Former State Minister Won't Seek Re-election

Campaigning for the August 30 Lower House election has started today.

According to opinions surveys conducted by newspaper publishing companies and news agencies, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is likely to come to power. So, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) seems to be anxious about losing power.

The Lower House consists of 300 seats from single-seat constituencies and 180 seats through the proportional representation system. Single-seat candidates can show on their party’s lists for the proportional representation system, too.

That means although they do not win in the single-seat constituencies, they get elected as proportional representation candidates. This time, more LDP candidates tend to take double candidacy in the election.

Ms. Kuniko Inoguchi decided not to run in the election yesterday. She won her Lower House seat in 2005. She was at the top of the LDP’s list on the Tokyo proportional representation proportion of the ballot. Then Prime Minster Koizumi had called on her to run, and appointed her state minister in charge of gender equality. This time, Ms. Inoguchi was at the 24th-ranking of the list. She was asking the LDP headquarters to put her name at a higher rank of the list.

She must regret. But, Dr. Inoguchi was a prominent professor specializing international relations, and former Permanent Representative and Ambassador of Japan to the Conference on Disarmament.

My observation is that she matches handling foreign issues rather than domestic. I hope she will come back to the academic world or work at an international organization soon.


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