2014 Japanese General Election Sunday Dec 14,2014

The 47th general election of members of the House of Representatives of Japan was held on Sunday Dec 14,2014

Despite low voter turnout, the governing party of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections.Final voter turnout stood at 52.66 % down from the previous postwar low of 59.3 percent in the 2012 general election

 

The final tally shows the prime minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party won 291 of the 475 seats up for grabs in the powerful lower house. That is slightly fewer than its pre-election total of 295 seats, but enough to still hold a commanding majority in the chamber

The 475 seats were composed of 295 for single-seat districts and 180 for proportional representation districts

The largest opposition group, the Democratic Party, trailed far behind in the final tally, with 73 seats, though it surpassed its pre-election total of 62 seats

Japanese Elections
The Japanese political system has three types of elections -

• general elections to the House of Representatives(480 Members) held every 4 years (unless the lower house is dissolved earlier)

• elections to the House of Councillors(242 Members) held every 3 years to choose one-half of its members and

•  local elections held every 4 years for offices in prefectures, cities, and villages

The minimum voting age is 20 years; voters must satisfy a three-month residency requirement before being allowed to cast a ballot.

For those seeking office, there are two sets of age requirements: twenty-five years of age for admission to the House of Representatives and most local offices, and thirty years of age for admission to the House of Councillors and the prefectural governorship. Each deposit for candidacy is 3 million yen (30 thousand dollars) for single-seat constituency and 6 million yen (60 thousand dollars) for proportional representation