These incredibly cool national figures come via Okumura Jun, who dug them up in response to a question that had been circulating.
Proportional List (hireiku) - total votes
DPJ 29,844,799
LDP 18,844,217
New Komeitō 8,054,007
Communist 4,943,886
Socialist 3,006,160
Small district (shōsenkyoku) - total votes
DPJ 33,475,799
LDP 27,301,892
New Komeitō 782,784
Communist 2,978,354
Socialist 1,376,739
Note:
a) that the "8 million strong army of followers" is still very much alive for the New Kōmeitō. Some have speculated (including yours truly) that the New Kōmeitō numbers would diminish as the Sōka Gakkai followers recruited in the immediate postwar era and during the era of the population shift to the cities began to succumb to old age.
b) 782,784 votes went to the New Kōmeitō's 8 district election candidates. Where did the other 7 million New Kōmeitō votes go?
Let us look the two sets of figures. OK, if you subtract the number of voters supporting Communist Party and Socialist Party district candidates from those who voted for those parties in the proportional voting, hmmm-- that neatly makes up the increase in the number of votes between the DPJ's proportional vote total and its district vote total. Communist and Socialist sympathizers, after voting their hearts in the party vote, then voted with their brains for DPJ district candidates.
Which means...?
If you do the math, it looks like that around one out of every four voters who voted for an LDP district candidate was actually a New Kōmeitō voter.
Which means...?
c) The LDP is even more incredibly unpopular than the final vote tallies and its seat totals indicate.
d) It redefines "beholden to" in terms of its relationship with the New Kōmeitō.
Ladies and gentlemen of the LDP, you have an 11 million vote hole to dig yourselves out of...and an incredibly ticked off main ally whom you owe big time.
Good luck on that party revival plan!
A guide to Japan’s general election
5 weeks ago
4 comments:
Do you think New Komeito voters slightly regret there decision since it (accidentally?) caused their party leadership to be voted out?
that wasn't the right their at all
patomaru -
The New Komeito district candidates, which included the party's entire core leadership, put their faith in the LDP. Without LDP voters voting for them, they were finished.
Their faith, as it turns out, was, in this instance, misplaced.
While I agree with your conclusions, isn't it possible, if unlikely, that Komeito voters jumped ship to the DPJ?
Nice post, though. Nothing, but nothing, beats applying a bit of cranial grease to the numbers to see the real picture. In response to a couple of requests that I probably should have ignored, I'm in the process of "translating" the district-by-district results, which has had one big benefit: the realization of just how strong the patterns were. You could very nearly cut and paste everything but the names.
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