Politics and parliament

Political vocabulary is almost entirely made of two-kanji words borrowed from Chinese, and many come in pairs worth learning together: 与党(よとう) and 野党(やとう), 当選(とうせん) and 落選(らくせん), 可決(かけつ) and 否決(ひけつ). News reports put most of them in the passive — 法案(ほうあん)が可決(かけつ)された — because the subject of the story is the bill, not the people who voted for it. Note that 国会(こっかい) is the national parliament, while 議会(ぎかい) is any elected assembly, from a town council upwards.