Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, left, receives a recommendation for redrawing Lower House districts from Sadafumi Kawato, the chairman of the advisory panel, on June 16. (Koichi Ueda)

An advisory panel on June 16 proposed the largest-ever overhaul of Lower House districts to narrow the vote-value disparity that has created a “state of unconstitutionality” in national elections.

The proposal not only calls for adding 10 seats to five prefectures while taking away a seat each from 10 prefectures, but it also redraws districts in 10 other prefectures.

In total, 140 of the 289 single-seat districts will be affected.

The recommendations are intended to reduce the vote disparity to under 2 between the districts with the smallest and largest populations.

“My Cabinet will swiftly report the recommendations to the Diet as well as implement the necessary legislative measures,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said after accepting the recommendations from the panel.

Sources said the government plans to submit legislation to revise the Public Offices Election Law in the extraordinary Diet session that will likely be convened this autumn.

The new districts will take effect a month or so after the Diet passes the bill. During that time, the government will inform the public about the changes.

The reapportionment recommendations are based on the 2020 census figures, and seats are distributed to prefectures based on population differences.

In the Lower House elections held in 2009, 2012 and 2014, the vote disparity exceeded 2 times, and the Supreme Court ruled those elections were held in a “state of unconstitutionality.”

Under the recommendations, the difference in vote value between the Tottori No. 2 district, which had the smallest population in the 2020 census, and the Fukuoka No. 2 district, which had the largest population, comes to 1.999 times.

Tokyo would receive five additional seats, Kanagawa Prefecture would be given two more, and one additional seat each would go to Saitama, Chiba and Aichi prefectures.

The 10 prefectures that would lose a seat each are Miyagi, Fukushima, Niigata, Shiga, Wakayama, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Ehime and Nagasaki.

District boundaries were also redrawn in other prefectures to ensure the vote disparity did not exceed 2 in comparison with the district with the smallest population.

In addition, the lines were redrawn in six other prefectures to prevent municipalities from being separated into different districts.

There are 105 municipalities and wards around Japan that now are split up into different Lower House districts. The recommendations will do away with that problem for 75 municipalities.

The reapportionment proposal will represent a major headache for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. In four of the 10 prefectures that will lose a seat, the LDP currently holds all the seats.

The situation is extremely tense in Yamaguchi Prefecture. All four seats in the western Japan prefecture are held by LDP members, including three political bigwigs: former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi.

If the recommendations are implemented, one of the four Yamaguchi lawmakers may have to run in the proportional representation constituency.

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