In his book 'Patterns of Democracy', Arend Lijphart mentions how the electoral systems of the majoritarian model and the consensual model of democracies differ. Electoral systems in majoritarian democracies essentially tend to be a single-member district plurality system, while consensus democracies usually tend to use the method of proportional representation. Most electoral systems fall into the two categories of PR and plurality majority. However, there are some electoral systems that fall in between. These are called semi-proportional formulas and Japan with its SNTV system is an example of this approach. From 1947 to 1993 Japan had a very unique electoral system called Single Non-Transferable Vote or simply SNTV. Under this system, voters could cast their votes individually and the candidates with the highest number of votes won. Voters do not have as many votes as there are seats in the district, and districts must have at least two seats. However, in 1996, a new policy was introduced, known as PR or proportional representation. Its main goal was to change the single-party dominance that had been observed in Japan over the years and to help represent both majorities and minorities and translate votes proportionally into seats. PR was a system in which citizens were no longer required to choose a candidate, but a particular party, during elections. PR and SNTV both require multi-member districts and it is an accepted fact that district size has a degree of disproportionality. It has a strong influence on both PR and SNTV systems, but in opposite directions. While in the SNTV system the increase in the size of the constituencies leads to greater disproportionality and greater advantages for the large parties, a...... middle of paper ...the candidate with the most votes wins and it does not matter whether the candidate's party it is popular or not. Factionalism was yet another aspect of Japanese political parties and even now, when political policy has been changed, it still exists. Each individual candidate usually maintains a small group of followers called a faction or koenkai. Koenkai members are loyal to individual politicians, not necessarily to political parties or ideals. The size and activity of a candidate's koenkai is what determines how many supporters will actually turn out to vote. Therefore, voters are mobilized by organizations such as local agricultural cooperatives, small business associations or neighborhood associations. Thus, cronyism, personalism and rural capture were products of the single non-transferable vote electoral system in a multi-member district..