1962 Japanese House of Councillors election

House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on 1 July 1962,[1] electing half the seats in the House. The Liberal Democratic Party won the most seats. This was the first Japanese national election to feature the Kōmeitō as a candidate, as it had formed earlier in the same year.

1962 Japanese House of Councillors election

← 1959 1 July 1962 1965 →

127 of the 250 seats in the House of Councillors
126 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Hayato Ikeda Jōtarō Kawakami Kōji Harashima
Party LDP Socialist Kōmeitō
Seats after 142 66 15
Seat change Increase10 Decrease19 Increase15
Popular vote 16,581,637 8,666,910 4,124,269
Percentage 46.4% 24.2% 11.5%
Swing Increase5.2% Decrease2.3% N/A

  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
 
Leader Suehiro Nishio Kenji Miyamoto
Party Democratic Socialist Dōshikai JCP
Seats after 11 7 4
Seat change Increase11 Decrease4 Increase1
Popular vote 1,899,756 1,660,466 1,123,947
Percentage 5.3% 4.6% 3.1%
Swing N/A Decrease3.4% Increase1.2%

President of the House of Councillors before election

Tarō Hirai
LDP

President of the House of Councillors-designate

Yōtoku Shigemasa
LDP

As is typical for House of Councillors elections, candidate personality and public appeal played a stronger role than they would in a House of Representatives election; the first place winner for the national district voting was Aki Fujiwara, a panelist on the Japanese version of I've Got a Secret, who broke all of the previous House of Councillors records by obtaining 1,160,000 votes.[2]

The Japan Socialist Party (JSP) had attempted to make questions of constitutional revision the main issue for the election, whereas the LDP attempted to sideline the issue by claiming that it would not pursue any constitutional amendments unless it were to receive recommendations from the Constitutional Investigation Commission, which was still in the process of deliberating at the time of the election. Overall, the JSP lost the most in this election, losing 19 seats, whereas the LDP gained 10 seats.[2]

Results

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PartyNationalConstituencySeats
Votes%SeatsVotes%SeatsNot upWonTotal
after
+/–
Liberal Democratic Party16,581,63746.372117,112,98647.13487369142+10
Japan Socialist Party8,666,91024.241511,917,67532.8222293766–19
Kōmeitō4,124,26911.537958,1792.6426915New
Democratic Socialist Party1,899,7565.3132,649,4227.3017411New
Dōshikai1,660,4664.642128,8340.350527New
Japanese Communist Party1,123,9473.1421,760,2584.851134+1
Other parties295,6030.83058,6220.1600000
Independents1,404,0483.9311,725,9474.752235–13
Total35,756,636100.005136,311,923100.00761231272500
Valid votes35,756,63693.3836,311,92394.82
Invalid/blank votes2,534,2766.621,983,2995.18
Total votes38,290,912100.0038,295,222100.00
Registered voters/turnout56,137,29568.2156,137,29568.22
Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications,[1][3] National Diet

By constituency

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Prefecture Total
seats
Seats won
LDP JSP Kōmeitō DSP JCP Dōshikai Ind.
Aichi 3 2 1
Akita 1 1
Aomori 1 1
Chiba 2 1 1
Ehime 1 1
Fukui 1 1
Fukuoka 3 2 1
Fukushima 2 1 1
Gifu 1 1
Gunma 2 1 1
Hiroshima 2 1 1
Hokkaido 4 1 2 1
Hyōgo 3 2 1
Ibaraki 2 1 1
Ishikawa 1 1
Iwate 1 1
Kagawa 1 1
Kagoshima 2 1 1
Kanagawa 2 1 1
Kōchi 1 1
Kumamoto 2 2
Kyoto 2 1 1
Mie 1 1
Miyagi 1 1
Miyazaki 1 1
Nagano 2 1 1
Nagasaki 1 1
Nara 1 1
Niigata 2 1 1
Ōita 1 1
Okayama 2 1 1
Osaka 3 1 1 1
Saga 1 1
Saitama 2 1 1
Shiga 1 1
Shimane 1 1
Shizuoka 2 2
Tochigi 2 1 1
Tokushima 1 1
Tokyo 5 2 1 1 1
Tottori 1 1
Toyama 1 1
Wakayama 1 1
Yamagata 1 1
Yamaguchi 1 1
Yamanashi 1 1
National 51 21 15 7 3 2 2 1
Total 127 69 37 9 4 3 2 3

References

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  1. ^ a b Table 13: Persons Elected and Votes Polled by Political Parties - Ordinary Elections for the House of Councillors (1947–2004) Archived 2011-03-23 at the Wayback Machine Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
  2. ^ a b Ukai, Nobushige (1962). "The Japanese House of Councillors Election of July 1962". Asian Survey. 2 (6): 1–8. doi:10.2307/3023612. ISSN 0004-4687.
  3. ^ "27-11 Allotted Number, Candidates, Eligible Voters as of Election Day, Voters and Voting Percentages of Ordinary Elections for the House of Councillors (1947-2004)". Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Archived from the original on 2006-01-04.