Elections in Japan

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The Japanese political process has two types of elections.

• National elections (国政選挙, kokusei senkyo)
• Subnational/local elections (地方選挙, chihō senkyo)

While the national level features a parliamentary system of government where the head of government is elected indirectly by the legislature, prefectures and municipalities employ a presidential system where chief executives and legislative assemblies are directly elected, independently from each other. Many of the prefectural and municipal elections are held together in unified local elections (統一地方選挙, Tōitsu chihō senkyo) since 1947, held in years before leap years;^[1] but since each election cycle of every chief executive or assembly of any prefecture or municipality is independent and not reset after resignations/deaths/recalls/no-confidence votes/dissolutions/municipal mergers, there are also many non-unified local elections today. Prefectural and municipal assemblies are unicameral, the National Diet is bicameral, with the two houses on independent election cycles.