SDP-affiliated independent,
in Gifu from an ex-LDP independent,
in Nagano a vacant seat previously held by the LDP,
in Hiroshima and Fukuoka from the PNP and
only in Shizuoka directly from the DPJ where the Democrats had held both seats up because of the resignation of Yukiko Sakamoto in 2009 and the DPJ's victory in the resulting by-election.

The vote in the districts with three (Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Aichi, Ōsaka) or five (Tōkyō) seats up went clearly to the DPJ with a 3.5 million vote edge over the LDP, but produced only a two-seat difference in the House of Councillors: the LDP won six, the DPJ eight seats.

If compared to the 2004 election when the same class of Councillors was last elected, the LDP only gained five prefectural district seats and lost three seats in the nationwide proportional representation.

Detailed results

Elected

More information Constituency, Previous members ...

Prefectural districts
Constituency	Previous members			Elected members			Votes	%	Status
Hokkaido & Tohoku
Hokkaido		Yoshio Nakagawa	SP		Gaku Hasegawa	LDP	948,267	34.3	LDP gain from SP
Hokkaido		Naoki Minezaki	DPJ		Eri Tokunaga	DPJ	708,523	25.6	DPJ hold
Aomori		Masami Tanabu	DPJ		Tsutomu Yamazaki	LDP	287,385	46.8	LDP gain from DPJ
Iwate		Ryo Shuhama	DPJ		Ryo Shuhama	DPJ	351,545	54.2	DPJ hold
Miyagi		Ichiro Ichikawa	Ind.		Yutaka Kumagai	LDP	265,343	26.8	LDP gain from Ind.
Miyagi		Mitsuru Sakurai	DPJ		Mitsuru Sakurai	DPJ	241,460	24.4	DPJ hold
Akita		Yoetsu Suzuki	DPJ		Hiroo Ishii	LDP	328,771	55.6	LDP gain from DPJ
Yamagata		Koichi Kishi	LDP		Koichi Kishi	LDP	263,987	43.6	LDP hold
Fukushima		Teruhiko Mashiko	DPJ		Teruhiko Mashiko	DPJ	340,947	34.4	DPJ hold
Fukushima		Mitsuhide Iwaki	LDP		Mitsuhide Iwaki	LDP	338,265	34.1	LDP hold
Kanto
Ibaraki		Hiroshi Okada	LDP		Hiroshi Okada	LDP	499,566	38.7	LDP hold
Ibaraki		Akira Gunji	DPJ		Akira Gunji	DPJ	307,022	23.8	DPJ hold
Tochigi		Susumu Yanase	DPJ		Michiko Ueno	LDP	499,566	38.7	LDP gain from DPJ
Tochigi		Tetsuro Yano	NRP	Seat abolished					NRP loss
Gunma		Hirofumi Nakasone	LDP		Hirofumi Nakasone	LDP	558,659	60.6	LDP hold
Gunma		Yukio Tomioka	DPJ	Seat abolished					DPJ loss
Saitama		Masakazu Sekiguchi	LDP		Masakazu Sekiguchi	LDP	655,028	20.6	LDP hold
		Makoto Nishida	Komei		Makoto Nishida	Komei	594,678	18.7	Komei hold
		Chiyako Shimada	DPJ		Motohiro Ōno	DPJ	557,298	17.5	DPJ hold
Chiba		Kazuyasu Shiina	LDP		Hiroyuki Konishi	LDP	545,632	20.2	LDP hold
		Wakako Hironaka	DPJ		Kuniko Inoguchi	DPJ	513,772	19.3	DPJ hold
	New seat				Kenichi Mizuno	YP	476,259	17.9	YP win
Tokyo		Renhō	DPJ		Renhō	DPJ	1,710,734	28.1	DPJ hold
		Yuji Sawa	Komei		Toshiko Takeya	Komei	806,862	13.2	Komei hold
		Masaharu Nakagawa	LDP		Masaharu Nakagawa	LDP	711,171	11.7	LDP hold
		Toshio Ogawa	DPJ		Toshio Ogawa	DPJ	696,672	11.4	DPJ hold
	New seat				Kota Matsuda	YP	656,029	10.8	YP win
Kanagawa		Akio Koizumi	LDP		Akio Koizumi	LDP	982,220	25.2	LDP hold
		Keiko Chiba	DPJ		Kenji Nakanishi	YP	788,729	20.2	YP gain from DPJ
		Yoichi Kaneko [ja]	DPJ		Yoichi Kaneko	DPJ	745,143	19.1	DPJ hold
Chubu
Niigata		Naoki Tanaka	DPJ		Naoki Tanaka	DPJ	439,289	37.9	DPJ hold
Niigata		Masamichi Kondo	Ind.		Yaichi Nakahara [ja]	LDP	412,217	35.5	LDP gain from Ind.
Toyama		Tsunenori Kawai	LDP		Kōtarō Nogami	LDP	322,739	56.2	LDP hold
Ishikawa		Naoki Okada	LDP		Naoki Okada	LDP	304,511	55.5	LDP hold
Fukui		Masaaki Yamazaki	LDP		Masaaki Yamazaki	LDP	212,605	51.2	LDP hold
Yamanashi		Azuma Koshiishi	DPJ		Azuma Koshiishi	DPJ	187,010	43.0	DPJ hold
Nagano		Vacant	LDP		Kenta Wakabayashi	LDP	293,539	26.4	LDP hold
Nagano		Toshimi Kitazawa	DPJ		Toshimi Kitazawa	DPJ	290,027	26.1	DPJ hold
Gifu		Iwao Matsuda	Ind.		Takeyuki Watanabe	LDP	425,594	44.0	LDP gain from Ind.
Gifu		Yasuo Yamashita	DPJ		Yoshiharu Komiyama [ja]	DPJ	229,225	23.7	DPJ hold
Shizuoka		Hirokazu Tsuchida [ja]	DPJ		Shigeki Iwai	LDP	554,459	32.3	LDP gain from DPJ
Shizuoka		Yuji Fujimoto	DPJ		Yuji Fujimoto	DPJ	485,507	28.2	DPJ hold
Aichi		Katsuhito Asano	LDP		Masahito Fujikawa	LDP	918,187	28.6	LDP hold
		Taisuke Sato	DPJ		Yoshitaka Saitō	DPJ	750,723	23.4	DPJ hold
		Yoshitake Kimata	DPJ		Misako Yasui	DPJ	676,681	21.1	DPJ hold
Mie		Hirokazu Shiba	DPJ		Hirokazu Shiba	DPJ	360,697	40.6	DPJ hold
Kansai
Shiga		Kumiko Hayashi	DPJ		Kumiko Hayashi	DPJ	317,756	48.6	DPJ hold
Kyoto		Tetsuro Fukuyama	DPJ		Tetsuro Fukuyama	DPJ	374,550	34.3	DPJ hold
Kyoto		Satoshi Ninoyu	LDP		Satoshi Ninoyu	LDP	308,296	28.2	LDP hold
Osaka		Eiichi Yamashita	Komei		Hirotaka Ishikawa	Komei	864,278	22.1	Komei hold
		Issei Kitagawa	LDP		Issei Kitagawa	LDP	706,986	18.1	LDP hold
		Motoyuki Odachi	DPJ		Motoyuki Odachi	DPJ	698,933	17.9	DPJ hold
Hyogo		Shinsuke Suematsu	LDP		Shinsuke Suematsu	LDP	694,459	29.4	LDP hold
Hyogo		Shunichi Mizuoka	DPJ		Shunichi Mizuoka	DPJ	515,541	21.8	DPJ hold
Nara		Kiyoshige Maekawa	DPJ		Kiyoshige Maekawa	DPJ	308,490	47.6	DPJ hold
Wakayama		Yōsuke Tsuruho	LDP		Yōsuke Tsuruho	LDP	273,960	56.8	LDP hold
Chugoku
Tottori		Kotaro Tamura	DPJ		Kazuyuki Hamada	LDP	158,445	50.8	LDP gain from DPJ
Shimane		Mikio Aoki	LDP		Kazuhiko Aoki	LDP	222,448	52.9	LDP hold
Okayama		Satsuki Eda	DPJ		Satsuki Eda	DPJ	474,280	54.8	DPJ hold
Hiroshima		Ikuo Kamei	PNP		Yoichi Miyazawa	LDP	547,845	45.5	LDP gain from PNP
Hiroshima		Minoru Yanagida	DPJ		Minoru Yanagida	DPJ	295,276	24.5	DPJ hold
Yamaguchi		Nobuo Kishi	LDP		Nobuo Kishi	LDP	421,055	57.8	LDP hold
Shikoku
Tokushima		Masakatsu Koike	NRP		Yūsuke Nakanishi	LDP	142,763	38.3	LDP gain from NRP
Kagawa		Toshio Yamauchi	NRP		Yoshihiko Isozaki	LDP	236,134	51.4	LDP gain from NRP
Ehime		Junzo Yamamoto	LDP		Junzo Yamamoto	LDP	351,624	52.7	LDP hold
Kochi		Hajime Hirota	DPJ		Hajime Hirota	DPJ	137,306	37.5	DPJ hold
Kyushu & Okinawa
Fukuoka		Gotaro Yoshimura	PNP		Satoshi Ōie	LDP	774,618	35.3	LDP gain from PNP
Fukuoka		Tsutomu Okubo	DPJ		Tsutomu Okubo	DPJ	673,749	30.7	DPJ hold
Saga		Hiromi Iwanaga	LDP		Takamaro Fukuoka	LDP	256,673	60.5	LDP hold
Nagasaki		Tadashi Inuzuka	DPJ		Genjirō Kaneko	LDP	344,182	48.8	LDP gain from DPJ
Kumamoto		Yoshifumi Matsumura	LDP		Yoshifumi Matsumura	LDP	393,674	44.2	LDP hold
Oita		Shinya Adachi	DPJ		Shinya Adachi	DPJ	294,286	48.7	DPJ hold
Miyazaki		Shinpei Matsushita	LDP		Shinpei Matsushita	LDP	303,711	58.6	LDP hold
Kagoshima		Tetsuro Nomura	LDP		Tetsuro Nomura	LDP	437,740	55.0	LDP hold
Okinawa		Aiko Shimajiri	LDP		Aiko Shimajiri	LDP	258,946	47.6	LDP hold

More information Party, Votes ...

Proportional representation results
	Votes	Seats	Elected member	Pref. votes
DPJ	18,450,140 (31.6%)	16	Yoshifu Arita	373,834
			Ryoko Tani	352,594
			Masayuki Naoshima	207,821
			Masao Kobayashi	207,227
			Mitsuyoshi Yanagisawa	159,325
			Michihiro Ishibashi	150,113
			Shoji Namba [ja]	144,782
			Yataro Tsuda	143,048
			Masayoshi Nataniya	139,006
			Takashi Esaki	133,248
			Kenzo Fujisue	128,511
			Toshiyuki Kato	120,987
			Takeshi Maeda	118,248
			Kaoru Tashiro [ja]	113,468
			Shinkun Haku	111,376
			Masami Nishimura	100,932
LDP	14,071,671 (24.0%)	12	Satsuki Katayama	299,036
			Yukari Sato	278,312
			Eriko Yamatani	254,469
			Emiko Takagai	210,443
			Junko Mihara	168,342
			Hirohiko Nakamura	156,467
			Masashi Waki	148,779
			Motoyuki Fujii [ja]	145,771
			Kenji Kosaka	135,448
			Toshiei Mizuochi	131,657
			Takashi Uto	121,441
			Kiyomi Akaishi [ja]	108,258
YP	7,943,649 (13.6%)	7	Shibata Takumi	87,863
			Katsuhiko Eguchi [ja]	86,299
			Hiroshi Ueno [ja]	52,051
			Sukeshiro Terata	45,846
			Jiro Ono	43,012
			Shinji Oguma	37,222
			Fumiki Sakurauchi [ja]	37,191
Komei	7,639,432 (13.1%)	6	Kōzō Akino	836,120
			Hiroaki Nagasawa	630,775
			Shinichi Yokoyama	579,793
			Masaaki Taniai	544,217
			Masayoshi Hamada	503,177
			Kiyohiro Araki	457,700
JCP	3,563,556 (6.1%)	3	Tadayoshi Ichida	83,806
			Tomoko Tamura	45,668
			Mikishi Daimon	43,897
SDP	2,242,735 (3.8%)	2	Mizuho Fukushima	381,554
SDP	2,242,735 (3.8%)	2	Tadatomo Yoshida	130,745
SP	1,232,207 (2.1%)	1	Toranosuke Katayama	117,636
NRP	1,172,395 (2.0%)	1	Hiroyuki Arai	65,250

2010 Japanese House of Councillors election

Background

Pre-election composition

Results

DPJ nomination strategy in multi-member districts

LDP gains

Detailed results

References

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