Hokkaido 1st district

Hokkaidō 1st district (北海道[第]1区, Hokkaidō-[dai-]ikku) is a single-member constituency of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the national Diet of Japan. It is located in Western Hokkaidō and consists of Sapporo city's Chūō ("Centre"), Minami ("South") and Nishi ("West") wards. As of 2009, 476,742 eligible voters were registered in the district giving it the lowest electoral weight in Hokkaidō.[1]

The district's only representative since the electoral reform of the 1990s has been Takahiro Yokomichi, former three-term Hokkaidō governor, leader of the ex-Socialist faction within the Democratic Party of Japan and president of the House of Representatives since 2009. Before the electoral reform, Sapporo city had been part of the six-member 1st district that covered Ishikari and Shiribetsu subprefectures. Yokomichi and previously his father Setsuo had represented the pre-reform multi-member 1st district for the Socialists from 1952 until the 1983 gubernatorial election, interrupted by two years after Setsuo Yokomichi's death in 1967.

In the 2009 general election, Yokomichi's main challenger was Liberal Democrat Gaku Hasegawa who lost the race and also failed to win a proportional seat, but went on to become Councillor for Hokkaidō in 2010. In 2005, Muneo Suzuki's regionalist New Party Daichi nominated ski jumper Masahiro Akimoto in the district. In 2000, former olympic weightlifter and current Hokkaidō assemblyman Nobuyuki Hatta ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for Ichirō Ozawa's Liberal Party.

List of Representatives

Representative Party Dates Notes
Takahiro Yokomichi DPJ 1996– Incumbent

Election results

2009[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
DPJ (PNP support) Takahiro Yokomichi 183,216 51.9
LDP (Kōmeitō) Gaku Hasegawa 124,343 36.8
JCP Hideaki Matsui 25,803 7.6
HRP Kazue Takamoto 4,083 1.2
Turnout 342,870 72.1
2005[3]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
DPJ Takahiro Yokomichi 143,564 45.7
LDP Takayuki Mishina 128,166 40.8
JCP Hiroko Yokoyama 25,481 8.1
NPD Masahiro Akimoto 16,698 5.3
Turnout 319,360 69.3
2003[4]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
DPJ Takahiro Yokomichi 143,907 55.4
LDP Takayuki Mishina 89,758 34.6
JCP Hiroko Yokoyama 25,995 10.0
Turnout 266,485 59.1
2000[5]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
DPJ Takahiro Yokomichi 132,514 50.7
LDP Yoshitaka Kimoto 76,047 29.1
JCP Teizō Komura 32,267 12.3
LP Nobuyuki Hatta 20,554 7.9
1996[6]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
DPJ Takahiro Yokomichi 102,577 45.9
LDP Eiichi Masugi 56,265 25.2
JCP Teizō Komura 32,703 14.6
Independent Gaku Hasegawa 32,019 14.3
Turnout 233,995 56.7

References

  1. ^ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC): 平成21年9月2日現在における選挙人名簿及び在外選挙人名簿登録者数の概要 (Japanese)
  2. ^ "第45回衆議院議員選挙 - 北海道1区" (in Japanese). ザ･選挙. K.K. VoiceJapan. http://go2senkyo.com/precinct/2011100342793.html. Retrieved 2012-01-02. 
  3. ^ "第44回衆議院議員選挙 - 北海道1区" (in Japanese). ザ･選挙. K.K. VoiceJapan. http://go2senkyo.com/precinct/2011100343104.html. Retrieved 2012-01-02. 
  4. ^ "第43回衆議院議員選挙 - 北海道1区" (in Japanese). ザ･選挙. K.K. VoiceJapan. http://go2senkyo.com/precinct/2011100342171.html. Retrieved 2012-01-02. 
  5. ^ "第42回衆議院議員選挙 - 北海道1区" (in Japanese). ザ･選挙. K.K. VoiceJapan. http://go2senkyo.com/precinct/2011100341860.html. Retrieved 2012-01-02. 
  6. ^ "第41回衆議院議員選挙 - 北海道1区" (in Japanese). ザ･選挙. K.K. VoiceJapan. http://go2senkyo.com/precinct/2011100342482.html. Retrieved 2012-01-02. 
Hokkaidō's electoral districts for the Diet of Japan
FPTP "small" districts (1996–present): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 (13) Hokkaidō PR block · House of Councillors: At-large (13→12 Representatives (PR block: 9→8), 4 Councillors)
SNTV "medium-sized" districts (1947–1993): 1 2 3 4 5 (22→23 Representatives, 8→4 Councillors)
Limited voting "large" districts (1946): 1 2 (23 Representatives)
SNTV "medium-sized" districts (1928–1942): 1 2 3 4 5 (20 Representatives)
FPTP/SNTV "small" districts (1920–1924): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 (16 Representatives)
SNTV "large" districts era (1902–1917), in Hokkaidō FPTP single-member districts: Sapporo city (ku) · Hakodate city (ku) · Otaru city (ku) · subprefectures 1 · subprefectures 2 · subprefectures 3 (3→6 Representatives)