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All 466 seats to the House of Representatives of Japan 234 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General elections were held in Japan on 10 April 1946, the first after World War II. Voters had one, two or three votes, depending on how many MPs were elected from their constituency. The result was a victory for the Liberal Party, which won 148 of the 464 seats. [1] Voter turnout was 72.1 percent.
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Liberal Party was a right-wing party in Japan, founded on November 9, 1945, mainly by former members of Seiyukai Party. Its first leader was Ichirō Hatoyama. In 1946-1947 and 1948-1954, the next party leader Shigeru Yoshida was the Prime Minister.
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Baron Kijūrō Shidehara was a prominent pre–World War II Japanese diplomat and the 44th Prime Minister of Japan from 9 October 1945 to 22 May 1946. He was a leading proponent of pacifism in Japan before and after World War II, and was also the last Japanese prime minister who was a member of the kazoku. His wife, Masako, was the fourth daughter of Iwasaki Yatarō, founder of the Mitsubishi zaibatsu.
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In the months following the war, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association caucus broke up and three major political parties emerged in the Diet, loosely based around the major parties that stood in the 1937 election prior to the war. The Liberal Party was mainly composed of former Rikken Seiyūkai members, while the Progressive Party was mainly composed of former Rikken Minseitō members and the Socialist Party was mainly composed of former Shakai Taishūtō members.
The Imperial Rule Assistance Association, or Imperial Aid Association, was Japan's wartime organization created by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe on October 12, 1940, to promote the goals of his Shintaisei movement. It evolved into a "statist" ruling political party which aimed at removing the sectionalism in the politics and economics in the Empire of Japan to create a totalitarian one-party state, in order to maximize the efficiency of Japan's total war effort in China. When the organization was launched officially, Konoe was hailed as a "political savior" of a nation in chaos; however, internal divisions soon appeared.
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This was the first time Japanese women were allowed to vote. 39 women were elected to office, the largest number elected until the 2005 elections. On the other hand, Taiwanese and Koreans in Japan had their rights to vote and to run for office suspended.
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Following the election, there was a brief attempt to keep the Shidehara cabinet alive by having Shidehara join the Progressive Party, which the other major parties opposed. The Liberals and Progressives agreed to form a government under Liberal leader Ichiro Hatoyama on 2 May, but Hatoyama was promptly purged on 4 May and a new government formed under Foreign Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who officially became Prime Minister on 22 May.
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Party | Votes | % | Seats |
---|---|---|---|
Liberal Party | 14,082,575 | 25.4 | 148 |
Japan Progressive Party | 11,232,610 | 20.3 | 110 |
Japan Socialist Party | 10,069,907 | 18.2 | 96 |
Japan Cooperative Party | 3,484,889 | 6.3 | 45 |
Japanese Communist Party | 2,135,757 | 3.8 | 6 |
Other parties | 6,692,357 | 12.0 | 33 |
Independents | 7,750,784 | 14.0 | 26 |
Total valid votes | 55,448,879 | 100 | 464 |
Invalid/blank ballots | 482,000 | – | – |
Total ballots | 26,582,175 | 100 | 464 |
Source: Nohlen et al. |
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