An analysis by Sankei Shimbun shows that if the opposition parties had fielded unified candidates in the recent House of Representatives election where the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won a massive victory, they could have won in 64 of the 223 single-seat districts won by the LDP and Komeito (not including those who joined the two parties after the election) based on the votes they actually got. The fielding of different candidates by the opposition parties, thus dividing the votes critical of the administration, led to the LDP’s “precarious victory.”

Assuming the votes cast in the proportional representation segment were the same, this analysis shows that the LDP would have won only a total of 217 seats, short of a majority. And even adding the seats won by Komeito, the ruling parties would have won only 246 seats, short of the two-thirds majority (310 seats) needed to submit motions for constitutional revision that they were actually able to achieve in the election.

The calculation of “votes won by unified opposition candidates” included the votes won by all opposition candidates, including those of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), the Party of Hope, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and those who were supposed to be official candidates of the Democratic Party (DP) and the Liberal Party at the time the Lower House was dissolved. These were compared with the votes for LDP and Komeito candidates in the single-seat districts that they won. (Abridged)