2022 Japanese House of Councillors election

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (July 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:第26回参議院議員通常選挙]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ja|第26回参議院議員通常選挙}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

2022 Japanese House of Councillors election

← 2019 10 July 2022 2025 →
124 of the 248 seats in the House of Councillors 125 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Registered	105,019,203 (0.86%)
Turnout	52.05% (3.25pp; Const. votes) 52.04% (3.25pp; National votes)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Fumio Kishida Kenta Izumi Natsuo Yamaguchi Party LDP CDP Komeito Last election 113 seats 32 seats 28 seats Seats after 119 39 27 Seat change 6 7 1 Constituency vote 20,603,298 8,154,330 3,600,490 % and swing 38.74% (1.03pp) 15.33% (0.46pp) 6.77% (1.00pp) National vote 18,256,245 6,771,914 6,181,432 % and swing 34.43% (0.94pp) 12.77% (3.04pp) 11.66% (1.39pp)   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Ichiro Matsui Kazuo Shii Yuichiro Tamaki Party Ishin JCP DPP Last election 16 seats 13 seats 13 seats Seats after 21 11 11 Seat change 5 2 2 Constituency vote 5,533,657 3,636,534 2,038,655 % and swing 10.41% (3.13pp) 6.82% (0.55pp) 3.83% (3.12pp) National vote 7,845,995 3,618,343 3,159,657 % and swing 14.80% (5.00pp) 6.84% (2.11pp) 5.96% (0.51pp)   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   Leader Tarō Yamamoto Takashi Tachibana Manabu Matsuda Party Reiwa NHK Party Sanseitō Last election 2 seats 1 seat Did not exist Seats after 5 2 1 Seat change 3 1 New Constituency vote 989,716 1,106,508 2,018,215 % and swing 1.86% (1.43pp) 2.08% (0.94pp) 3.80% (New) National vote 2,319,157 1,253,872 1,768,385 % and swing 4.37% (0.18pp) 2.36% (0.39pp) 3.33% (New)
Results by constituency
President before election Akiko Santō LDP Elected President Hidehisa Otsuji LDP

House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on 10 July 2022 to elect 125 of the 248 members of the upper house of the National Diet, for a term of six years.^[1] The elected candidate with the fewest votes in the Kanagawa prefectural district will serve for three years, as the district combined its regular and byelections.^[2]

The elections occurred within the first year of premiership of Fumio Kishida, President of the Liberal Democratic Party and it saw Kenta Izumi debut as the Leader of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party. The election was overshadowed by the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (served 2006–2007 and 2012–2020), which took place two days before ballots were cast.^[3] Abe was shot while delivering a campaign speech for Kei Satō, a member of the House of Councillors running for reelection. The assassin, who had previously served in the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force, was arrested at the scene and reportedly confessed to targeting Abe due to a grudge he held against the Unification Church. Prime Minister Kishida denounced the assassination as an attack on Japan's democracy and vowed to defend a "free and fair election at all cost".^[4] In a post-election survey, 62.5 percent of the voters said their votes were not swayed by the assassination, while 15.1 percent said they were.^[5]

The governing Liberal Democratic Party modestly increased its seats in the chamber.^[6] Turnout slightly increased compared to the previous election^[7] while a new record was set for women elected to the chamber at 28%.^[8] Parties supportive of constitutional revision gained a combined total of 93 seats, thus gaining the two-thirds majority needed to trigger the parliamentary procedure which was lost in the 2019 election.^[9]

The disparity in the value of a vote between prefectural districts in the election ranged up to 3.03 times, leading to nationwide legal challenges.^[10]