Photo/Illutration The Kagawa prefectural assembly’s hall in December (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

More than 25 percent of prefectural assembly seats across Japan were won unopposed in the last local elections, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed.

That means 24 million people, or more than 20 percent of all voters, were given no alternatives for their local representatives.

In single-seat constituencies, 216, assembly members, or more than half of the total, were elected uncontested.

The Asahi Shimbun sent questionnaires to 1,788 municipal and prefectural assemblies across Japan. It combined the results with statistics from the internal affairs ministry and the National Association of Chairpersons of Prefectural Assemblies on polls over the four years since the 2019 unified local elections. By-elections were not covered.

The questionnaires showed that 15.2 percent of members of municipal and prefectural assemblies were elected unopposed in the most recent votes.

A study of all 1,090 electoral districts for the 47 prefectural assemblies revealed that 684 candidates from 407, or 37.3 percent, of the constituencies won seats unopposed.

This amounted to 25.5 percent of all 2,679 prefectural assembly seats nationwide.

More than 40 percent of assembly members were elected unopposed in Gifu, Kagawa, Hiroshima, Kumamoto and Aichi prefectures.

In the 411 single-seat constituencies throughout Japan, 52.6 percent of those elected faced no rival candidates.

Prefectural assembly seats are allocated to cities, towns, villages and other areas. The number of representatives per electoral district is based on the population.

The uncontested election rate was higher for districts with fewer seats.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Reiko Oyama, a professor of political system studies at Komazawa University, said newcomers in single-seat districts are less likely to defeat incumbent assembly members with many supporters.

The low probability of victory is believed to be the main reason opposition politicians shy away from running in local elections.

Of the 216 candidates elected unopposed from single-seat constituencies, 187, or 86.6 percent, were endorsed, supported or recommended by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Unlike national elections, local assembly polls lack a mechanism of gaining a seat through proportional representation.

Oyama suggested a system where assembly seats are assigned based not on votes in specific areas but on the numbers for the entire prefecture.

She said her proposed framework would motivate more women and young people with relatively few supporters to compete in elections.

Simply reducing the number of single-seat constituencies is another potential step.

(This article was written by Amane Sugawara and Roppei Tsuda.)

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