The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday presented a compromise proposal to cut the number of proportional representation seats in the House of Representatives by 31. The new proposal was shown at a meeting among nine political parties on election system reform for the all-important lower chamber of parliament. The LDP and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, submitted to the special Diet session that ended in July a bill to automatically reduce the number of Lower House proportional representation seats by 45, or about 10% of all 465 seats in the chamber, unless the ruling and opposition parties reach agreement within a year.
The bill has been carried over for continued deliberation. The LDP hopes to reach a conclusion by the end of this month based on its latest proposal, but it remains to be seen if an agreement will be clinched. According to informed sources, the revised proposal is based on an assertion by the opposition Democratic Party for the People that it is reasonable to reduce seats to reflect a decline in the country’s population.
The ruling and opposition sides agreed recently that a conclusion would be reached by the end of this month on a reform based on the current system of combining single-seat constituencies and proportional representation seats, and that a third-party panel of experts would discuss an extensive overhaul.
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