This Sunday at 07.00 hours (midnight in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands) the first of the more than 45,000 voting stations opened in Japan for a day in which the citizens of the country will elect the 465 deputies who will decide the course of the next Japanese government.
More than 105 million Japanese are called to the polls this Sunday for elections from which the next Diet (Parliament) will emerge. A total of 1,344 candidates are competing for the 465 seats in the House of Representatives, of which 314 are women.
Of the total number of members of the Japanese Parliament, 289 are elected in single-member constituencies by relative majority voting, while the remaining 176 are elected by proportional representation in eleven large multi-member constituencies.
With these early elections, the new Japanese Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, hopes to receive the support of the citizens and settle into office just a month after winning the primaries of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and benefiting from the step aside made by Fumio Kishida, who resigned as head of government to pave the way for his successor.
Polling stations will remain open until 8:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands), when the counting of votes will begin.
