Japan - Opposition vote results and more!

The opposition in Japan has completed their merger process, which I mentioned in a previous post.

The name CDP (Constitutional Democratic Party) has won 94-54, and the CDP's leader, Edano Yukio, by a margin of 107-42, has been elected as leader of the party. 

The new party will change the makeup of both the lower and upper houses of the Diet. I want to compare how things were at the start of the week, to where things are now, after the results. Note that this graphic was prepared in advance of the results of the vote, so the new party is labeled as "NEW", while those DPP members not joining are labeled as "TAM" after Tamaki Yuichiro, current DPP leader, who will not be joining the new party, and instead, will be starting a new party with other disaffected members of the DPP. Lastly note that I am not certain that the current opposition coalition will stay together, but, given the numbers I've outlined in the last paragraph, I believe they will be, as, they will need TAM to keep 50+ seats in the upper house. 

The major change is the consolidation of members within the newly merged party. This also will help boost the party at election time. Japanese election polling has a strange tradition of having massive amount of "don't know" respondents, only for a good 2/3rds of them to break for the largest opposition party. By pooling all of the 'oppositionness' into one party, it will help to concentrate that vote into a single force, and prevent a split result. 

Note that the size of each party also determines what they can and can not do in each chamber. In the house, for example, parties with 100 or more members can propose amendments to the constitution, while those with 50 or more can propose budgets, or votes of non-confidence (VONC). Those with 40 or more can censure MPs, while parties require 20 members to propose legislation. Only parties with 10 or more members get guaranteed spots in debate. In the upper house, there are only three "levels", 50 or more grants the ability to propose amendments to the constitution, while 25 or more allows for VONC proposals, and 10 or more are needed to propose legislation.