Talk:2009 Japanese general election

Move to Next Japanese general election

I am moving this page to Next Japanese general election from Japanese general election, 2009. For legislatures where elections can be called before the statutory end of parliament, it is customary to not use a year until in the title of the article until only one year is possible. As it happens, there is speculation that the next PM will call a snap election shortly after taking office. That election would likely be in 2008. -Rrius (talk) 13:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Move back

This page was moved based on a Telegraph story that said the election would take place on 26 October. Numerous sources, including this Forbes article, continue to speculate about an election date. I think, at the very least, the references to the election date should be removed. I think it might also be useful to move the article back to "Next Japanese general election" since we do not know for sure that the election will take place this year. -Rrius (talk) 08:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You're right that the election date is not set officially yet. But my impression from following the Japanese media is that Oct 26 seems to be almost set to be the date. To give an English source, this economist article says "a quicker way to get them passed may be to call a snap election—October 26th is the likeliest date." Hence, to me, moving back seems to be a too cautious move. -- Taku (talk) 11:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Given Nightstallion's recent verified edit, I once again propose a move back to "Next Japanese general election". Page moves should not be based on some appropriate level of caution, but of accuracy. We can't (and never could) be sure of elections until the dissolution of the House of Representatives. I therefore suggest that the article only be moved back here once that dissolution occurs. -Rrius (talk) 15:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The discussion on accuracy and cautions aside, the election might not happen this year from what I'm hearing from the Japanese media. By now, Oct 26 is definitely out of question (this is because the government now intends to seek the passing of the supplementary budget bill.) Accordingly, I'm changing my position. I will probably be making the move shortly, if no beat me to do it. -- Taku (talk) 21:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Gah! I totally called this wrong. I did have a source, however, the source was wrong, now it appears far more likely that this will happen in 2009, but I guess we'll have to wait until it is actually called to move it. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:27, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know Japanese election law, but since elections must be called no later then 2009, we really only need to get to the point where elections can't take place in 2008. I'm guessing that's sometime in December, but it could be this month, I guess. -Rrius (talk) 00:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Moving back

Since it's already 2009 in Japan, I don't see how the election can occur in 2008. I see no reason not to move the page back to its original title. --Hojimachong^talk 17:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Of course. This is completely uncontroversial, and the request is only necessary due to double redirect edits from when this article was moved to Japanese general election, 2008 and back to Next Japanese general election. -Rrius (talk) 17:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The opening sentence currently reads, "General in Japan must be held no later than September 10, 2009 (technically by September 6 due to designated day for Japanese elections on Sunday) for all seats of the House of Representatives." It's one or the other; the election is either on September 6 or September 10. Does anyone have a citation for either? -Rrius (talk) 23:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Election on August 30?

According to the BBC, the election will be on August 30 but the article says October. If so, should I change it accordingly? --Blue387 (talk) 04:46, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Structure of the article

Can I suggest that we break down the Developments section into events? There are moments when an election seemed likely to be called (such as the election of Aso, and points which have affected Aso's support (Shoichi Nakagawa, the economic crisis), and problems with the DPJ (finance scandals etc.). VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 09:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's such a good idea. The article should focus on the election itself (and its aftermath), not too much on events before it. (Structurally speaking, what I have in mind is Japanese general election, 2005.) -- Taku (talk) 13:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if a straight comparison is appropriate. Looking at that article's issues section, it seems to me that the issue this time round is the state of the LDP and its crisis of leadership (and the DPJ's scandals too). Thus recent events seem more pertinent to this election than any particular policy. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess you're right: election being driven by events, not by particular policy issues. In particular, it is hard to believe that nothing would happen before the election day, which is more than a month away. -- Taku (talk) 11:51, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Website

Anybody check out this Online survey on Japanese general election 2009, conducting by college students in Tokyo. Cuase, I am Korean not Japanese but living in Japan for my work so I didnt participated cuase I am not Citizen of Japan. Should we use results of this survey here on this article ??? Comments please. I'll try to contact admins of website for quick results.If you need. --UserChiba (talk) 15:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not think the website you quoted can collect enough amount of specimen to achieve statistical significance, because the questionnaire on the top page does not have any Japanese description, but written in English only. I suppose Majority of Japanese constituents would never try to open this website, or do not understand what is written, even they have a chance to see it. (I know that just a few Japanese people in Japan understand English because I used to live in Japan).--Belle Equipe (talk) 04:50, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I am agree with Belle, because no Japanese description found. However, If they achieve good response, we should use their results here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.71.32.228 (talk) 06:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The amount of reply is just one of necessary factors to achieve statistical significance. It has to be a result of "random sampling", at least. Even if the number of specimens reaches the certain amount (2,000 or more, according to 126 millions of Japanese population), it does not make sense if majority of responses are from certain age criteria or any sex.--06:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Ignore it. The chances they have of getting a useable response are, methodologically speaking, zero. The sample bias in such a survey method is catastrophically large. Respondents are people who would have accessed the site (i.e. they browse the internet, and find such sites interesting.), and who speak good enough English. You can also answer as many times as you like, even if you're not a Japanese citizen (I've just answered twice within the space of a minute from the same computer). In no way could this ever be claimed to survey a representative sample of the Japanese electorate likely to vote. To make matters worse, the preamble actually advises the user that the DPJ will likely win - which further biases the response horribly. I say it's only noteworthy if it gets publicised (which I doubt). By itself it's not a reliable source, as it's designed by people thoroughly ignorant of proper survey methodology.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, website totally changed now. 100% Junk.--UserChiba (talk) 16:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Online surveys have their weaknesses as this recent Yahoo poll shows that gave Tarō Asō 69 % approval. If you want poll results in the article, I'd suggest using the regular telephone polls by major news organizations (Kyōdō, NHK, Asahi, Yomiuri, Nikkei). If I remember correctly all of these are done by RDD (I'm only sure about the NHK poll). --Asakura Akira (talk) 17:04, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem is when you have no idea who is answering your survey. Telephone surveys will ask questions of the respondents so that they can balance the answers to match the population, according to all known factors that can affect someone's voting choices. (e.g. if out of 3000 phone calls, by chance 2000 are women and 1000 are men, then they can balance the value of any one person's contribution) Of course, it's more complicated than that, as class, age, region etc also matter in how people vote and how likely they are to vote. It's a bit of an art form (the importance of factors changes from election to election), which is why polling organisations have "reputations" despite their attempts to be scientific.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 17:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Did any body noticed that survey website which was conducting online survey on Japanese election 2009 moved to survey on English language in Japan. Their act forced me to write articles on English in Japan.--UserChiba (talk) 18:54, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Why are you clung to your idea to use online survey as a reliable source? As other users already mentioned, none of them are reliable because of untrustworthiness. (I think some news media is worse than online survey because of its biased point of view, but anyway). In any case, they do not have any reason to translate Japanese online survey result to English.--Belle Equipe (talk) 01:26, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Opinion Polls

Is there anybody here who can add opinion poll results for those of us who don't read Japanese yet want to keep up to date with what's going on in the election? Alternatively, can you point us to a good English resource for these?--Pould (talk) 08:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

long-term approval rates of political parties in the monthly NHK poll.

It’s a little tedious, but you could collect ~ weekly opinion poll results from English-language newspaper articles (mostly available online; e.g. latest Kyōdō poll: PR block voting intention DPJ 36.2 %, LDP 15.6 %. A timeline graph for the Asahi poll can be found here). If somone wants to do it, I had started an overview in July in de-WP, but didn't find the time to continue. Asakura Akira (talk) 18:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

poll/news organization(s)	polling period	approval rate Aso cabinet		approval rate major parties		better suited as PM (fusawashii)
		approve	disapprove	LDP	DPJ	Asō	Hatoyama
NHK	5.-7.06.	29 %	60 %	26.9 %	23.7 %
Mainichi	13.-14.06.	19 %	60 %	20 %	34 %	15 %	32 %
Nikkei/TV Tōkyō	13.-14.06.	25 %	65 %			10 %	26 %
Yomiuri	13.-14.06.	22.9 %	67.8 %	25 % / 25 % (*)	29.2 % / 42 % (*)	26 %	46 %
Asahi	13.-14.06.	19 %	65 %	22 % / 23 % (*)	29 % / 43 % (*)	24 %	42 %
Yomiuri	2.-3.07.	19.7 %	66.4 %	25 % (*)	35 % (*)
Kyōdō	3.-4.07.	23.4 %	60.9 %	27.2 % / 23.3 % (*)	26.5 % / 34.3 % (*)
Asahi	4.-5.07.	20 %	68 %	24 %	25 %

(*) voting intention instead of approval rate

I guess not many people (me included) are excited because the results seem already set. I added two recent polls predicting the DPJ's landslide. (What depresses me is that this would mean a lot of post-election works in Wikipedia: creating new articles and modifying articles on those who lost the re-election. Indeed, if the prediction is correct, we will see well over 100 new DPJ politicians. I don't know if I have time for this task. Why couldn't they call an election earlier :) (Excuse my rants.) -- Taku (talk) 19:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Those are great links, thanks.--Pould (talk) 20:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Colours

We need to use a single colour scheme for all tables and diagrams - currently we've got a mixture of the LDP as blue & green, the DPJ as red & blue and so forth. Do the parties themselves use single colours for campaigning? Timrollpickering (talk) 13:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Some do, some don't. It's not as fixed as in some European countries. The Communists, for example, switched the background they use for press conferences etc. from orange to pale green to red.
But was there a special reason to use the traditional (pre-Bush/Gore) blue-red colour scheme? AFAIK, among the major news media only Nikkei uses Red for the Democrats (+ other opposition parties) while Asahi, Yomiuri, NHK, Mainichi have Democrats/opposition in blue and LDP/coalition in red. --Asakura Akira (talk) 08:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Well around the world (with the US being the main exception) it's normal for conservative parties to use blue and the main alternative party (usually socialist/social democrat) uses red and this has become a de facto standard on much of Wikipedia for when there isn't a local scheme established. This is also the colour scheme used for the parties on List of Prime Ministers of Japan. If there is a local scheme with more established usage then it's probably best to get a central consensus for usage rather than have different Japanese articles using different arrangements and shared diagrams being all over the place. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

My question was about party colours in Japan, not the US or "around the world". And in recent years Japanese media have predominantly (though not exclusively) used a US-style red/blue-colour scheme. I'm not suggesting that this is the only valid scheme; the multitude of colours used in (ja) alone proves that this is not the case. I was just asking what the reason was to choose the Nikkei/"around the world" colours as opposed to the colours used by four of the five largest newspapers (I forgot Sankei in the list above) and public broadcaster NHK.
A cross-wiki consensus on the party colours (at least for the major postwar parties LDP, JSP, DPJ) would be great as charts and graphs are often used in several language versions. Right now there is the blue/red-scheme used here, Monaneko's green (LDP)/pink (JSP/SDP)→orange (NFP/DPJ) colour scheme in commons:Category:Pie charts for elections in Japan for all postwar elections, and several different (blue/red, green/blue) schemes in commons:Category:Politics of Japan. --Asakura Akira (talk) 09:52, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Source

Not sure if it has anything you don't already have in the article, but this Washington Post article seemed to be a good summary at least:

• Harden, Blaine (30 August 2009). "Ruling Party is Routed in Japan". Washington Post. Retrieved 31 August 2009.

rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 11:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

New Party Nippon and New Party Daichi

It seems that these parties won one seat each and that there were 6 real independents to win seats (Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090831p2a00m0na004000c.html). This information should be added to the statistics in the article. --80.223.214.74 (talk) 14:19, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

The two party are too minor so they count toward "Others / Independent factions" which include Minor parties and Independents. — ASDFGH =] ^talk? 16:53, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

No reason not to include all the results... —Nightstallion 22:59, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Voter turnout

What percentage of the people of Japan came out to vote? I can see no mention of it in the article. NarSakSasLee (talk) 13:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

69 percent according to Xinhua. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 16:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't find it in the article where is it? NarSakSasLee (talk) 19:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistent colors

The colors are inconsistent on this article. In the infobox, the DPJ is red, but in the maps they're colored pink. The LDP is colored blue in the infobox, but it's a turquoise color in the maps. The SDP is listed as dark blue in the infobox, yet it's colored in as a yellowish color on the maps. I tried to fix the infobox's colors to match the rest of the article, but it doesn't seem to work. Would someone fix the infobox colors please? Thanks. --Tocino 00:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Block vote

I noted that this and all previous election articles since the introduction of the proportional blocks list only the proportional vote figures. Why was the choice made to leave out the district vote? After all, PR only accounts for about a third of seats (200 seats in 1996, 180 since 2000). I personally think the complete results should be in the articles; but maybe I miss something here. (Any previous discussion on this?) Maybe someone can explain the omission to me. Thanks in advance, Asakura Akira (talk) 10:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
P.S.: I actually found one exception: Japanese general election, 1996 actually has only the district vote but mislabels it as block vote.

Considering the overwhelming feedback, I was bold and simply added the missing vote figures to the template from the sōmushō's official results. --Asakura Akira (talk) 11:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: I also included the ambunhyō ("proportional fractional votes") risking some reader confusion as long as they are not properly explained somewhere. You can remove them from the table if you want; but always be aware that even a full vote is not necessarily a "full voter".
It seems that some Japanese voters are also a bit confused: For example, in Tokyo's 6th district (result) there were only two candidates with ambunhyō: Yōko Komiyama (D) and Yōko Nakaoka (Happines Realization Party). The two Yōkos have different Kanji (洋子 and 陽子). So, there must have been some people (from the numbers you can tell that it was more than a handful Sorry, my math was incorrect; it was probably only three people. Which alleviates my doubt of the Japanese voters' mental health a little and makes me question mine) who simply wrote Yōko in Kana onto the ballot. Sometimes you have to wonder whether universal suffrage really was such a good idea…--Asakura Akira (talk) 11:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

How fractional votes work

As expected the fractional votes have caused confusion (see below). As long as there is no proper explanation elsewhere I have created a quick, fictional example for non-Japanese readers to explain to non-Japanese readers how fractional votes work. --Asakura Akira (talk) 08:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Election Results Vandalism?

Pardon me for raising this issue, but I believe that the election results have been subject to some tampering on here. The inclusion of decimal votes and at least one case of a misplaced comma bring the results into question. I don't know if the results are correct, but I'm going to try and strip out the decimal votes for now. Could someone check the results, please? Tyrenon (talk) 00:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

See post above: The fractional votes are ambunhyō (ja:按分票) stemming from the fact that Japanese vote on blank ballots (ja:自書式投票, example) and ambiguous votes like a vote for "Yōko" in the example above are not considered invalid. As for the accuracy: I'm sorry for the typo; but the results were incorrect before my edit as you can see from the official results. (link included) --Asakura Akira (talk) 06:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

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Need help listing dead link

Hello all. I've noticed that source 37, "The New Party Nippon..." is dead, but I cannot figure out how to edit it, as it is referenced inside a template. Would appreciate if a more experienced editor could help me out. Thank you :) --Vaporwaveboyfriend (talk) 04:10, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

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LDP Election Victory (or not) in 1993

@Number 57: A party could win an election but failed to form a government. In the 2017 Norwegian parliamentary election, Labour won the election but the Conservative managed to lead the government subsequently. Government formation should not be the determinant of election victory. -- NYKTNE _(talk) 17:20, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

I think this is an incorrect application of the word 'win'. Becoming the largest party and winning an election are not the same thing, just as receiving the most votes is not the same thing as winning an American presidential election. I think this 'win' thing is a FPTP mentality (it's certainly the mentality in the UK), but in countries where coalitions are common, it's not. The coverage of the Norwegian election in question was along the lines of "Norway's right-wing government wins re-election" (Reuters) "Norway's PM Solberg Wins Election After Record Stimulus" (Bloomberg), "Norway’s right-wing government wins re-election fought on oil, tax" (CNBC), not that the Labour Party had won.

Anyway, if it's seriously an issue, we could reword it more specifcally, perhaps something along the lines of:

• "This was only the second time that the LDP had not been able to form a government after an election since its formation in 1955 (in 1993 it had won the most seats, but the opposition parties held an overall majority)", or;
• "This was the first time that the LDP had not won the most seats in a general election since its formation"

Cheers, Number 57 18:15, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

"This was only the second time that the LDP had not been able to form a government after an election since its formation in 1955" will do. Thanks and have a great evening. -- NYKTNE _(talk) 18:43, 6 October 2021 (UTC)