Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Shikoku proportional representation block election, 2014

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit

The Shikoku proportional representation block was one of 11 multi-member districts (and 306 districts overall) that were contested at the general election for the House of Representatives in the Japanese National Diet on 14 December 2014. Six seats were available for election via open party lists. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) maintained their dominance in the predominantly rural area, claiming three of the seats.

Voters who participated in the election cast one ballot for the proportional block and a separate ballot for one of the 11 smaller single-member districts that are located within Shikoku. The number of single-member districts within Shikoku was reduced from the 13 districts that were contested at the previous election in 2012.

Results

Following on from the LDP landslide win at the 2012 general election, in which the party won 12 of the 13 electorates in Shikoku plus two of the six seats from the PR list, the LDP maintained their dominant position in the region by retaining all 10 of their electorates (two electorates were abolished to address voter malapportionment) and gaining a seat on the PR list from the dissolved Japan Restoration Party (JRP).

The JRP, which won 2 seats with 21.3% of the vote at the 2012 general election, had split in May 2014, with former members subsequently forming the Japan Innovation Party and Party for Future Generations. Of the two JRP members previously elected from the Shikoku PR list, Fumiki Sakurauchi joined the Party for Future Generations and contested the PR block in 2014, while Arata Nishioka contested the Ehime 2nd district as an independent; both candidates lost.

Former Ehime Prefectural Assembly member Hiroyuki Yokoyama the Japan Innovation Party's unsuccessful candidate in Ehime 2nd district, gained a seat for the new party, while the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and Komeito representatives were able to retain their seats.

References

Shikoku proportional representation block election, 2014 Wikipedia