LDP committee seeks to boost field of female candidates to 35％ by 2030

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:35 JST, June 14, 2021

The Liberal Democratic Party’s special committee on promoting women’s active participation plans to renew its proposal for the party to increase the number of female Diet lawmakers. According to the draft proposal, the committee, chaired by former justice minister Masako Mori, intends to press the LDP to include the issue of women’s representation in the party platform during the upcoming lower house election by clearly stating in its campaign promises that the ratio of female candidates should be raised to 35% in the future.

Final deliberations are underway around a proposal that the goal be reached by 2030.

In April, the committee proposed to double the number of lower house female candidates from the 7.5% fielded in 2017 to 15% in the upcoming election. However, this earlier proposal was met with pushback from within the party that decried the target as unrealistic and sent the committee back to the drawing board.

The latest draft proposal hones in on the LDP’s lack of a numerical target for female candidates despite the law on promotion of gender equality in the political field that came into effect in 2018, urging the party to clearly articulate a number on the campaign trail out of concern that the dearth of female legislators will hurt Japan’s standing in the international community.