Record Number of Women Running in Japan’s Lower House Election; Percentage of Female Candidates Still Below Govt’s Target

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:52 JST, October 16, 2024

A record 314 women are running in the House of Representatives election, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun tally, exceeding 300 for the first time in a general election.

Of the 1,344 candidates running in the election, the percentage of women also hit a record high of 23.36%.

The previous record was set in the 2009 lower house election with 229 female candidates.

The significant increase is partly due to opposition parties fielding joint candidates only in a handful of single-seat constituencies.

In addition, following the political funds scandal, which involved some of the Liberal Democratic Party’s factions, the ruling party has decided not to allow some members — those involved in the scandal — to run in the proportional representation segments despite receiving the party’s endorsement to run in their constituencies. The LDP has replaced those members with women or younger candidates to run in the segments.

The Japanese Communist Party is fielding the largest number of female candidates with 88, followed by the LDP with 55 and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan with 53.

However, the percentage of female candidates standing at 23.36% means the government’s goal of having women comprise 35% of the candidates running in a House of Representatives election has yet to be realized. Calls to introduce a quota system to allot a certain number of candidacies to women may increase.