This articlemay need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia'squality standards.You can help. Thetalk page may contain suggestions.(June 2023)

The2023 Japanese unified local elections were held across the country on 9 and 23 April 2023. In total 15,047 candidates were elected in 1,008 races with a high of 1,685 in Hokkaido and a low of 1 in Okinawa.^[1]

41 Prefectural Assembly elections

← 2019 9 April 2023 (2023-04-09) 2027 →

First party Second party Third party   Leader Fumio Kishida Kenta Izumi Natsuo Yamaguchi Party LDP CDP Komeito Leader since 29 September 2021 30 November 2021 8 September 2009 Last election 1158 seats Did not exist 166 seats Seats won 1,153 185 169 Seat change 5 New 3   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Nobuyuki Baba Kazuo Shii Yuichiro Tamaki Party Ishin JCP DPP Leader since 27 August 2022 24 November 2000 11 September 2020 Last election 67 seats 99 seats Did not exist Seats won 124 75 9 Seat change 57 24 New   Seventh party Eighth party   Leader Manabu Matsuda Mizuho Fukushima Party Sanseitō Social Democratic Leader since 15 July 2022 23 February 2020 Last election Did not exist 22 seats Seats won 4 3 Seat change New 19

The rulingLiberal Democratic Party (LDP) scored a comfortable victory. Six LDP (and Komei) endorsed candidates won the governorship. The LDP also managed to win more than half of all the prefectural assembly seats in the prefecture that held elections.^[2]

Major victories were also won byNippon Ishin no Kai. In addition to winning in its home base of Osaka, Ishin also won the contest for governor of Nara and increased the number of seats it now holds in neighboring prefectures. The party secured majorities in the Osaka prefectural and municipal assemblies for the first time ever, and they even took home six seats in the Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly.^[3]

Turnouts this month were at record lows for all elections with the exception of the Hakodate mayoral contest^[4] and mayoral and assembly races in Tokyo wards which were higher than the last election but still did not top 50%.^[5]

This maintains a pattern in Japan, where fewer and fewer people are casting ballots ever since the LDP took back control in 2012.^[4]

Since theassassination of former prime ministerShinzo Abe, the historically dominant LDP began to face strong criticism over its link to theUnification Church. Abe's murdererTetsuya Yamagami had claimed that his family was bankrupted by the church. Soon after the assassination, the Japanese media ventured into investigations which unearthed pervasive links between some of the LDP's senior politicians and the church, leading to a decline in the LDP's approval.^[2]

However, Prime MinisterFumio Kishida ramped up efforts to salvage his party's reputation. He promised to double defense spending and held a meeting with the South Korean President. He also paid a surprisevisit toUkraine.These foreign and defense policy achievements bolstered his approval rating.^[2][6]

One of the most critical issues of this election was a shortage of candidates. 556 candidates in nearly 40% of the districts ran uncontested. This reflected the increasingly dysfunctional nature of Japanese society due to its rapid population decline.^[7]

Source:^[8]

1008 elections were held across all prefectures. The number of elections held by prefecture varied greatly from a low of one inToyama andOkinawa prefectures to a high of 177 in the prefecture ofHokkaido which was by far the largest number.

Stage 1 on 9 April featured the following elections:

Stage 2 on 23 April featured the following elections:

This is the total list of all elections held on 9 and 23 April broken down by prefecture and position:

The LDP secured a comfortable victory in the elections. It won six of the nine gubernatorial races that were in play. Particularly pleasing for the party was its victory inHokkaido, where the centre-left partyCDP had been historically strong. The LDP however failed to do well in Western Japan, notably inOsaka andNara.^[2]

The Japan Innovation Party's victory also attracted significant attention, with political analysts predicting a strong future for it in the second round of local elections and at the national stage.^[9]

Voter turnout for the all the gubernatorial elections was 46.8% while the average voter turnout for the mayoral elections in designated cities was 46.6%.

LDP=Liberal Democratic Party CDP=Constitutional Democratic Party Komeito=Komei JCP=Japan Communist Party NIK=Nippon Ishin no Kai (also refers to Osaka Ishin no Kai) DPFP=Democratic Party for the People SDP=Social Democratic Party, Sanseito=Sansei, Seijika Joshi 48 Party=48

• * denotes prefectural chapter

LDP=Liberal Democratic Party CDP=Constitutional Democratic Party Komeito=Komei JCP=Japan Communist Party *NIK=Nippon Ishin no Kai (also refers to Osaka Ishin no Kai) DPFP=Democratic Party for the People SDP=Social Democratic Party Sanseito=Sansei

Source NHK^[10] & Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications^[1]

LDP=Liberal Democratic Party CDP=Constitutional Democratic Party JCP=Japan Communist Party *NIK=Nippon Ishin no Kai (also refers to Osaka Ishin no Kai) DPFP=Democratic Party for the People SDP=Social Democratic Party

After the elections on 23 April the make up of prefectures, cities, Tokyo special wards, towns, and villages which held elections during the first and second stages, look like this^[1][5]

Source:^[5]

Elections in both town and villages, and cities recorded record low turnouts.

Cities: 63 mayoral races/47.73%, 280 city council elections/44.26%

Towns/Villages: 55 mayoral (heads) races/60.79%, 250 council elections/55.49%.

Anticipation began to grow that, banking on the success of the local elections, Prime Minister Kishida may call a snap general election.^[2]

LDP election ChiefHiroshi Moriyama was quoted as saying, "People have recognized our achievements."^[3]

• 2019 Japanese unified local elections

• Local elections in Japan
• 2023 elections in Japan
• April 2023 in Japan

• CS1 Japanese-language sources (ja)
• Articles with short description
• Short description with empty Wikidata description
• Wikipedia articles needing rewrite from June 2023
• All articles needing rewrite