2004 Japanese House of Councillors election

← 2001 11 July 2004 2007 →
121 of the 242 seats in the House of Councillors 122 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	56.57% (0.07pp)
Party Leader % Seats +/– Liberal Democratic Junichiro Koizumi 30.03 115 +5 Democratic Katsuya Okada 37.79 82 +23 Komeito Takenori Kanzaki 15.41 24 +1 Communist Tetsuzo Fuwa 7.80 9 −11 Social Democratic Mizuho Fukushima 5.35 5 −3 Independents – – 7 −1 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 Hiroyuki Kurata Liberal Democratic Chikage Oogi Liberal Democratic

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House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on 11 July 2004. The House of Councillors consists of 242 members who serve six-year terms. Approximately half the members are elected every three years. At these elections 121 members were elected. Of these 73 were elected from the 47 prefectural districts and 48 were elected from a nationwide list by proportional representation.

Contesting parties

Government

• Liberal Democratic Party (conservative)
• New Komeito (theocratic Buddhist, conservative)

Opposition

• Democratic Party (social-democratic/liberal)
• Japanese Communist Party (communist)
• Social Democratic Party (social-democratic)

Results

The opposition Democratic Party won a plurality of the popular vote and seats contested in the election, sweeping the liberal urban areas. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party failed to win in its strongholds but once more received most of its support from the agrarian areas. New Komeito did well, reaching its goals, as did the Social Democratic Party. The Japanese Communist Party did not reach its goals, while independents won the rest of the seats. The Liberal League and Green Political Assembly failed to win any seats.

Party		National			Constituency			Seats
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Not up	Won	Total after	+/–
	Democratic Party of Japan	21,137,457	37.79	19	21,931,985	39.09	31	32	50	82	+23
	Liberal Democratic Party	16,797,686	30.03	15	19,687,954	35.09	34	66	49	115	+5
	New Komeito Party	8,621,265	15.41	8	2,161,764	3.85	3	13	11	24	+1
	Japanese Communist Party	4,362,574	7.80	4	5,520,141	9.84	0	5	4	9	–11
	Social Democratic Party	2,990,666	5.35	2	984,340	1.75	0	3	2	5	–3
	Women's Party	989,882	1.77	0				0	0	0	0
	Green Political Assembly	903,776	1.62	0				0	0	0	New
	Ishin Seito Shimpu	128,478	0.23	0	117,780	0.21	0	0	0	0	0
	Other parties				8,382	0.01	0	0	0	0	–
	Independents				5,696,505	10.15	5	2	5	7	–1
Total		55,931,784	100.00	48	56,108,851	100.00	73	121	121	242	–5
Valid votes		55,931,785	96.42		56,108,852	96.75
Invalid/blank votes		2,074,327	3.58		1,881,905	3.25
Total votes		58,006,112	100.00		57,990,757	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		102,588,411	56.54		102,507,526	56.57
Source: MIC, National Diet

By prefecture

Elected candidates in bold

Compiled from JANJAN's "The Senkyo"^[1] and MIC official results.^[2]

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 (1998).
• Niigata is counted as an SDP hold because the elected Councillor joined the SDP parliamentary group.