Record number of women to contest Japan elections

This year's polls for Japan’s upper house of parliament are witnessing the highest number of women candidates.

Opposition parties hope the move will help attract female voters.

On July 21, Japanese citizens will vote for 124 representatives to the House of Councillors, the upper house of the "Diet," or Japan's parliament.

Out of the 273 candidates, 104 are women, eight more than in the previous election for the upper house in 2016. The ratio of female candidates has also set a new record, accounting for 28.1% of the total number of participants for the upper house.

A study last year by the Cabinet Office of the Japanese government showed that the country ranked 15th out of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) 19 member states regarding the ratio of women in its upper house of parliament.

"The lack of female Japanese politicians has been a huge problem for many years and I would say it has been an international embarrassment," Mieko Nakabayashi, former politician and now professor of Social Sciences at Tokyo's Waseda University, told DW.

The latest increase in the number of female candidates is the result of a new law designed to give women more of a say in Japan's traditionally male-dominated political sphere.

The legislation went into effect in May 2018 and was partly spurred by the low level of female political participation in Japan compared to other nations.