Talk:2017 Japanese general election

Latest comment: 6 years ago by BitterGiant in topic Map issues

Socialists and Communists are not "Liberal". edit

It is absurd to call the alliance that includes the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party the "Liberal Coalition" - this turns the word "liberal" (which is about free markets and private property based society) on its head.2A02:C7D:B5E6:6400:FD77:324B:7D1C:4C6A (talk) 07:42, 23 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Proposal for infobox post-election edit

Japanese general election, 2017
 
← 2014 22 October 2017

All 465 seats to the House of Representatives of Japan
233 seats needed for a majority
    File:Governor Koike.jpg  
Leader Shinzō Abe Yuriko Koike Yukio Edano
Party Liberal Democratic

Allies
Kibō no Tō

Allies
Constitutional Democratic
Leader since 26 September 2012 25 September 2017 2 October 2017
Leader's seat Yamaguchi-4th not contesting
(Gov. of Tokyo)
Saitama-5th
Last election 326 seats, 46.82% New New
Current seats 315 seats 70 seats 37 seats

The election is increasingly tripolar - although there are nine parties, each is in one of these three alliances, usually promising not to run candidates against each other. Therefore I propose that this election inbox look something like French legislative election, 2017 or Italian general election, 2013 - the relevant seat counts (more than a majority? just short?) are between the coalitions.

Also of note is the fact that Japanese media are increasingly portraying the LDP as red, in contrast to the Democrats who were blue (as the CDP is now) - see coverage of last year's Sangiin election. (I'm not sure yet if there's a consensus on how to portray the Communists - I feel like I've seen it marked as purple once, i.e. close to, but not exactly, a part of the blue coalition.) Here's a pretty good source for both. Wikipedia probably has rules on marking the same party with the same colour in different elections, but I feel this colour scheme would be more helpful than marking two of the three coalitions as different shades of green. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chuborno (talkcontribs) 19:17, 3 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Infobox: Removal of the popular vote in the previous 2014 majoritarian election edit

I really think that writing just "291 seats, 33.11%" as *the* result for the previous election is utterly misleading because it suggests the 33% the LDP received in the 2014 proportional election gave it its majority. But this is a parallel election system; even with 100% of the proportional vote you'd have only 176 proportional seats. And while the proportional election is crucial to Communists and Kōmeitists, what is of primary interest on first approach: Who wins a majority and forms a government? And under normal circumstances, the majoritarian election of 289 members decides that question. Only if it the FPTP tier produces a more or less even result, the PR tier may tip the balance. But in the last four consecutive elections, the winning party won more than 40% of the vote and more than 200 seats in the majoritarian election, and if you already have those, 20% or maybe even 15% of the proportional vote would be enough for a majority, in 2012 the LDP would even only have needed four proportional seats to get over the line. In the question "who won?", the proportional election was just an appendix. [...and 28% was an abysmal result, in a proportional election system you'd probably not lead a government after that, or only in a very weak position – but this is not a proportional system; the election of 176 proportional members of the House of Representatives is a proportional system; and getting 33% of 180 seats on its own simply doesn't give you a governing majority even with the bonuses the d'Hondt allocation and the small "blocks" give to major parties.]
So, could you please include the popular vote in the election of the majority of members of the House of Representatives? The 33.11% for the LDP in the proportional vote elected only 68 proportional LDP members, the 48% of the vote in the majoritarian election gave the LDP 222 majoritarian LDP members. One may think that such a parallel system (where FPTP usually dominates) is not suited very well to a pluralistic modern society – and if you agree that would apply even more to systems like the UK or the US where not only two thirds, but all members are elected by FPTP –, and if you are Kōmeitō or JCP supporter you probably won't like it. But Wikipeda has to describe the voting system as it is, not one that one or other editor likes. It may be tedious to have to list two separate parallel election results to one and the same body, but that's how the electoral system works since 1996. ––Asakura Akira (talk)
P.S.: Of course, nomination strategy becomes crucial in such FPTP systems with more than two notable parties (and the 48% in 2014 are bound to include some 10+ of Kōmeitō supporters); and if all alliances were indeed 100% comprehensive countrywide, a changed box for alliances in the majoritarian election as suggested in the section above might be helpful. But if the endorsements are for most but not all individual candidates and with even competing nominations in some races (as they usually have been), it might be better to keep the parties separate in the infobox and include something like a "candidates and nomination strategy" section in the article instead – on October 10, when the official election period starts (and the nominations are sewn up), Japanese media usually publish summaries and statistics and report on interesting races.

  • Agreed. Would like to add that the person who reverted the edit cited Germany as an example of a mixed system where only the PR vote is written - but Germany's compensatory system means the PR share *is* seat share (excluding parties under the threshold). In Japan this is not the case - the SMD vote share is far more indicative of seat share than PR, as explained above - so I support including both. (In fact, if I had to choose one from the two, I'd include the SMD share.) [Edit: I hadn't read the latest edit notes, and the point about Mexico and South Korea are well taken. I just don't see a good reason not to include both figures - the infobox is supposed to provide an overview of the relevant facts and figures in the election, and any summary that doesn't include SMD figures is incomplete at best, misleading at worst. For this clarity, the cost of adding it is, like, five additional characters of "clutter" for each party, which can absolutely fit in the box. I will say that there is an argument to be had about whether vote + % results for *this* election from both SMD and PR sections should be included, as that would involve four lines of numbers. But both vote percentages from the previous election should be included.]
  • Also, totally agree that we need to watch the nature of the alliances very carefully and should only change the inbox afterwards. Chuborno (talk) 23:38, 8 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Results edit

Excuse the basic question, but how do you access the code of the result's spreadsheet when it only show Japanese general election, 2017?--Aréat (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Map issues edit

Previous map used was, to my knowledge, incorrectly cited, the author of the map being alternatehistory.com users Oryxslayer, and the basemap by fellow users Utgard/Ajrelectionmaps. It would be most preferable if any of them gave their consent to the use of the map here in this capacity, especially given that they were not given credit for the map.

If the origonal poster of the map is Oryxslayer, I apologise for removing it, however it felt wrong to have it up as it was. BitterGiant (talk) 01:45, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply