The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito, agreed Friday to revise the public offices election law during an extraordinary parliamentary session expected to be convened this autumn.
The move comes after a number of posters unrelated to the July 7 Tokyo gubernatorial election were displayed on official election billboards during the election campaign period.
The ruling bloc will discuss whether to introduce a provision calling for decency in election posters and punishments for people who display posters for commercial purposes on official billboards, and whether to oblige election candidates to show their portraits and names on their posters.
At their first working-level meeting on the planned revision, held Friday, the LDP and Komeito confirmed that they will compile their plan as soon as possible and then hold talks with opposition parties.
Meanwhile, the ruling parties agreed that there is no need to revise the law over obstructions of election campaign activities, following a series of acts of sabotage carried out during the campaign period for the House of Representatives by-election in the Tokyo No. 15 constituency in April. They confirmed that the current law is capable of dealing with such obstructions.
"We have a scenario to revise the law during the next parliamentary session after the ruling and opposition sides reach an agreement," LDP election system research commission head Ichiro Aisawa, who attended Friday's meeting, told reporters.