Voting starts for Japan upper house election

July 21, 2019

Tokyo--Voting began on Sunday morning in a Japanese House of Councillors election whose key issues include whether to revise the country's constitution.

About 47,000 polling stations across Japan opened at 7 a.m. (10 p.m. Saturday GMT). Vote counting will begin as soon as balloting ends at 8 p.m.

The focus is whether the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito plus other forces supporting constitutional reform will maintain their current two-thirds majority in the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament.

If the reformist camp wins 85 seats, it will reach the level, the minimum required for the chamber to propose constitutional reform. The camp holds a two-thirds majority in the other chamber, the House of Representatives.

In the election, a total of 370 candidates are vying for 124 seats--74 in prefectural constituencies and 50 under the nationwide proportional representation system.

Following an election law revision last year, the combined contested seats increased by three from the previous 2013 election, boosting the total Upper House membership to 245.

In Japan, an Upper House election is held every three years, with half of the chamber's seats contested each time. The total seats are set to increase by another three to 248 in the next election in 2022 under the revised law. Jiji Press