1928 Japanese general election

1928 Japanese general election

← 1924 20 February 1928 1930 →

All 466 seats in the House of Representatives
234 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party
 
Leader Tanaka Giichi Hamaguchi Osachi
Party Rikken Seiyūkai Rikken Minseitō
Last election 22.41%, 103 seats Did not exist
Seats won 217 216
Seat change Increase114 New
Popular vote 4,244,385 4,251,771
Percentage 43.06% 43.14%
Swing Increase20.86pp New

Districts shaded according to winners' vote strength

Prime Minister before election

Tanaka Giichi
Rikken Seiyūkai

Elected Prime Minister

Tanaka Giichi
Rikken Seiyūkai

General elections were held in Japan on 20 February 1928,[1][2] the first after the passing of the Universal Manhood Suffrage Law in 1925 which introduced universal male suffrage for men 25 years and over.[3] The ruling Rikken Seiyūkai led by Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi won one more seat than the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party led by Hamaguchi Osachi, although the Constitutional Democratic Party had received slightly more votes. The hung parliament led to the Tanaka government continuing in office.

Electoral system

[edit]

Following electoral reforms in 1925, the 466 members of the House of Representatives were elected from multi-member constituencies with between three and five seats. Voting had previously been restricted to men aged over 25 who paid at least 3 yen a year in direct taxation, but the reforms had also abolished the taxation requirement.[4] As a result, the electorate increased from 3.3 million in the 1924 elections to 12.4 million.

Results

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PartyVotes%Seats+/–
Constitutional Democratic Party4,251,77143.14216New
Rikken Seiyūkai4,244,38543.06217+114
Labour-Farmer Party184,0401.872New
Jitsugyo Doshikai166,2501.694New
Social Democratic Party120,0441.224New
Japan Labour-Farmer Party94,6260.961New
Kakushintō81,3240.833New
Japan Farmers Party44,0000.450New
Others669,7566.8019–50
Total9,856,196100.00466+2
Valid votes9,856,19698.88
Invalid/blank votes111,8881.12
Total votes9,968,084100.00
Registered voters/turnout12,408,67880.33
Source: Mackie & Rose, Voice Japan

By prefecture

[edit]
Prefecture Total
seats
Seats won
RS RM JD SDP K L-FP JL-FP Others Ind.
Aichi 17 5 10 2
Akita 7 4 3
Aomori 6 4 2
Chiba 11 6 4 1
Ehime 9 7 2
Fukui 5 2 2 1
Fukuoka 18 9 6 1 1 1
Fukushima 11 6 5
Gifu 9 5 3 1
Gunma 9 4 5
Hiroshima 13 7 6
Hokkaido 20 10 9 1
Hyōgo 19 8 7 1 1 2
Ibaraki 11 6 5
Ishikawa 6 3 3
Iwate 7 6 1
Kagawa 6 3 3
Kagoshima 12 2 9 1
Kanagawa 11 5 6
Kōchi 6 2 4
Kumamoto 10 5 5
Kyoto 11 4 4 1 2
Mie 9 4 3 2
Miyagi 8 2 5 1
Miyazaki 5 1 4
Nagano 13 6 6 1
Nagasaki 9 3 6
Nara 5 2 3
Niigata 15 6 7 1 1
Ōita 7 4 3
Okayama 10 7 2 1
Okinawa 5 3 2
Osaka 21 5 13 1 2
Saga 6 3 3
Saitama 11 5 4 2
Shiga 5 3 2
Shimane 6 1 4 1
Shizuoka 13 8 5
Tochigi 9 4 5
Tokushima 6 3 3
Tokyo 31 14 16 1
Tottori 4 2 2
Toyama 6 2 4
Wakayama 6 2 3 1
Yamagata 8 4 4
Yamaguchi 9 7 2
Yamanashi 5 3 1 1
Total 466 217 216 4 4 3 2 1 1 18

Aftermath

[edit]

The Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin was assassinated by the Japanese army in June 1928. Tanaka denounced the army for this, but lost support and was forced to resign in July 1929. Opposition leader Hamaguchi became Prime Minister and formed a new government.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Thomas T Mackie & Richard Rose (1991) The International Almanac of Electoral History, Macmillan, p281
  2. ^ Colegrove, Kenneth (1928). "The Japanese General Election of 1928". American Political Science Review. 22 (2): 401–407. doi:10.2307/1945477. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1945477. S2CID 147606313.
  3. ^ Colegrove, Kenneth (1929). "Labor Parties in Japan". American Political Science Review. 23 (2): 329–363. doi:10.2307/1945218. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1945218. S2CID 145649163.
  4. ^ Mackie & Rose, p276