Sangiin election 1947

The Sangiin election in 1947 , formally the “1. Ordinary election of Sangiin MPs "( Japanese 第 1 回 参議院 議員 通常 選 挙 , dai-ik-kai Sangiin giin tsūjō seitenkyo ), to the Japanese council house ( Sangiin ) , the upper house (jōin) of the national parliament ( Kokkai ) took place on April 20 Took place in 1947. Five days later, on April 25th, the Shūgiin, the lower house, was also re-elected . The new constitution developed by the Allied occupation authorities and Japanese politicians was supposed to come into force in May 1947: the previous upper house, the Kizokuin (manor), was abolished and replaced by the elected Sangiin. 150 MPs were elected in the prefectures and 100 more in a nationwide constituency ( zenkoku-ku ).

The 1947 election was the only Sangiin election in which all MPs were elected at the same time. To this end, twice as many MPs were elected by simple non-transferable votes in all constituencies, including the national constituency, as in later years , with half of the candidates with the highest percentage of votes being elected for six years and those with the lower percentage of votes for three years. In Gifu , where only two candidates were available for two seats and there was therefore no vote, the terms of office were drawn.

Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru's conservative-liberal Liberal Party of Japan expressed the government's main opposition parties were likewise bourgeois Democratic Party of Hitoshi Ashida and the Socialist Party of Japan under Tetsu Katayama .

Around 40 million Japanese, men and women over 20 years of age, were eligible to vote. The Ryūkyū Islands ( Okinawa ) were like the Amami Islands ( Kagoshima ) and the Ogasawara Islands ( Tokyo ) under US administration and did not take part in the election.

Result

Allocation of seats to the parties. After the election, the strongest parliamentary group, the Ryokufūkai, formed from 74 of the independent MPs .

The turnout was 61.12% in the prefectures and 60.93% in the national constituency.

Political party		Prefectures			nationwide constituency			MPs
		be right	proportion of	Seats	be right	proportion of	Seats	for six years	for three years	total
	Liberal Party of Japan	3,769,704	17.10%	30th	1,360,456	6.40%	8th			38
	Socialist Party of Japan	4,901,341	22.23%	30th	3,479,814	16.36%	17th			47
	Democratic Party	2,989,132	13.56%	22nd	1,508,087	7.09%	6th			28
	Kokumin-kyōdō-tō ("People's Cooperation Party")	978.522	4.44%	6th	549.916	2.59%	3			9
	Communist Party of Japan	825.304	3.74%	1	610.948	2.87%	3			4th
	Other (*)	1,058,032	4.80%	7th	1,063,253	5.00%	6th			13
	Independent	7,527,191	34.14%	54	12,698,698	59.70%	57			111
total		22,049,226	100%	150	21.271.172	100%	100	125	125	250

Constituencies

The electoral mode (a common election for both halves of the house) meant that the chances of small parties winning seats were higher than in later elections. 331 candidates competed for 150 seats in the prefectural constituencies.

A total of 258 candidates applied for the 100 seats in the nationwide constituency - twelve of them withdrew before election day. The pharmaceutical entrepreneur Hoshi Hajime (Democratic Party, later Kokumin Minshutō , “People's Democratic Party”) was elected with the highest percentage of votes ( top tōsen ) and received 487,612 votes nationwide. The lowest (50th) share of the vote, which was sufficient for an election for six years, was 123,679 for Okamoto Aisuke ( Independent , after the election Ryokufūkai ). Kunii Jun'ichi ( Independent , later Kokumin Minshutō) was elected as the 100th (last) MP for three years with 68,128 votes .

Constituency results 1947
Party affiliation of the election winners (status: election day) : Liberal Party of Japan Socialist Party of Japan Democratic Party Kokumin-kyōdō-tō Communist Party of Japan Others Independent First line: until 1953, second line: until 1950										Hokkaidō
									Aomori
									Akita	Iwate
								Niigata	Yamagata	Miyagi
							Ishikawa	Toyama	Tochigi	Fukushima
						Fukui	Nagano	Gunma	Saitama	Ibaraki
		Shimane	Tottori	Hyogo	Kyoto	Shiga	Gifu	Yamanashi	Tokyo	Chiba
		Yamaguchi	Hiroshima	Okayama	Osaka	Nara	Aichi	Shizuoka	Kanagawa
saga	Fukuoka					Wakayama	Mie
Nagasaki	Kumamoto	Ōita		Ehime	Kagawa	Nationwide constituency until 1953:  2           11        5      2      1              29       until 1950:   6           6       1      1      3      5              28
	Kagoshima	Miyazaki		Kochi	Tokushima
( Okinawa )

Effects

The Socialist Party of Japan (SPJ) emerged as the strongest party in the elections. Since the SPJ also won the Shūgiin election five days later, Yoshida Shigeru no longer ran for the office of prime minister and the SPJ chairman Katayama Tetsu was elected prime minister. He formed a coalition government with the Democratic Party of Ashida Hitoshi and the Kokumin-kyōdō-tō of Miki Takeo .

The majority in the Sangiin were made up of independent MPs, including former members of the Kizokuin. Many of them united to form the Ryokufūkai , which later formed the strongest parliamentary group in the chamber with over 90 members. It also included the first president of the Sangiin, Matsudaira Tsuneo . Matsumoto Jiichirō (SPJ) was elected Vice President .

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Yoshida is the family name, Shigeru the first name.

Web links

• 衆議院> 第 1 回 参議院 議員 選 挙 . In:ザ ・ 選 挙 . JANJAN(Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures), September 18, 2008,accessed January 2, 2010(Japanese). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication , Statistics Office, 日本 の 長期 統計 系列 , chap. 27 公務員 ・ 選 挙 , Table 11: 参議院 議員 通常 選 挙 の 定 数 ， 立 候補 者 数 ， 選 挙 当日 有 権 者 数 ， 投票者 数 及 及 び 投票 率 （昭和 22 年 ～ 平 成 16 年） / Allotted Number, Candidates, Candidates, Candidates, Allotted Number Day, Voters and Voting Percentages of Ordinary Elections for the House of Councilors (1947--2004) (Japanese, English; MS Excel ; 34 kB)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication , Statistics Office, 日本 の 長期 統計 系列 , chap. 27 公務員 ・ 選 挙 , Table 13: 参議院 議員 通常 選 挙 の 党派 別 当選 者 数 及 び 得票 率 （昭和 22 年 ～ 平 成 16 年） / Persons Elected and Votes Polled by Political Parties - Ordinary Elections for the House of Councilors (1947- -2004) (Japanese, English; MS Excel ; 49 kB)