Saitama 5th district explained

Saitama 5th District
Type:Parliamentary
Constituency Link:Saitama 5th district
Parl Name:Japanese House of Representatives
Map Size:450px
District Label:Prefecture
District:Saitama
Region Label:Proportional District
Region:Kita-Kantō
Electorate:371,683 (2016)
Year:1994
Members Label:Representative
Members:Yukio Edano
Seats:One
Elects Howmany:One
Party Label:Party
Party:Constitutional Democratic Party
Blank1 Name:Municipalities
Blank1 Info:Saitama's Nishi, Kita, Minuma, Ōmiya and Chūō wards

Saitama 5th district is a constituency of the House of Representatives in the Diet of Japan (national legislature). It is located in Saitama Prefecture and covers Nishi, Kita, Minuma, Ōmiya and Chūō wards of the city of Saitama.

Yukio Edano of the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) has held the district since the 2000 general election. After the Democratic Party dissolved and split in 2017, Edano ascended to leadership of the centre-left CDP, which became the second-largest party in the House of Representatives in the 2017 general election.

Edano along with other DPJ candidates won all but one district in Saitama in the 2009 DPJ landslide, wiping out the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from the prefecture. Their fortunes were reversed in the 2012 general election. Edano was the only member of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in Saitama prefecture to retain his seat, as the party lost two-thirds of its seats nationwide amid a poor economy and relative geopolitical decline. While losing the race, Edano's resurgent LDP opponent Hideki Makihara managed to gain a proportional block seat. The margin closed down further in the 2014 election and Makihara was only within 3,300 votes from unseating Edano. Makihara was unable to overcome the margin in the 2017 election following the nationwide surge of the Edano-led CDP.[1] Edano was re-elected with a comfortable 20.28% majority.

List of representatives

RepresentativePartyDatesNotes
Nobuhiko Fukunagabgcolor= LDP1996 – 2000
Yukio Edanobgcolor= DPJ2000 – 2016Incumbent
bgcolor= DP2016 – 2017
bgcolor= CDP2017 –

Notes and References

  1. News: Anchored by Edano's underdog charm, CDP turning into formidable force ahead of election. Japan Times. Tomohiro. Osaki. 20 October 2017. 10 December 2017.