The real winners of Japan?s election are the little guys? We think

Japan's third-party political groups have managed to splinter the balance of power. Picture: AP

As numbers from Sunday?s national election continue to be crunched, the actual popularity of the Shinzo Abe?s Liberal Democratic Party is coming into a harsh light.

Although the LDP claimed a landslide win of 237 seats, controlling almost 80 per cent of seats, the party won less than half of the total votes.

In other words, only 43 per cent of people voted for the LDP to win. Most people?s votes were divided between new third-force political parties like the Japan Restoration Party and Your Party Japan?s. But a system of first-past-the-post has allowed the LDP to take an overwhelming majority.

The Daily Yomiuri reports that in seven single-seat constituencies the LDP candidate won fewer cotes than the combined total of these third-force party candidates but the LDP candidate still won.

Japan?s House of Representatives is divided into two sections: 300 members are elected from single member constituencies and the other 180 are elected from multi-member constituencies by a party-list system of proportional representation.

Reuters reports that in the proportional representation blocks the LDP won only about 28 per cent of the votes compared to the Democratic Part of Japan?s (DPJ) 16 per cent.

The Daily Yomiuri again points out that this 28 per cent is close to the number of votes the LDP won in 2009 when it had an embarrassing loss to the DPJ ? the first time the DPJ had won in post war history. In 2009 the LDP held almost 27 per cent of the proportional representation bloc.

Political science professor at Sophia University, Koichi Nakanot told Reuters: ?It?s clear that only 30 percent or less of voters solidly support the LDP. Unless Abe is careful, his cabinet support will go down to that level very quickly and even with a two-thirds majority, he would be in trouble.?

That?s not to say that the DPJ is any less unpopular than previously thought. In the preoportional representation bloc, right-wing Japan Restoration Party now holds more seats that the DPJ, at 20 per cent.

The Daily Yomiuri reports that even among DPJ supporters, about 47 per cent said they cast ballots for a party other than the DPJ in the proportional representation system.

When they established themselves as a third-force, these new political parties aimed to counter the balance of power held by the LDP and DPJ. And this year?s election results show that they?ve achieved that goal quite dramatically.

The only problem is, from a grass roots level they?ve splintered political power throughout Japan, but it?s failed to make a difference from the top down.

This year, the combined number of votes for the LDP and DPJ is 43.6 per cent. The Daily Yomiuri shows that since 2003 the two parties have usually managed to capture around 70 per cent of votes, on average.

In contrast, in the Kinki-bloc in south-west Japan, the Japan Restoration Party won almost one third of the seats, even beating the LDP.

Of the other smaller parties, Your Party won 8.7 per cent of votes in the proportional representation blocs while the Tomorrow Party won 5.69 percent of votes cast in this category.

Source: http://asiancorrespondent.com/93868/the-real-winners-of-japans-election-are-the-little-guys-we-think/

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