Prefectural elections for the

Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly The is the Prefectures of Japan, prefectural parliament of Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis. Its 127 members are elected every four years in 42 districts by single non-transferable vote. 23 electoral districts equal the Special wards of Tokyo, special wa ...

(令和3年/2021年東京都議会議員選挙, ''Reiwa 3-nen/2021-nen Tōkyō togikai giin senkyo'', "Reiwa 3/2021 election of members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly") were held on 4 July 2021. The 127 members were elected in forty-two electoral districts, seven returning single members elected by

first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

, and thirty-five returning multiple members under

single non-transferable vote Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used to elect multiple winners. It is a generalization of first-past-the-post, applied to multi-member districts with each voter casting just one vote. Unlike FPTP, which is a single-winn ...

. Two districts had their magnitude adjusted in this election to match population changes. The results of the election saw the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) winning the most seats, displacing the regional party

Tomin First no Kai is a regional political party in Tokyo, Japan. The party was founded by Tokyo Governor of Tokyo, Governor Yuriko Koike in 2017. Koike later stepped down as the party's leader and is no longer officially affiliated with the party, however her p ...

to become the largest party in the Assembly. However the coalition of the LDP and their partner

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 coalitio ...

failed to win an outright majority of seats in what was widely described as a poor result for the LDP and Prime Minister

Yoshihide Suga is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2020 to 2021. He had served as Chief Cabinet Secretary during the second administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fro ...

Background

Yuriko Koike is a Japanese politician who currently serves as the Governor of Tokyo since 2016. She graduated from the American University in Cairo in 1976 and was a member of the House of Representatives of Japan from 1993 until 2016, when she resigned to ...

won the

2016 Tokyo gubernatorial election The 2016 Tokyo gubernatorial election took place on 31 July 2016 to elect the successor to Governor Yoichi Masuzoe, who submitted his resignation to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on 15 June 2016. By-elections in four of Tokyo's cities were held ...

as an independent candidate, and left the LDP in June 2017 to found a new local political party, Tomin First, which won a majority in the

2017 Tokyo prefectural election Prefectural elections for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly (平成29年/2017年東京都議会議員選挙, ''Heisei 29-nen/2017-nen Tōkyō togikai giin senkyo'', "Heisei 29/2017 election of members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly") were held o ...

along with its coalition partner, Komeito. Koike was since re-elected in the 2020 gubernatorial election. Komeito had since announced that it would leave its coalition with Tomin First in the Metropolitan Assembly, instead seeking to enter into a governing coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (both parties make up the ruling coalition in the

National Diet The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (Japan), House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (Japan), House of Councillors (, ...

). Koike was hospitalized on 22 June 2021 due to severe fatigue, however she was discharged on 30 June and made surprise appearances on 3 July, the final day of campaigning, to campaign in support of Tomin First candidates in various districts across central Tokyo. The election had been described as a potential

bellwether A bellwether is a leader or an indicator of trends.bellwether
" ''Cambridge Dictionary''. Ret ...

for the upcoming

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

Electoral districts

Most districts are coterminous with a municipality (''-ku/-shi/-chō/-son'') of the same name. The following districts comprise multiple municipalities: * ''Nishi-Tama'' ("West Tama“; follows the original boundaries of the district of the same name, except Ōme):

Fussa is a Cities of Japan, city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 56,786, and a population density of 5600 persons per km². The total area of the city is . About one third of the c ...

Hamura is a city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 54,622, and a population density of 5500 persons per km². The total area of the city was . Geography Hamura is approximately in the ...

Akiruno 260px, Akigawa River in the autumn is a city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 80,177, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geograph ...

, Hinohara, Hinode,

Mizuho Mizuho () literally means "abundant rice" in Japanese and "harvest" in the figurative sense. It was also an ancient name of Japan. It might refer to: Places * Mizuho, Gifu, a city in Gifu * Mizuho, Tokyo, a town in Tokyo * Mizuho Plateau in Ant ...

Okutama is a town located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 4,949, and a population density of 22 persons per km2. The total area of the town is . Geography Okutama is located in the Okutama Mo ...

* ''Minami-Tama'' ("South Tama“; follows the boundaries of the former district of the same name): Tama,

Inagi file:Inagi City Hall.jpg, 270px, Inagi City Hall is a Cities of Japan, city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 92,585 in 41,592 households, and a population density of 5200 persons ...

* ''Kita-Tama dai-1'' ("North Tama #1“; follows the boundaries of the former Kitatama district): Higashi-Murayama, Higashi-Yamato, Musashi-Murayama * ''Kita-Tama dai-2'' ("North Tama #2“): Kokubunji,

Kunitachi 250px, Daigaku-dori and sakura is a city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 76,423 in 38,825 households, and a population density of 9,400 persons per km2. Approximately 41.9% of ...

* ''Kita-Tama dai-3'' ("North Tama #3“):

Chōfu is a city in the western side of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 238,087, and a population density of 11,000 per km². the total area of the city is . Geography Chōfu is approximately in the south-center of ...

Komae is a city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. It is one of 30 municipalities in the western portion of Tokyo known as the Tama Area. , the city had an estimated population of 83,218, and a population density of 13,000 per ...

* ''Kita-Tama dai-4'' ("North Tama #4“):

Kiyose is a city located in Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 74,972 in 36,376 households, and a population density of 7300 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Geography Kiyose City is roughly in the sha ...

, Higashi-Kurume * Islands:

Aogashima is a volcanic island to the south of Japan in northernmost Micronesia. It is the southernmost and most isolated inhabited island of the Izus, which are politically and administratively part of Japan but geographically not part of the Japanes ...

, Hachijō,

Mikurajima is a volcanic Japanese island in the Pacific Ocean. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Izu Shotō'',"''Japan Encyclopedia,'' p. 412. The island is administered by Tōkyō Metropolis and is located approximately south of Tokyo and south-s ...

, Miyake, Ogasawara, Kōzushima,

Niijima is a volcano, volcanic Islands of Japan, Japanese island administered by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. It is one of the Izu Seven Islands group of the seven northern islands of the Izu Islands, Izu archipelago, and is located approximatel ...

, Ōshima,

Toshima is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the eight central wards of the Tokyo Metropolitan area. Located in the northern area of Tokyo, Toshima is bordered by the wards of Nerima, Itabashi, and Kita in the north and Nakano, Shinjuku, a ...

Candidates

Results

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won the most seats in the election, displacing the regional party

as the largest party in the Assembly, while the LDP's coalition partner

maintained their 23 seats for the sixth election in a row. However the LDP/Komeito coalition failed to win an outright majority of seats, an outcome which was widely described as a poor showing for the LDP and a manifestation of public dissatisfaction with Prime Minister

's handling of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

and the delayed

2020 Olympic Games The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

. Tomin First lost 15 seats, becoming the second largest party in the Assembly, however this was described as a better than expected result for the party as most polls and forecasts prior to the election projected the party losing far more seats. Some analysts attributed Tomin First's unexpectedly strong result to the continuing popularity of Tokyo Governor

, whose policies and personal image form the backbone of the party's appeal, despite Koike no longer serving as the leader of the party. The newly organized centre-left opposition

Constitutional Democratic Party ) , newspaper = ''Rech'' , ideology = ConstitutionalismConstitutional monarchismLiberal democracyParliamentarism Political pluralismSocial liberalism , position = Centre to centre-left , international = , colours ...

gained eight seats while the

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 ...

gained one, in what some analysts described as an indication of energized opposition to the LDP. The regional

Tokyo Seikatsusha Network The Tokyo Seikatsusha Network (東京・生活者ネットワーク, ''Tōkyō Seikatsusha Nettowāku'') is a local Japanese political party affiliated with Tokyo Seikatsu Club, a consumer's cooperative. It is generally moderate left, and tend ...

and Osaka-based centre-right

Nippon Ishin no Kai The is a conservative and right-wing populist political party in Japan. Formed as ''Initiatives from Osaka'' in October 2015 from a split in the old Japan Innovation Party, the party became the third-biggest opposition party in the National D ...

both maintained one seat each in the Assembly. The centre to centre-right

Democratic Party for the People The , abbreviated to DPP or DPFP, is a centre to centre-right political party in Japan. The party was formed on 7 May 2018 from the merger of the Democratic Party and Kibō no Tō (''Party of Hope''). In September 2020 a majority of the party ...

and the

left-wing populist Left-wing populism, also called social populism, is a political ideology that combines left-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric often consists of anti- elitism, opposition to the Establishment, and speaking for the "com ...

party

Reiwa Shinsengumi is a left-wing populist and progressive political party in Japan founded by actor-turned-politician Tarō Yamamoto in April 2019. The party was formed by left-wing members of the Liberal Party who opposed its merger with the Democratic Party fo ...

both contested the Assembly for the first time, however neither party won any seats.

Opinion polling

Notes

References

{{2021 elections in Japan 2021 in Tokyo Tokyo prefectural elections July 2021 events in Japan 2021 elections in Japan