2005 Japanese general election: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:12, 18 September 2005

Revision as of 00:24, 19 September 2005

Line 3:

[[Japan]] held a nationwide election to the [[House of Representatives of Japan|House of Representatives]], the more powerful [[lower house]] of the [[Diet of Japan|National Diet]], on [[11 September]], [[2005]], about two years before the end of the term taken from the [[Japan general election, 2003|last election]] in [[2003]]. The then [[Prime Minister of Japan|Prime Minister]] [[Junichiro Koizumi]] called the election after bills to [[privatization|privatize]] [[Japan Post]] were voted down in the [[upper house]] (which cannot be dissolved), despite strong opposition within his own [[Liberal Democratic Party %28Japan%29]] (LDP).

The election handed a landslide victory to Koizumi's LDP, with the party winning 296 seats, the largest share in postwar politics; with its allycoalition partner, the ruling bloc now commands two-thirds of the seats in the lower house, allowing them to pass legislative bills without the consent of the upper house and to approve amendments to the [[Constitution of Japan|Constitution]], which are then submitted to the upper house and a national referendum. The opposition [[Democratic Party of Japan]] (DPJ), which advocated a change of government during campaign, suffered a devastating loss, winning only 113 seats against 175 seats it held going into the election. The setback led the DPJ leader [[Katsuya Okada]] to resign without a clear successor, and brought into question whether the party can remain a viable alternative to the conservative LDP in the next election after Koizumi's term ends.

The small parties made only small gains or losses, with Koizumi's ally, the [[New Clean Government Party]] falling slightly from 34 seats to 31. Of the new parties contesting the election, the [[New Party Japan]] fell from three seats to one, while the [[People's New Party]] was unchanged at four seats.