Shiga 1st district (滋賀県第1区, ''Shiga-ken dai-ikku'' or simply 滋賀1区, ''Shiga-ikku'') is a single-member constituency of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

, the lower house of the national

Diet of Japan The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paralle ...

. It is located in Western

Shiga is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Pr ...

and covers the cities of

Ōtsu file:Otsu City Hall.JPG, 270px, Ōtsu City Hall is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 343,991 in 153458 households and a population density of 740 persons per km². The total a ...

, the prefectural capital, and Takashima. As of 2009, 314,742 eligible voters were registered in the district.Ministry of general affairs
平成24年9月2日現在選挙人名簿及び在外選挙人名簿登録者数
/ref> The district's first representative for the district after its creation in the electoral reform of 1994 was

Democratic Socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a ...

Tatsuo Kawabata is a Japanese politician from the Democratic Party, and a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature) from 1986 to 2017. A native of Ōmihachiman, Shiga, he attended Kyoto University and received a master's degre ...

who had represented the five-member SNTV

Shiga At-large district Shiga at-large district is a constituency in the House of Councillors of Japan, the upper house of the Diet of Japan (national legislature). It currently elects 2 members to the House of Councillors, 1 per election. The current representatives are: ...

since 1986. After the party realignments of the 1990s, he like most former Democratic Socialists eventually joined the Democratic Party (''Minshutō'') of Japan where he became a leading figure in the Democratic Socialist faction, also often referred to as Kawabata group. In the landslide "postal election" of 2005, Kawabata lost Shiga 1st district to Liberal Democrat

Ken'ichirō Ueno is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Nagahama, Shiga and graduate of Kyoto University, he joined the Ministry of Home Affairs (now part ...

, but regained it in the 2009 general election that swept the Democrats to power. Kawabata became a minister of state in the Hatoyama, Kan and Noda cabinets; Ueno who failed re-election by proportional representation was a candidate in the 2010 Shiga gubernatorial race, but lost to centre-left supported incumbent

Yukiko Kada is a Japanese politician and member of the National Diet of Japan, serving as member of the House of Councillors from Shiga Prefecture since 2019. She was the prefectural governor of Shiga for two terms from 2006 to 2014. She is from Honjō, Sa ...

. In the landslide Democratic defeat of 2012, Kawabata lost the district to Liberal Democratic former Shizuoka assemblyman Toshitaka Ōoka. Despite his comparatively narrow margin of defeat that gave him rank 4 on the DPJ list in Kinki, Kawabata also failed to win a proportional seat as the Democratic Party was reduced to fourth party (12.0%) in the Kinki proportional vote and only won three of 29 seats.

List of representatives

Election results

References

{{coord missing, Shiga Prefecture Shiga Prefecture Districts of the House of Representatives (Japan)