Hokkaidō 11th district (北海道[第]11区, Hokkaidō-[dai-]jūikku) is a single-member constituency of the
House of Representatives, the lower house of the national
Diet of Japan. It is located in southeastern
Hokkaidō and consists of the city of
Obihiro and the surrounding
Tokachi Subprefecture. As of 2016, 291,852 eligible voters were registered in the district.[2] The district is the country's second largest in terms of area after the neighbouring
12th district.
The 11th district and its predecessor had been long dubbed as the "Nakagawa Kingdom" due to continuous winning streak by politicians from the Nakagawa family in the district. The district (when still part of the
medium-sized 5th district) was won seven consecutive times from 1963 by former minister and LDP heavyweight
Ichirō Nakagawa. After Nakagawa's suicide in 1983, his son
Shōichi won the district in the subsequent
by-election. Shōichi continued to hold the district after the 1996 electoral reforms that introduced
parallel voting and smaller
single-member districts. He won the district for a total of eight consecutive times until the
2009 general election. Nakagawa was defeated by
DPJ candidate
Tomohiro Ishikawa, ending his family's 46-year dominance in the district. He killed himself in October the same year.[3] His widow,
Yūko managed to regain the district in the 2012 election, holding it until her defeat in 2017 to Tomohiro's wife
Kaori.
^The CDP is the successor party of the
DPJ in this district, therefore the voting figures of the DPJ candidate in the previous election are used as a reference.
^The DPJ is the successor party of the
NPD in this district, therefore the voting figures of the NPD candidate in the previous election are used as a reference.
References
^"北海道11区". go2senkyo. initial.inc. Retrieved 18 November 2021.