Kyōto 2nd district is a constituency of the House of Representatives

House of Representatives of Japan

The is the lower house of the Diet of Japan. The House of Councillors of Japan is the upper house.The House of Representatives has 480 members, elected for a four-year term. Of these, 180 members are elected from 11 multi-member constituencies by a party-list system of proportional representation,...

 in the Diet of Japan

Diet of Japan

The is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally...

. It is located in central Kyoto

Kyoto Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of the island of Honshu. The capital is the city of Kyoto.- History :Until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Kyoto prefecture was known as Yamashiro....

 and consists of the Kyoto city wards of Sakyō

Sakyo-ku, Kyoto

is one of the eleven wards in the city of Kyoto, in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It was created in 1929 when it was split off from Kamigyo-ku.It is located in the north-east corner of Kyoto city. In the east it borders the city of Ōtsu in Shiga Prefecture. In the south Sanjō Street separates it from...

, Higashiyama

Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto

' is one of the eleven wards in the city of Kyoto, in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It was created in 1929 when it was split off from Shimogyō-ku. During the years 1931 to 1976 it also covered the area of present-day Yamashina-ku, which was an independent town until its merger into the city in 1931...

 and Yamashina

Yamashina-ku, Kyoto

is one of the eleven wards in the city of Kyoto, in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It lies in the southeastern part of the city, and Yamashina Station is one stop away from Kyoto Station on the Tōkaidō Main Line ....

. As of 2009, 270,598 eligible voters were registered in the district.

Before the electoral reform of 1994, the area formed part of Kyoto 1st district

Kyoto 1st district (1947–1993)

Kyōto 1st district was a constituency of the House of Representatives in the Diet of Japan. Between 1947 and 1993 it elected five Representatives by single non-transferable vote. It was located in Kyōto and consisted, as of 1993, of the cities of Kyōto city's wards of Sakyō, Higashiyama, Kamigyō,...

 where five Representatives had been elected by single non-transferable vote

Single non-transferable vote

The single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used in multi-member constituency elections.- Voting :In any election, each voter casts one vote for one candidate in a multi-candidate race for multiple offices. Posts are filled by the candidates with the most votes...

 (SNTV).

Kyoto had been a traditional stronghold of the Japanese Communist Party

Japanese Communist Party

The Japanese Communist Party is a left-wing political party in Japan.The JCP advocates the establishment of a society based on socialism, democracy and peace, and opposition to militarism...

 (JCP); but following the electoral reform that replaced the SNTV multi-member districts with FPTP single-member districts, the JCP could only win the new Kyoto 3rd district

Kyoto 3rd district

Kyōto 3rd district is a constituency of the House of Representatives in the Diet of Japan. It is located in South central Kyoto and consists of Kyoto city's Fushimi ward, the cities of Mukō and Nagaokakyō and the town of Ōyamazaki...

 while losing the other three districts in Kyoto city (Kyoto 1, 2 and 4) in the 1996 general election, the first under the new system. In the 2nd district JCP newcomer Satoshi Inoue

Satoshi Inoue (politician)

Satoshi Inoue is a Japanese politician and member of the House of Councillors for the Japanese Communist Party....

 lost narrowly to Liberal Democrat Mikio Okuda who had previously represented the old multi-member 1st district. Democrat Seiji Maehara

Seiji Maehara

is a Japanese politician who has been a member of the House of Representatives of Japan since 1993. He was the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan from 2005 to 2006, and later served as Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Minister of Foreign Affairs under the cabinets...

 ranked third, but won a seat via the Kinki PR block. After the main opposition New Frontier Party

New Frontier Party

The was a Japanese political party that existed during the mid-1990s. As a merger of several small parties, the party was ideologically diverse, with its membership ranging from moderate socialists to neoliberals and conservatives...

 had dissolved and its successor groups had mainly been absorbed by the Democratic Party, Maehara won Kyoto 2 in the 2000 general election and has held onto the seat since. Maehara went on to become Democratic Party president in 2005, but resigned following the Livedoor scandal in 2006 and later was a minister of state in the Democratic-led Hatoyama and Kan cabinets.

List of Representatives

Representative	Party		Dates	Notes
Mikio Okuda		LDP Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...	1996 – 2000	Retired from politics in 2000
Seiji Maehara Seiji Maehara is a Japanese politician who has been a member of the House of Representatives of Japan since 1993. He was the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan from 2005 to 2006, and later served as Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Minister of Foreign Affairs under the cabinets...		DPJ Democratic Party of Japan The is a political party in Japan founded in 1998 by the merger of several opposition parties. Its socially liberal platform is generally considered center-left in the Japanese political spectrum...	2000 –

Election results