Gunma 1st district

Gunma 1st district is a constituency of the House of Representatives in the Diet of Japan (national legislature). It is located in Gunma Prefecture and consists of the cities of Maebashi, Numata, parts of Kiryū and Shibukawa as well as the Seta and Tone districts. As of 2012, 387,120 eligible voters were registered in the district.[1]

Until 2009, Gunma had been a traditional "conservative kingdom" (hoshu-ōkoku), the Japanese equivalent of a "red state" in the United States. Like all single member districts in Gunma, the 1st district had been represented by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 1997. The LDP used the Costa Rica method (kosutarika-hōshiki) with Koji Omi and Genichiro Sata as alternating candidates for the district. In the election of 2009, Omi was the LDP's candidate; incumbent Sata only ran in the Northern Kantō proportional representation block. Both Omi and Sata had represented the pre-reform three-member 1st district of Gunma. The Democratic Party's candidate in 2009 was Takeshi Miyazaki, a former journalist for the Jōmō Shimbun.[2] In 2012, Sata regained the district for the LDP.

List of Representatives

Representative Party Dates Notes
Kōji Omi LDP 1996–2000
Gen'ichirō Sata LDP 2000–2003
Kōji Omi LDP 2003–2005
Gen'ichirō Sata LDP 2005–2009
Takeshi Miyazaki DPJ 2009–2012
Gen'ichirō Sata LDP 2012– Incumbent

Election results

2012[3]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
LDP (Kōmeitō) Gen'ichirō Sata 94,709 45.0
JRP (YP) Hiroshi Ueno (elected by PR) 46,835 22.3
DPJ Takeshi Miyazaki 35,074 16.7
TPJ (NPD) Arata Gotō 20,663 9.8
JCP Hideo Ubukata 13,152 6.2
2009[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
DPJ Takeshi Miyazaki 122,711
LDP Koji Omi 109,846
JCP Hiroaki Sakai 15,783
Independent Akira Yamada 5,505
Happiness Realization Party Akihiko Takizaki 1,795
2005[4]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
LDP Genichiro Sata 136,920
DPJ Hitoshi Takahashi 78,544
JCP Yoshie Kondō 18,578
SDP Tomihisa Tsuchiya 11,233
Turnout 251,670 64.46
2003[5]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
LDP Koji Omi 130,242
DPJ Hitoshi Takahashi 68,960
JCP Nobuo Matsuura 16,126
Turnout 222,686 57.05
2000[6]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
LDP Genichiro Sata 134,247
DPJ Tsugio Kumagawa 61,658
JCP Fumiko Yamada[7] 31,147
Turnout 61.57
1996[8]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
LDP Koji Omi 110,103
NFP Tsugio Kumagawa 58,025
DPJ Hitoshi Takahashi 31,358
JCP Kaoru Hasegawa 21,193

References