Kagawa at-large district (香川県選挙区, Kagawa-ken Senkyo-ku) is a constituency of the House of Councillors in the Diet of Japan (national legislature). It consists of Kagawa Prefecture and elects two Councillors, one every three years by a first-past-the-post system for a six-year term. In the first election in 1947, Kagawa like all districts used single non-transferable vote to elect both its Councillors in one election.
Single-member districts (ichinin-ku) for the House of Councillors often play a decisive role for the outcome of elections as little swing in votes is required to achieve a change of the Councillors elected there. Kagawa in predominantly rural Shikoku has in most elections voted for candidates from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP); but in 1950, 1965, 1971 and in the landslide election of 1989 – the first that led to a nejire kokkai ("twisted parliament": opposition control of the House of Councillors) – the main opposition Japan Socialist Party (JSP) managed to pick up a seat in Kagawa. Following the decline of the 1955 System of LDP and JSP and the party realignments of the 1990s, the JSP was replaced by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) as main opposition party. DPJ candidate Emiko Uematsu could win Kagawa by a large margin against LDP incumbent Kenji Manabe in the 2007 election that also led to a nejire kokkai. It now, similar to other 2-seat districts, serves as an LDP stronghold. When the opposition consolidated behind Miwako Oda in 2019, they lost by thirteen points to Miyake still.
Current Councillors
As of 31 January 2023, the current councillors representing this district are as follows:
Shingo Miyake (Class of 2019, 2nd term, expires 2025)
^"総務省｜令和4年9月1日現在選挙人名簿及び在外選挙人名簿登録者数" [Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications - Number of registered voters as of 1 September 2022] (in Japanese). Retrieved 2023-01-04.
