A record 314 women are running in the House of Representatives election, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun, exceeding 300 for the first time in a general election.
Of the 1,344 candidates running in the election, the percentage of women also hit a record high of 23.36%.
The increase is partly due to opposition parties fielding joint candidates only in a handful of single-seat constituencies.
The Japanese Communist Party is fielding the largest number of female candidates with 88, followed by the LDP with 55, and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan with 53.
However, the government’s goal of having women comprise 35% of the candidates running in a House of Representatives election has yet to be realized.
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