2001 Japanese House of Councillors election

← 1998 29 July 2001 2004 →
121 of the 247 seats in the House of Councillors 124 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	56.57% (2.27pp)
Party Leader % Seats +/– Liberal Democratic Junichiro Koizumi 38.57 110 +8 Democratic Yukio Hatoyama 16.42 59 +12 Komeito Takenori Kanzaki 14.96 23 +1 Communist Tetsuzo Fuwa 7.91 20 −3 Liberal Ichirō Ozawa 7.72 8 −4 Social Democratic Takako Doi 6.63 8 −5 New Conservative Chikage Oogi 2.33 5 +5 Dainiin Club – 1.22 1 +1 Other parties – – 5 +4 Independents – – 8 −18 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Constituency and proportional representation (bottom right) election result President of the House of Councillors before President of the House of Councillors after Yutaka Inoue Liberal Democratic Yutaka Inoue Liberal Democratic

This article is part of a series on
Politics of Japan
Constitution and Laws Constitution of Japan (1947–present) Meiji Constitution (1890–1947) Laws
The Monarchy The Emperor (List) Naruhito Crown Prince Fumihito Imperial House Chrysanthemum Throne Imperial Succession Imperial Household Agency
Executive Government Prime Minister (List) Fumio Kishida (LDP) Cabinet (List) Second Kishida Cabinet (Second Reshuffle) (LDP-Komeito coalition) Ministries Administrative Agencies
Legislature National Diet House of Representatives Speaker Fukushiro Nukaga Vice Speaker Banri Kaieda House of Councillors President Hidehisa Otsuji Vice President Hiroyuki Nagahama
Judiciary Supreme Court Chief Justice Saburo Tokura Justices of the Supreme Court Intellectual Property High Court
Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda Japanese yen Banknotes Coins
Elections List of districts of the House of Representatives of Japan List of districts of the House of Councillors of Japan Japanese House of Councillors national proportional representation block Political parties Japanese general elections 1890 1892 1894 (Mar) 1894 (Sep) 1898 (Mar) 1898 (Aug) 1902 1903 1904 1908 1912 1915 1917 1920 1924 1928 1930 1932 1936 1937 1942 1946 1947 1949 1952 1953 1955 1958 1960 1963 1967 1969 1972 1976 1979 1980 1983 1986 1990 1993 1996 2000 2003 2005 2009 2012 2014 2017 2021 Next Japanese House of Councillors elections 1947 1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 1971 1974 1977 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2016 2019 2022 Unified local elections 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023
Administrative divisions Prefectures Governors Subprefectures Districts Municipalities Submunicipalities
Foreign relations Ministry of Foreign Affairs Foreign policy (history) Diplomatic missions of / in Japan Japanese passport Visa requirements Visa policy Algeria Angola Djibouti Egypt Ethiopia Kenya Namibia Nigeria Somalia South Africa Argentina Barbados Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Ecuador Mexico Paraguay Peru Trinidad and Tobago United States Uruguay Venezuela Afghanistan Armenia Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Bhutan Brunei Cambodia China East Timor Georgia India Indonesia Iran Israel Laos Malaysia Maldives Mongolia Myanmar Nepal North Korea Pakistan Palestine Philippines Qatar Saudi Arabia Singapore South Korea Sri Lanka Taiwan Thailand Turkey Vietnam Albania Austria Belgium Croatia Czech Republic Denmark France Germany Greece Hungary Holy See Iceland Ireland Italy Kosovo Lithuania Malta Montenegro Netherlands Poland Portugal Russia Serbia Spain Sweden Ukraine United Kingdom Australia Fiji New Zealand Palau Tonga Africa Arab world Latin America Oceania Southeast Asia European Union United Nations G20 G7
Japan portal Other countries
v t e

House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on 29 July 2001. They were the first national elections since Junichiro Koizumi became Prime Minister after Yoshiro Mori resigned in April 2001. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its election allies, were the major winner, provided Koizumi a strong mandates to move forward with his reform policies. The ruling coalition performed well, and regain their majority in the House of Councillors.

Background

The electoral reform enacted in 2000 became effective for the first time. The number of Councillors per election was reduced by five, by two in the nationwide proportional representation and by one each in Okayama, Kumamoto and Miyazaki. In addition, preference voting was introduced. Instead of a party name, voters could now write the name of a single PR candidate on the ballot. The vote then counts for the party as well as the candidate; the total number of votes for a party list or its candidates determines the number of PR seats a party receives while the candidate votes determine who takes those seats for the party.

As a result of the party realignments of the 1990s, several two-member districts were represented by two Councillors from the same party before the 2001 election. Some of these Councillors lost the official nomination of their party (e.g. in Niigata), others retired (Hokkaidō, Tochigi). Most of these district split seats between ruling coalition and opposition again, in the case of both incumbents seeking re-election resulting in one of the two losing their seat (Nagano, Shizuoka).

Results

Proportional representation results

The 2001 election was the first to use an open list system (非拘束名簿式) to elect proportional representation seats in the House. Under this system, voters may vote for either a political party or a specific candidate. The proportional seats are distributed among the parties by D'Hondt method according to their overall proportional votes, including candidate votes. The ranking of candidates on each party list is then determined by the candidate votes.

The results for the major parties were as follows (decimals omitted):^[3][4]

1. Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) (LDP): 21,114,727 (party: 14,925,437, candidates: 6,189,290), 38.6%, 20 seats
2. Democratic Party (DPJ): 8,990,524 (party: 6,082,694, candidates: 2,907,830), 16.4%, 8 seats
3. New Komeito (NK): 8,187,804 (party: 1,865,797, candidates: 6,322,007), 15.0%, 8 seats
4. Japan Communist Party (JCP): 4,329,210 (party: 4,065,047, candidates: 264,163), 7.9%, 4 seats
5. Liberal Party (LP): 4,227,148 (party: 3,642,884, candidates: 584,264), 7.7%, 4 seats
6. Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDP): 3,628,635 (party: 2,298,104, candidates: 1,330,531), 6.6%, 3 seats
7. Conservative Party of Japan (CP): 1,275,002 (party: 609,382, candidates: 665,620), 2.3%, 1 seat
8. Other parties (aggregate): 2.988.442, 5.5%, no seat

The final ranking of PR candidates and their individual vote counts were as follows:

Prefectural races

Elected candidates in bold

Compiled from JANJAN's "The Senkyo"^[5] and Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications official election results.^[6]

Notes:

• All incumbents not running for re-election in their prefectural electoral district are counted as retirements even if they ran in the nationwide proportional representation.
• In a multi-member district, there is no difference between Councillors elected with the highest and lower vote shares. Yet, "top tōsen", i.e. being elected with the highest vote, is considered a special achievement and thus noted where changed from the previous election for the same class of Councillors (1995).
• In the results column, independents are counted towards the party they joined in the first Diet session after the election.

Party abbreviations used:

• Ruling coalition
  • LDP Liberal Democratic Party
  • Kōmeitō "Justice Party"
  • CP Conservative Party
• Opposition
  • DPJ Democratic Party
  • JCP Japanese Communist Party
  • SDP Social Democratic Party
  • LP Liberal Party
• I Independent
• Minor parties: IA "Independent Assembly", Dainiin Dainiin Club, LL Liberal League, Ishin Ishin Seitō Shinpū, WP Women's Party, NSP New Socialist Party, Kibō "New Party Freedom and Hope"