地方票、党員投票省略なら比重減　自民党総裁選

Local votes and party members vote are omitted, the LDP presidential election will be reduced.

The Liberal Democratic Party decides the implementation form of the presidential election, which chooses the successor of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (the party president), at the general affairs meeting on the 1st.There is controversy within the party because the weight of the local vote is less than the usual method of using the Diet member's vote and the party local's vote.

On August 31, youth director Fumiaki Kobayashi submitted the signatures of 145 members of parliamentary members of the party requesting secretary general Toshihiro Nikai to vote for party members at the party headquarters. A little less than 40% of the members of the Liberal Democratic Party, the current cabinet members and those who have experience in the cabinet, including younger members who have won the Lower House three times or less, were among the members.

Depending on the method of presidential election, the mechanism for reflecting local votes and its weight will change.

The election of the president is usually carried out at the end of the three-year term, and the total number of parliamentary votes and the local votes of the same number of party members and party friends are competing. The number of local votes has been increased to the same as the number of parliamentary votes due to the revision of the official election rules in 2014.

There are currently 394 Diet members in the party, except for the chairs of the House of Representatives. If implemented in the usual way, a total of 788 votes will be contested, with 394 votes for the representatives and 394 for the local votes.

At this time, the prefectural consecutive votes increased from 1 to 3 votes. It seems that the candidates who took the first place decided to adopt a system of taking three votes over the preliminary rounds conducted by the prefectural federations (excluding some prefectures), which seems to have amplified the voices of the local people who support Koizumi.

The number of local votes may affect the personnel affairs of ministers and party officials after the election of the president.

Source: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO63254510R30C20A8PP8000/