Overview
- The coalition agreement commits the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan Innovation Party to submit a bill targeting roughly a 10% cut in lower house seats during the current session and to aim for passage.
- Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi says she will file the bill but signals details could be decided after next year’s census results are available.
- LDP Secretary General Shunichi Suzuki warns that finalizing a plan this session is difficult given divergent views on whether to cut proportional seats, single-seat districts, and by how much.
- JIP leaders insist on concrete cuts now, with Hirofumi Yoshimura urging action and Fumitake Fujita cautioning that the prime minister should dissolve the lower house if the effort is unfairly halted.
- Working-level talks are set to begin this week as some in the JIP push for about 50 proportional-seat cuts and some in the LDP favor submitting only a procedural bill that defers specifics.