KEMENANGAN PARTAI DEMOKRAT JEPANG DALAM PEMILIHAN UMUM 2009 DI JEPANG

Abstract

This thesis explains steps in the House of Representatives election on August 30 2009 in Japan. Japan's Parliament (Diet) consists of two chambers or bicameral with two bodies namely House of Concillors and House of Representatives. Japan has electoral steps employed to elect prefectural, city, and local officials, as well as members of representatives’ board or Diet. In the election, opposition side, DPJ, won and automatically left LDP as the ruling Party with a defeat for the first time in the history of House of Representatives election for the last 5 decades. This historic defeat has drawn attention to analyze because LDP has seemed to be a single party ruling Japan's politic since the end of World War II. LDP was heavily defeated by DPJ which is a new opposition party founded in 1996. The writer is interested to analyze the cause of DPJ’s victory in the 2009 election with frame Rational Choice Theory to see how voters’ behavior could change their votes based on existing preference during campaign and 2009 election period. DPJ’s victory was gained due to several factors. Some of the them were situational factor which includes Japan’s economic and demographic condition during the election phase, various scandals and political instability inside LDP, and also the superiority of campaign program executed by DPJ which influenced the voters’ preference.