House of Councillors elections were held in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

on 11 July 2004. The House of Councillors consists of 242 members who serve six-year terms. Approximately half the members are elected every three years. At these elections 121 members were elected. Of these 73 were elected from the 47 prefectural districts and 48 were elected from a nationwide list by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

Contesting parties

; Government * Liberal Democratic Party (conservative) *

New Komeito , formerly New Komeito and abbreviated NKP, is a conservative political party in Japan founded by lay members of the Buddhist Japanese new religious movement Soka Gakkai in 1964. Since 2012, it has served in government as the junior coalit ...

(theocratic Buddhist, conservative) ; Opposition *

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

(social-democratic/liberal) *

Japanese Communist Party The is a left-wing to far-left political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party advocates the establishment of a democr ...

(communist) *

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(social-democratic)

Results

The opposition Democratic Party won a plurality of the popular vote and seats contested in the election, sweeping the liberal urban areas. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party failed to win in its strongholds but once more received most of its support from the agrarian areas. New Komeito did well, reaching its goals, as did the Social Democratic Party. The Japanese Communist Party did not reach its goals, while independents won the rest of the seats. The Liberal League and Green Political Assembly failed to win any seats.

By prefecture

Elected candidates in bold Compiled from

JANJAN ''JANJAN'' (), short for ''Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures'' (), was a Japanese online newspaper started by Ken Takeuchi, journalist and former mayor of Kamakura, Kanagawa. Launched in February 2003, the newspaper is credited ...

's "The Senkyo" and MIC official results. ''Notes:'' * ''All incumbents not running for re-election in their prefectural electoral district are counted as retirements even if they ran in the nationwide proportional representation.'' * ''In a multi-member district, there is no difference between Councillors elected with the highest and lower vote shares. Yet, "top tōsen", i.e. being elected with the highest vote, is considered a special achievement and thus noted where changed from the previous election for the same class of Councillors (1998).'' * ''Niigata is counted as an SDP hold because the elected Councillor joined the SDP parliamentary group.''

References

{{Japanese elections

2004 elections in Japan House of Councillors (Japan) elections July 2004 events in Japan Election and referendum articles with incomplete results