Japan today held three central-level parliamentary by-elections to cast ballots, which is considered a pre-election outpost of the House of Representatives elections to be held before this fall, and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost all three elections, which is bound to affect the Kan government.
The three elections are the first central-level parliamentary election by-elections for the Kan government, which came to power in mid-September last year. The by-elections were for the Senate election in 2019, which was accompanied by the verdict of conviction for bribery in the Senate election, which led to the invalidation of the election of Kawai, resulting in the by-election for the Senate constituency of Hiroshima; the death of former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Yuichiro Haneda, who was diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), resulting in the by-election for the Senate constituency of Nagano; and the resignation of former Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Yoshikawa Takamori, who was prosecuted for accepting bribes, resulting in the by-election for the House of Representatives constituency of Hokkaido 2. The by-election for the second district of Hokkaido was held.
In the two senatorial by-elections, it was a duel between the opposition and the government; however, in the by-election for the House of Representatives, the LDP decided to “not lose the war” and did not nominate a candidate to contest.
The results of tonight’s vote, the senatorial by-election in the Hiroshima constituency, the opposition party cooperation (recommended by the Constitutional Democratic Party, National Democratic, Social Democratic Party) introduced a 45-year-old newcomer, former TV anchorwoman Hajiko Miyaguchi won the election.
Miyaguchi defeated five candidates, including 39-year-old newcomer and former METI bureaucrat Hidetoshi Nishida, who was nominated by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and recommended by the Komeito Party, the coalition ruling party. The focus of the election was on “politics and money”.
In the by-election for Senator Nagano, Jiro Hada, 51, a newcomer nominated by the Constitutional Democratic Party (recommended by the Communist Party, the Kuomintang and the Social Democratic Party), won the election. Jiro Hada, who is the younger brother of Yuichiro Hada, defeated two candidates nominated by the LDP, including 59-year-old former Rep. Yu Komatsu (recommended by the Komeito Party).
In the by-election for the 2nd constituency of the House of Representatives Hokkaido, the opposition parties put together the 62-year-old former Rep. Kenko Matsuki, a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party (recommended by the National Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Hokkaido Committee of the Communist Party), and as a result, Matsuki returned to the House of Representatives, defeating five candidates, including the newcomer candidate of the VSP.
The ruling LDP had hoped to win at least one of the three central-level parliamentary elections in Hiroshima, where the LDP has a large number of supporters, but lost all of them.
Recent Comments