General elections were held in Japan on 30 April 1937 to elect the 466 members of the House of Representatives,[1] after the dissolution of Parliament on 31 March. Rikken Minseitō emerged as the largest in Parliament, with 179 of the 466 seats. The election was a major success for Shakai Taishūtō, which became the third-largest party in the Diet, the first socialist party to do so in Japanese history. In contrast, the mildly pro-military Rikken Minseitō lost several seats and fascist groups such as Tōhōkai remained minor forces in the House. A month after the election, the Emperor replaced Prime Minister Hayashi with Fumimaro Konoe. Voter turnout was 73%.[2]
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All 466 seats in the House of Representatives 234 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 71.64% ( 7.00pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Districts shaded according to winners' vote strength | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Background
editIn February 1937 General Senjūrō Hayashi was appointed prime minister. Just days after taking office and having the Diet enact a budget bill, he ordered a dissolution of the House of Representatives, hoping to weaken the major political parties. The act was opposed by the major political parties as well as by the general public, and quickly became known as the "dine and dash dissolution" (食い逃げ解散, kui-nige kaisan).
In 1941 the Diet under the Konoe government passed a law extending the term of the Representatives from four years to five (衆議院議員任期延長ニ関スル法律). This allowed time to solidify the control of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association over Japanese politics. The Association effectively replaced all political parties in Japan and subsequently dominated the 1942 general election, although numerous factions developed within the Association's caucus in the House. The term extension was effectively repealed by the Constitution of Japan in 1947, which returned the representatives' term of office to 4 years.
Results
edit | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | |
| Rikken Minseitō | 3,689,355 | 36.16 | 179 | –26 | |
| Rikken Seiyūkai | 3,594,863 | 35.23 | 175 | +1 | |
| Shakai Taishūtō | 928,934 | 9.10 | 37 | +19 | |
| Shōwakai | 414,088 | 4.06 | 19 | –1 | |
| Kokumin Dōmei | 281,834 | 2.76 | 11 | –4 | |
| Tōhōkai | 221,455 | 2.17 | 11 | New | |
| Others | 1,073,157 | 10.52 | 34 | 0 | |
| Total | 10,203,686 | 100.00 | 466 | 0 | |
| Valid votes | 10,203,686 | 98.89 | |||
| Invalid/blank votes | 114,116 | 1.11 | |||
| Total votes | 10,317,802 | 100.00 | |||
| Registered voters/turnout | 14,402,497 | 71.64 | |||
| Source: Mackie & Rose,[3] Voice Japan | |||||
By prefecture
edit| Prefecture | Total seats |
Seats won | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rikken Minseitō | Rikken Seiyūkai | Shakai Taishūtō | Shōwakai | Kokumin Dōmei | Tōhōkai | Others | Ind. | ||
| Aichi | 17 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Akita | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Aomori | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Chiba | 11 | 6 | 5 | ||||||
| Ehime | 9 | 5 | 4 | ||||||
| Fukui | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Fukuoka | 18 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Fukushima | 11 | 6 | 4 | 1 | |||||
| Gifu | 9 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Gunma | 9 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Hiroshima | 13 | 6 | 4 | 3 | |||||
| Hokkaido | 20 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Hyōgo | 19 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 1 | ||||
| Ibaraki | 11 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| Ishikawa | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Iwate | 7 | 2 | 5 | ||||||
| Kagawa | 6 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Kagoshima | 12 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |||
| Kanagawa | 11 | 4 | 5 | 2 | |||||
| Kōchi | 6 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Kumamoto | 10 | 1 | 5 | 4 | |||||
| Kyoto | 11 | 7 | 3 | 1 | |||||
| Mie | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | |||||
| Miyagi | 8 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Miyazaki | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Nagano | 13 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Nagasaki | 9 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Nara | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Niigata | 15 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| Ōita | 7 | 3 | 4 | ||||||
| Okayama | 10 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Okinawa | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Osaka | 21 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Saga | 6 | 3 | 3 | ||||||
| Saitama | 11 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Shiga | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Shimane | 6 | 3 | 3 | ||||||
| Shizuoka | 13 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Tochigi | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | |||||
| Tokushima | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||||
| Tokyo | 31 | 11 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 3 | |||
| Tottori | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Toyama | 6 | 4 | 2 | ||||||
| Wakayama | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | |||||
| Yamagata | 8 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Yamaguchi | 9 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Yamanashi | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||||
| Total | 466 | 180 | 174 | 37 | 19 | 11 | 11 | 9 | 25 |
Notes
edit- ^ Chikuhei Nakajima, Ichirō Hatoyama, Yonezō Maeda and Toshio Shimada served as acting presidents until April 30, 1939.
References
edit- ^ Thomas T. Mackie & Richard Rose (1982). The International Almanac of Electoral History (2 ed.). Macmillan. p. 231.
- ^ The 20th House of Representatives election Archived 2014-02-16 at the Wayback Machine (in Japanese)
- ^ Thomas T Mackie & Richard Rose (1991) The International Almanac of Electoral History, Macmillan, pp286–289
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