{"id":7206,"date":"2010-07-12T12:39:41","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T03:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=7206"},"modified":"2010-07-16T13:20:47","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T04:20:47","slug":"thoughts-on-goj-upper-house-election-july-11-2010-a-dpj-loss-but-not-a-rout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=7206","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on GOJ Upper House Election July 11, 2010: A DPJ loss, but not a rout, regardless of what the media says."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Handbook<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"Foreign<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"JAPANESE<\/a>\"sourstrawberriesavatar\"<\/a>\"debitopodcastthumb\"<\/a>
\nUPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
\nDEBITO.ORG PODCASTS now on iTunes, subscribe free<\/p>\n

Hi Blog. As Debito.org does every election (see some past entries here<\/a> and here<\/a>), we offer our assessment of what happened. All information is gleaned from the newspapers (Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri, and Doshin) that came out the next morning, with some analysis from looking at the hard numbers. I am not a politico or insider, just somebody with a healthy interest in the democratic process in Japan, putting his undergraduate Government degree to work:<\/p>\n

THE GOAL OF THIS ELECTION FOR THE RULING DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF JAPAN (DPJ)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Upper House of Japan’s Diet (parliament) has a total of 242 seats. Half the UH gets elected every three years, meaning 121 seats were being contested this time. Of the ones not being contested, the ruling DPJ, which has held the majority of UH seats (through a coalition with another party) since 2007, had the goal of keeping that majority.\u00a0 To do that, the DPJ had to win 55 seats plus one this time (since they already had 66 seats not being contested this election). The opposition parties (there are many, see below) had the goal of gaining 66 seats plus one (since 55 of theirs were not being contested this election) to take the UH majority back. Here’s how the numbers fell this morning after yesterday’s election:<\/p>\n

DPJ won 44 (while their coalition partner lost all of theirs).
\nNon-DPJ won 77.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Totals now come up to 106 (a loss of ten) seats for the DPJ, meaning they lost their absolute Upper House majority, thanks to a coalition partner party (Kokumin Shintou) losing all their contested seats (three).\u00a0 Thus the DPJ lost control of the Upper House.<\/p>\n

However, this does not mean that somebody else assumes power of it.\u00a0 Nobody is close to forming a Upper House majority, meaning there will be some coalition work from now on. Breaking down the numbers:<\/p>\n