1986 Japanese general election
General elections were held in Japan on 6 July 1986 to elect the 512 members of the House of Representatives. This marks the last general election as of 2021 in which the LDP was able to obtain at least 300 seats in the House of Representatives, an event that only ever happened once before, in the 1960 election. This general election and 1960's are also tied for the highest number of seats ever obtained by the LDP in a general election, as both saw the LDP winning exactly 300 seats. However, the House of Representatives had fewer total seats in 1960, and so the popular vote for the LDP was actually stronger in 1960. Nonetheless, the 1986 general election also stands as the fourth strongest LDP showing in a general election in terms of the popular constituency votes. The result would not be matched until the Democratic Party of Japan's landslide showing in the 2009 Japanese general election narrowly beat it.
Image: Yasuhiro Nakasone in Andrews cropped
Image: Masashi Ishibashi
Image: Yohei Kono 1985
Image: Satsuki Eda 1993 (cropped)
House of Representatives (Japan)
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Councillors is the upper house.
The composition of the House is established by Article 41 and Article 42 of the Constitution of Japan. The House of Representatives has 465 members, elected for a four-year term. Of these, 176 members are elected from 11 multi-member constituencies by a party-list system of proportional representation, and 289 are elected from single-member constituencies.
House of Representatives (Japan)
Kuroda Kiyotaka, Satsuma samurai and prime minister in the late 1880s, coined the term "transcendentalism" (超然主義, chōzen shugi) on the occasion of the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. The oligarchs should try to "transcend" electoral politics and govern without partisan majorities the House of Representatives.
Itō Hirobumi, a Chōshū samurai, member of the House of Peers and prime minister of Japan on three non-consecutive occasions between 1885 and 1901. He was a main architect of the Imperial Constitution which created the Imperial Diet. When the oligarchs attempts to govern "transcendentally" mostly failed in the 1890s, he saw the necessity for permanent allies among elected political parties.
Hara Takashi, although actually himself born a Morioka noble, made his career as commoner-politician and became the first and one of only three prime ministers from the House of Representatives in the Empire.