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On October 19, the various political parties held their first deliberations on the electoral system for the House of Representatives inside the Diet. Acting Secretary General Shinji Tarutoko, Deputy Secretary General Koriki Jojima and Vice Secretary General Seiji Osaka participated in the discussions for the DPJ. During the meeting, the name of the meeting was decided, Tarutoko was appointed as Chair and an outline for running the meetings was confirmed.
At the start of the meeting, Tarutoko stated that (1) following the March Supreme Court ruling that the current electoral system is unconstitutional from the point of view of vote disparity, the deliberative council for redrawing boundaries of electoral district is currently suspended, (2) the legally determined deadline, February 25, 2012, for the same deliberative council to submit their recommendations to the government is drawing near. With less than two years remaining in the term for sitting members of the House of Representatives, the question of how to eliminate the unconstitutional nature of the electoral system, or how to prevent it from being unconstitutional is an urgent issue that needs to be discussed across party lines, and (3) while he is aware there are a variety of opinions between the parties as to how this issue can be resolved, the DPJ believes that in order to eliminate or avoid unconstitutionality, it is necessary to hold discussions on at least the essential items on the agenda and engage in legislative revision during the current extraordinary Diet session, (4) the first step toward resolving this issue is that all the parties sit down at the table and start discussions, and he would like to ask for their cooperation in this.
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