Shūgiin election in 1946

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← 1942Shūgiin election in 19461947 →
Share of votes in%
 %
30th
20th
10
0
25.4
20.3
18.2
6.3
3.8
12.0
14.0
LP
FPJ
Otherwise.
Independent

The Shūgiin election in 1946 was the 22nd election to Shūgiin , the Japanese lower house, and took place on April 10, 1946. It was the first national election after the end of the Pacific War . Although it took place after the Meiji constitution of 1890, the Allied occupation authorities ( GHQ / SCAP ) had implemented some changes to the electoral law since the beginning of the occupation, such as the introduction of women's suffrage and in December 1945 ordered the dissolution of the Shūgiin and new elections.

As between 1902 and 1917, the 466 MPs were elected in “large constituencies” ( dai -enkenyoku ) by “block voting” ( 制 限 連 記 制 , seigen renkisei , limited voting ). 40 prefectures each formed a constituency, 6 prefectures (Hokkaidō, Tokyo, Niigata, Aichi, Ōsaka, Hyōgo) were divided into two constituencies. Between 4 and 17 MPs were elected in each constituency. The election in Okinawa (two seats), which was under American sovereignty, was not carried out.

Result

The turnout was 72.08%: 78.52% among the 16.3 million men eligible to vote and 66.97% among the 20.6 million women eligible to vote for the first time.

Political party Seats Distribution of seats
Liberal Party of Japan 141
Japanese General election, 1946 en.svg
Progressive Party of Japan ( Nihon Shimpotō ) 94
Socialist Party of Japan 93
Nihon Kyōdōtō ("Cooperation Party of Japan") 14th
Communist Party of Japan 5
Other (*) 38
Independent 81
total 466

(*) Candidates from 28 different parties, including none with more than four mandates; most joined one of the three big parties after the election.

Effects

The first 39 women moved into Shūgiin in 1946.

The incumbent Shidehara cabinet under Prime Minister Shidehara Kijūrō , which was already badly affected by the "cleansing" of wartime politicians (exclusion from public office) by the occupation authorities in January 1946, resigned in May 1946. Hatoyama Ichirō , chairman of the Liberal Party of Japan, which emerged as the strongest party in the elections, was entrusted by the Tennō with governance, but could not take up his mandate because of the ban on office of the occupation authorities. He designated Yoshida Shigeru , the previous foreign minister, as his successor as party chairman. Yoshida was commissioned by the Tennō to form a government and formed a coalition with the Progressive Party, whose chairmanship was taken over by Baron Shidehara on April 16 - the previous chairman Machida Chūji retired from politics after being banned from office. Yoshida's cabinet took office on May 22, 1946.

In the constituencies of Fukui (5 seats) and Tōkyō 2 (12 seats), one candidate fell short of the quorum required for a successful election (votes cast ÷ number of seats ÷ 4). The election was repeated in Tokyo on May 31st, and in Fukui on June 24th, 1946; H. the election of the fifth or twelfth MP was made up de facto as a majority vote in a single constituency.

In the election, 79 women stood to vote, 39 of whom moved into the Shūgiin, which corresponded to 8.4% of the seats. In addition to the fact that this was the first Japanese election with women's suffrage, the reasons for this were the electoral system used and the ban on office, which mainly affected men. Since this was no longer the case in later elections, the proportion fell again to 3.2% in the next election a year later, stagnated at 2% for decades and was only exceeded again in the 2005 elections .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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 7: 衆議院 議員 総 選 挙 の 定 数 ， 立 候補 者 数 ， 選 挙 当日 有 権 者 数 ， 投票者 数 及 び 投票 率 (明治 23 年 ～ 平 成 成 17 年) / Allotted Number, Candidates, Eligible Day, Voters and Voting Percentages of Elections for the House of Representatives (1890--2005) (Japanese, English; MS Excel ; 39 kB)
  2. ↑ Hilaria Gössmann, Ilse Lenz, Kerstin Katharina Vogel, Ulrike Wöhr: Gender . In: Josef Kreiner, Ulrich Möhwald, Hans Dieter Ölschläger (eds.): Modern Japanese Society . Brill, 2004, ISBN 90-04-10516-6 , pp. 190 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  3. ^ Susan J. Pharr: Political Women in Japan: The Search for a Place in Political Life . University of California Press, 1981, ISBN 0-520-04071-6 , pp. 35 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ 自 民 の 「圧 勝 度」 戦 後 ２ 位 議席 占有率 61.7% . In: Asahi Shimbun. September 12, 2005. Retrieved December 18, 2012 (Japanese).