Talk:Japanese general election, 2005

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[edit] Result

Koizumi wins. LDP seems to be getting over half of the seats.

--Mochi 12:05, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Based on the Asahi results, am I correct in assuming that the LDP should have earned one more proportional seat in the Tokyo block but lost it to the SDP because they had already elected every candidate on their list? That's a pretty overwhelming result. Willhsmit 00:44, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Prologue

The economist has a good article if someone wants to help incorporate facts into this one. I believe there needs to be more clarification as to why the primeminister can't desolve the upper house, and what he hopes to achieve by calling a snap election:

Junichiro Koizumi, the LDP leader and prime minister, responded by doing exactly as he had threatened to do, calling a snap election for the lower house (the prime minister has no power to dissolve the upper chamber).

Does anyone know how the upper house is desolved, and what he hopes to happen by calling this election? --ShaunMacPherson 18:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

This is exactly one problem often mentioned in the media and by many politicians. What he wants to achieve by the election? It's the question that no one seems to be able to answer :) -- Taku 23:42, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] China

The following was removed from the article: it sounds quite strange. Whether the analysis is right or wrong, it is a primary issue, if an issue at all.

But perhaps the biggest policy matter on the electorate's agenda are its relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Koizumi and other conservative politicians in Japan have angered the populace and official class of the PRC through their visits to Yasukuni Shrine, among other actions. Many of those lawmakers opposed to Koizumi on postal reform are similarly opposed to his stance on diplomacy with the PRC, and have urged a more sensitive approach. Polls indicate that opponents to Koizumi may do better on these foreign issues than the domestic issues which forced the election.

-- Taku 23:42, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

  • Murata-san, let's discuss this. I have reinsterted it into the article until then, but deleted the final sentence, as new polls have brought this into doubt. I have also edited my own words for NPOV, changing "But perhaps the biggest policy..." to "Another significant policy matter...", reflecting your disagreemnt with my assertion that it is a primary issue. I think we can safely say that if Koizumi-san does visit Yasukuni on Aug. 15, it will become a very large issue. At the moment, I undertsand that the DPJ is planning on talking about it in their manifesto as a way to take attention away from postal reform, which polls are showing them doing poorly on right now. It is a wedge issue and will certainly play a prominent role. Personalities are also likely to play a large role; Koizumi's leadership style has been questioned in all three major newspapers. I have added two sources at the bottom of the page from FT and Asahi to support these statements. Again, if yoou have any issues with the change, please discuss here and allow us to come to a consensus before deleting a section wholesale. --ALC 15:26, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

I think that's much better; the previous version was misleading and just I was not sure how to fix it. I agree that the visit to Yasukuni, which I highly doubt will happen, would be a big issue. But if that has much to do with the election. It seems to me that unlike elections in the U.S., the foreign policy issues have little impact on the election result. For example, JSDF's deployment to Iraq, which is historically significant, didn't play much role in the last election. In addition, I don't know if you read newspaper in Japanese or in English, but it seems by reading newspapers or listening to the TV, postal reform is not necessarily going to be a primary issue. Polls that I heard show that the public has little concern with the postal reform.

Finally, generally speaking, we shouldn't speculate much. For example, I removed "Its precise intentions, however, are rather nebulous, and few analysts expect a serious break with the United States." You should write this kind of analysis to Mr. president (I learned from your user page that you are an expert on this stuff; so no doubt you are good at this) but I don't think that's good idea for an article in a general encyclopedia. We can put things like once DPJ gained the majority or Koizumi visited Yasukini. -- Taku 22:12, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Something is wrong

There is something wrong with this passage:

There has been a strong opposition within Koizumi's party, as the party and its ally New Clean Government Party may well lose the majority rule in the upper house, which appoints the Prime Minister.

According to Article 67 of Constitution of Japan, Prime Minister is chosen by House of Representatives should any disagreement regarding the appointment of Prime Miniser arises between House of Councillors and House of Representatives:

Article 67:

The Prime Minister shall be designated from among the members of the Diet by a resolution of the Diet. This designation shall precede all other business. 2) If the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors disagree and if no agreement can be reached even through a joint committee of both Houses, provided for by law, or the House of Councillors fails to make designation within ten(10) days, exclusive of the period of recess, after the House of Representatives has made designation, the decision of the House of Representatives shall be the decision of the Diet.

-- Siyac 07:39, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

It should be the lower house not the upper house. I am sorry for the error. -- Taku 09:30, August 9, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Maps

The following site: [1] has a large collection of election district maps, but I don't know enough Japanese to try asking the owner how he feels about copyrights. :-) Does anyone want to try, or know of a better resource? I would be happy to do some of the grunt work of coloring in parties pre- or post-election, or whatever. My understanding is that there is no re-districting from 2003, right?

Do we want to cover every single district, with candidates and their votes? That seems too much. I am thinking of putting some kind of a table, but to use a map, we have to create several pages, which can be maintenance nightmare. I am not so sure about re-districting. There might be some changes in Shimane Prefecture or nearby prefectures. -- Taku 22:30, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I was picturing a table of candidate vote by seats once the results are available, and maybe a country-wide map of districts colored by winning party, as is available for many other coutries (Canada, Australia). The table information should be available from printed sources, but the mapping is something I haven't found. Willhsmit 18:22, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

There are, I think, 300 districts in Japan's general election, so I don't know how much it is practical to have one single map depicting who won each district. I mean the problem is not of the sheer number but that there are many tiny districts; for example, there are over 20 districts in Tokyo (quite understandably given the population of the city). Maybe you couldn't find a map because it's not practical to do :)

By a table, I mean something like the below:

  • Hokkaido - DLDLLDLD
  • Aomori - DLDKS
  • ...

where D is DPJ, L is LDP, K is komei-to and etc.

This kind of a table is common in Japan, and it's very compact. It shows that DPJ got the first district of Hokkaido and LDP the second district and so on. -- Taku 23:57, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I'm considering starting a project of my own, based on data in ja:衆議院小選挙区一覧. Example here -- Image:Tohoku dist map.PNG -- any comments on format/design welcome. Also, I'd appreciate any suggestions on color-coding for parties - almost all the parties have logos that feature blue prominently, so I'm not sure if there are traditional colors to differentiate.
I've been meaning to start a mapping project for a while, since Japan is one of the only big democracies that this kind of mapping isn't available for. Perhaps we could put thumbnails next to tables, or a separate page with just galleries, if we want to keep the main result page clean.
Just to clarify, I am not against having any mapping per se; not so sure how we should be doing that. Having a separate page about the elections results sounds a good idea, while this article gives a table and summary. As for colors, it seems red indicates LDP and blue DPJ. I don't know why but it seems to be conventional, as far as newspapers or TV shows are doing. -- Taku 00:52, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
By the way, did you create the Tohoku map you mentioned above? (we have to be careful about copyright issues, you know) That looks very nice! -- Taku 00:54, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I created it using some of the mapping tools that ja:利用者:Koba-chan provided to make all the town by town maps on the Japanese wikipedia, and using the district boundaries in ja:衆議院小選挙区一覧. I should have the rest of the labelled outline maps done soon and try some coloring for 2003.
Please take a look at Results of the Japan general election, 2003, and let me know if you have any comments or suggestions for improvement. I was originally considering a list of all candidates/votes by single-member district and a list of elected proportional candidates, but I will probably not get around to that for a while if ever. Certainly not before the 2005 election. :-) Willhsmit 21:41, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Certainly. By the way, this is a great work. I love it! You can forget about my early concern. -- Taku 00:59, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

I hope to make similar maps for this election as soon as official results (i.e., counted ballots, not exit polls) are available. I'd appreciate if anyone could post a link to official results here or on the main page whenever they are published. Willhsmit 17:12, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
I have made images (after the ones I made to illustrate 2003) based on the results in the following source: [2]. I am not sure if the exact vote counts are final, but the single member results are probably stable. Shall we put detailed results on the main page or a separate page?
In addition to the colors for 2003 I used yellow for Kokumin Shinto (no districts for New Party Japan); I did not distinguish independent LDP rebels from other independents but would be willing to consider any approaches. Willhsmit 00:33, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
Results of Japan general election, 2005 now up (separate page). Comments welcome on organization/content. Willhsmit 03:36, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Great work. I agree that we probably want some summary table in the this article as well as the separate results page. (Or yes, the current table should be revised to show both numbers of seats in single districts and proportion representations). I found a map at http://www2.asahi.com/senkyo2005/ and this has been quite handy for me. Despite what I have said above, I want to put something like this. Do you know something similar to this or want to create one? Otherwise I am going to do some work on my own. -- Taku 11:01, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

What are you thinking of making? I don't mind to co-ordinate. I was considering whether I could add seat-by-seat results, but the work of transcribing/translating both elected and failed candidate names and counts for 300 seats seemed a little daunting. I find that I like Yomiuri Shimbun a little better than Asahi now, because they have percentage as well as counts in the single-member races, and you don't have to click on each candidate's kanji name to see hiragana (important for translation).
I do have the lists of proportionally elected candidates per-party and per-block Romanized, by the way, but I didn't decide on any particular format to wikify them. Willhsmit 20:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
I am thinking of something like the map in Asahi Shimbun. It's very compact yet is easy to see which party got each district. For example, you can easily see the LDP succeeded to monopolize almost every seat in the capital area. As for seat-by-seat results, besides the sheer amount of the work it needs, I also don't want to see them in wikipedia because with that we will have about 1000 names of candidates, 99.99% of which are red links and that seems to be beyond the scope of a general encyclopedia. You might want to consider to put this in wikinews, though. ja wikinews has some nice detailed results already. -- Taku 23:45, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Agreed for the seat-by-seat results, which is part of why I hesitated to start on it. For the map, I think that something modeled on Asahi's would be good, and probably appropriate for the main page. I'm not sure whether it could be done in wiki markup (a gigantic table) or whether you'd have to create an image.
It will take some aesthetic sense to make a diagram like that work with the longer words required by English, so I will leave it to you. :-) The design there is fairly useful and intuitive; I'm not sure whether the color scheme they have (all coalition red, all opposition blue, except postal rebels yellow) is more intuitive than coloring parties separately, though. It would also be great if there were a smooth/intuitive way to incorporate the proportional results somehow into the main map, but I haven't thought of one yet. Willhsmit 01:49, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Obviously, I can't promise that I am going to create one. So please don't have much expectation on this. -- Taku 23:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Donjon?

What does 'donjon' mean, as in the caption for the image? – Kaihsu 17:00, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I have changed it to 'foundation' which is more intelligible. – Kaihsu 15:11, September 10, 2005 (UTC)
True, donjon may be a obscure word. But it is what Koizumi uses so I don't think we can change it to something else. I am reverting this and putting some clarification. -- Taku 00:05, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
I don't think 'donjon' should be used here. First, it is an inaccurate description of "honmaru" which is more like the current usage of keep. "Honmaru" does not have the meaning of "underground" which "donjon" is strongly associated right now. Second, it is pointless to use an old French or Latin word. While "honmaru" is an obscure word to a non-Japanese, it is an instantly recognizable feature of a Japanese castle. I propose stronghold as it also implies "determination". -- Revth
I didn't know about the connection between the foundation and "donjon". I changed it to use Honmaru with a link to Japanese castle and stronghold within a parenthesis. -- Taku 01:33, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Charts

I moved the following conversation to here so that others can see what is going on and join the discussion. -- Taku 23:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I reverted your maps to mine in the article. I know I am biased toward my works but to me they look nicer. First, in yours it is not quite apparent that NCGP is a part of ruling bloc (not mention that abbreviation NCGP is probably unfamiliar to most people). Secondly, we should use high resolution images so that they can be reproduced nicely on paper in future. Thirdly, I didn't put numbers to my charts because I thought you can see numbers at the table on the left side. I am willing to collaborate with you. -- Taku 23:57, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, all the problems you mentioned in my talk page can be solved in no time, since the image is generated by a progam I made (and so, I can adjust its source if needed):

  • I used a similar color (light/dark blue) for NCGP and LDP, so I see quite clear that there is a "blue" block and other parties (red, rebels; yellow, DPJ; green, others). However, they can be merged into one block if you want.
  • Numbers can be eliminated commenting some source lines (and maybe I'll put that as an option into my program, thanks for telling me about it). I like the 480 in the center, but if it seems that of a redundance to you, I can delete it too
  • About high resolution images: I don't know the method Wikipedia uses to scale images, but scaling an image usually is a waste of processor power and/or disk space (and don't even talk about memory, especially with high resolution images). Processor power to scale the image can be used only once per size by saving the scaled thumbnail, but then the waste is of disk space, and, again, I don't know what does Wikipedia do. I think that the best method would be, especially for graphics, which suffer each time they're scaled, to upload two images, one high resolution version and one low, and then use the low resolution version, putting a link on its page (the LR image page) to the high resolution version. In this way, Wikipedia servers' processor/memory are not wasted, just a few KiB of disk space, and anyone who wants the HR version could download it. Also, the displayed image quality is better, since it has been generated (and antialiasing applied) in LR, not scaled down.
  • About the looks of the image: well, I can do nothing if you don't like the image type (parliament arc). To me it looks very nice (at least nicer than a pie chart which seems to have been created with Excel) and crystal clear. I can, however, change the graphic to a parliament representation (little colored squares representing seats), but I think 480 seats are too much to be drawn in such a small space.

I also am willing to collaborate with anyone here, especially because it has been a long time since I last made a decent edit to the Wikipedia (not just some typos), and I want to get on this again. Oh, and ありがとうございます (is that written ok? I've just started studying Japanese :P) for telling me about the MIT OpenCourseWare. Habbit 14:24, 14 September 2005 (UTC) Damn, I sent this section over 10 times! The server just told me 'error, transaction not completed', and I hit F5 more times than I can remember... Aren't transactions supposed to be reverted if they couldn't be successfully completed? Habbit 14:27, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

There is a problem of aesthetic besides the problems addressed above. Naturally, to me my charts look nicer than yours. I don't know if there can be any argument to change this feeling. So I believe you think yours is prettier, in turn. So I am hoping if we can get some feedbacks from others as well. I am going to publicize this talk. -- Taku 23:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, to me is not only a problem of beauty (and yes, I also think mine is better :P), but a problem of usefulness and "tradition". AFAIK, _votes_ results are represented in pie charts, but _seats_ results are always represented in the parliament arc graph (the kind I posted) or the parliament outline graph (small colored squares representing seats). As I said earlier, I can draw both, but 480 seats are too much to be drawn on small squares, so I think the best here would be the parliament arc. I agree that we should get some feedback, and so I'm replacing _one_ of the graphs (I still haven't decided which, maybe the "after") with a version of my own including one of your objections: numbers will be stripped out, except for the 480 in the center. I still think that the blue color in both LDP and NCGP is clear enough, but I might add something like "(Govt.)" to make it even more clear. Habbit 16:35, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The pie chart looks cleaner, but the problem is it doesn't seem to have much to do with the numbers or labels in the table. I prefer the arc graph, but the (Govt.) label is ugly,and similar colours for the ruling coalition alone doesn't make it clear that there are two different groups in the graph. The ruling coalition and opposition can be seperated more nicely with some kind of graphic device. I think a space (like in the pie chart) between the two groups could work. Also adding colours to the table so that they can be identified in the charts would make the information easier to understand. --Yodakii 17:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't have a very strong opinion on the aesthetics, but I do think we should co-ordinate our colour coding between charts, tables and maps. The LDP/coalition red and DPJ/opposition blue seems to be settled in the major newspapers, but I'm willing to go with a majority on what colours to use and how to distinguish major/minor parties. Willhsmit 18:40, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
As for tradition, maybe it's cultural thing but using an arc graph looks awkward. I have no problem understanding it but it have never seen something like it. This may explain difference in preferences. But in any rate, this is not debatable. As for colors and spaces, I wish I were able to address the problems pointed out. I used Microsoft Excel, and don't know how to change colors or put spaces arbitrarily. If someone can come up with a better pie chart, It will certainly be appreciated. As for parts of the chart, I think it is important to give a big picture as the table gives details anyway. Especially I liked having two charts because they show very nicely how Koizumi's bloc expanded. As for the problem of disparity between the table and the graph, I think we can fix this by modifying the table rather than the chart. I will change the table for this and give some more details (like the breakdown of seats). -- Taku 22:17, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
About Excel: to change the color of just a section, you must click it twice (be careful, however, not to double-click it, because doing so will pop up some dialog like "data series format") and then double-click it (yes, four clicks total), to invoke the "data point format" dialog.
About "Koizumi's block": you must take into account that this has been a _legislative election_, and that the only "Koizumi's block" is the LDP (and not always, as there were rebels in 2003 that left the party). By this I mean that, even when "we all know" that the LDP and NCGP/Komei-to are allies, they have both stood for election and competed for seats, or, the same in other words, they didn't form a coalition and so their representatives have been elected in behalf of two different parties. I agree that we should use near colors for both (because "we-all-know-that..."), but this page is for the results of a parliamentary election, and so we must show the results of that election, not the "political consequences" (that section, however, can be added to the page). If you cannot resist the temptation to join both parties, at least name the resulting block "LDP+NCGP" or something like that, emphasizing that, even when you joined them to show an alliance (which I showed using near colors and placing them one after another), they are two parties.
This is getting long... About the arc graph itself: I might be trying to overextend myself. I use arc graphs because that's what I've seen used near always for legislative elections (some graphs, with a low number of seats, used the parliament sketch I described in earlier messages). They are compact (half of a pie chart) and they allow to add some interesting data (total number of seats, for example, in the "hole") while maintaining the clearness of pie charts. Furthermore, arc graphs can be easily associated to a parliament because most parliaments have a distribution not unlike a semicircle, what is just what the arc graph represents. However, even when I've seen this always like that, I am no Japanese, but Spanish, and don't know how is this done in Japan.
Habbit 10:02, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
As for excel; how marverous! I was able to change colors. Thanks bunch! As for koizumi's block, funny, this may be what appears but the truth is that LDP and Komei did fight as if they were one party. There was no talk of forming a coalition in the aftermath of the election, precisely because they are already a coalition during campaign. There was no district where a LDP candidate and komeito candidate fight. Besides, the number I hear the most often in Japan is 327, which is the sum of LDP and Komei. If this were a secret alliance or something, your point may be valid but it is simply not the case. Koizumi made a endorsement speech for Komei candidates, and party members of Komei did a campaign for LDP. Besides, if we separate the ruling block into two, that should suggest that we do the same for other parties like SDP and CDP. And this would be too much. As for arc graph, we shouldn't, I think, go debating which type of graph is better. It's simply a matter of preference. -- Taku 00:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, if you say they worked like a coalition, I can say nothing more than I saw a photo and there were two ballots: one for the LDP candidate and another for the Komei-to candidate. However, if you say they didn't fight, period.
About the colors: The first time I made my graphic, I just tried to mimic the colors in yours. Now that I know they were Excel default colors, can anyone please tell us which colors are commonly associated to the LDP+NCGP (govt. coalition), DPJ, rebels, etc.?
Habbit 05:26, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
As far as I know, there is no commonly-associated colour for any party. I looked at tables and charts on tv and newspapers and the colours are different and seem arbitrary. Here's one chart I found: [3]. (jiminto:red, komeito:orange, minshuto:blue, kyousanto:light-green, shaminto:aqua) --Yodakii 14:11, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is a color-association, but red for LDP and blue for DPJ seem to be common. Even your example follows this. (Well, it's an arc graph, so I guess some people in Japan do use it.) -- Taku 02:11, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

As you can see, I put a new version of my chart with adjusted colors. Can we agree to follow this color scheme? I don't think anyone would have a problem. -- Taku 02:32, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's another example from the Japanese wikipedia on the 2005 election: [4]
(jiminto:orange, komeito:red, minshuto:blue, kyosanto:red, shaminto:yello). [5]
(The image used is in the commons and it looks like it can be edited with translated labels easily.) --Yodakii 02:42, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Results and maps

I have added a table of results from my website, but it isn't very aesthetic at the moment. Someone can no doubt put it in a better format. I will also be completing a full set of constituency results in English within the next few days, and eventually constituency maps. Adam 07:03, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Just so you know, there is already a linked page titled Results of Japan general election, 2005. The link may not be obvious enough since it is a little far down. It doesn't have all the results that we discussed offline, and you're certainly welcome to improve it or reorganize some of the information back into the main article. I just wasn't sure if you'd seen what was there already since you mentioned constituency maps and you didn't appear to have any edits on the results page. Willhsmit 22:51, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I hadn't seen that page. That's probably enough detail for an English-language encyclopaedia. My results will much more detailed and my maps will be much more beautiful. Adam 23:55, 20 September 2005 (UTC)