Photo/Illutration Voters listen to a speech of a candidate in a by-election for the Upper House’s Tokushima-Kochi electoral district in Tokushima on Oct. 5. (Nobuhiro Shirai)

A candidate backed by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan has a slight lead over a rival fielded by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in an Upper House by-election on the main island of Shikoku, an Asahi Shimbun analysis shows.

But the race between the LDP and the CDP in a by-election for the Lower House’s Nagasaki No. 4 district appears too close to call, according to an Oct. 14-15 Asahi Shimbun survey and the newspaper’s reporting.

The two by-elections scheduled for Oct. 22 are both one-on-one contests.

And about 40 percent of voters in both electoral districts have apparently not made up their minds about which candidate to vote for, according to the survey.

THE UPPER HOUSE

In the Upper House by-election in Tokushima-Kochi electoral district, Hajime Hirota, 55, an independent backed by the CDP, is competing against Ken Nishiuchi, 56, an LDP candidate.

Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and the Japanese Communist Party did not put up their own candidates, making Hirota the only opposition contender.

According to the Asahi Shimbun analysis, Hirota, who served in both the lower and upper chambers of the Diet, has won over supporters of the CDP, the JCP and Nippon Ishin as well as 80 percent of unaffiliated voters.

Nishiuchi, on the other hand, has secured nearly 80 percent of LDP supporters but only 20 percent of unaffiliated voters.

The by-election was called after the LDP’s Kojiro Takano resigned from the Diet over violence against one of his aides.

THE LOWER HOUSE

In the Lower House by-election in Nagasaki Prefecture, Yozo Kaneko, 40, an LDP candidate, and Seiichi Suetsugu, 60, a former CDP Lower House member, are vying for the seat vacated by the death of the LDP’s Seigo Kitamura.

The Asahi Shimbun analysis showed that Kaneko is backed by nearly 80 percent of LDP supporters and 30 percent of unaffiliated voters, particularly those in their 60s.

Suetsugu has secured almost all CDP supporters and nearly 70 percent of unaffiliated voters.

Suetsugu, who lost to Kitamura in the 2021 Lower House election, gained a seat through the proportional representation portion of the election.

He gave up that seat to run in the by-election.

The Asahi Shimbun survey was conducted through calls to randomly generated fixed telephone numbers.

In the Lower House’s Nagasaki No. 4 district, 572 valid responses, or 52 percent of the total, were received.

In the Upper House’s Tokushima-Kochi electoral district, 986 valid responses, or 53 percent of the total, were received.

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