Photo/Illutration Yuichiro Tamaki, head of the Democratic Party for the People, leaves the venue where a news conference was held late on Oct. 27 as election results were still coming in. (Kazuhiro Nagashima)

The opposition Democratic Party for the People increased its seats fourfold in the Oct. 27 Lower House election but missed out on others due to a lack of candidates.

In the proportional representation segment of the North Kanto and Tokai regional blocs, the DPP won a total of five seats but it hadn't mustered a sufficient number of candidates on its party list.

As a result, the party conceded three seats, one each to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, its junior coalition partner Komeito and the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Although similar shortfalls occurred in the proportional representation segment of the Lower House elections in 2017 and 2021, it is rare for a single party to miss out on three seats.

In this election, multiple candidates from major opposition parties competed in 239 of the 289 single-seat districts nationwide, accounting for around 80 percent of the total.

Of these, opposition parties won 119 districts, while the ruling coalition secured 111, resulting in a nearly even split.

Some political pundits contend that competition among opposition candidates tends to benefit the ruling parties by splitting the vote.

But this time around, voter disgust with the LDP over a funding scandal led to the ruling coalition losing its majority in the Lower House.

“If the opposition camp had unified behind single candidates, there might have been a chance for a change in government,” said one successful DPP candidate.

Among the 46 districts in which LDP candidates involved in the scandal ran, only five saw direct head-to-head contests between the ruling and opposition parties.

“Not cooperating with the Japanese Communist Party and keeping a distance from it paid off,” said a senior official of the Rengo (Japanese Trade Union Confederation), which supports the CDP and DPP.

The official added that the centrist-conservative approach of CDP leader Yoshihiko Noda “helped draw in LDP supporters.”

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