General elections were held in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

on 10 December 1972. The result was a victory for the Liberal Democratic Party, which won 271 of the 491 seats. Voter turnout was 71.76%. Little changed in the aftermath of the election; the LDP saw a slight decrease in seat numbers (debatably due to it fielding more candidates than ever before as a result of regained confidence in 1969),中野士朗『田中政権　八八六日』（行政問題研究所1982年、255頁-） and its vote share remained below 50% (even with the addition of conservative-aligned independents). The

Japan Socialist Party The was a major socialist and progressive political party in Japan which existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was the primary representative of the Japanese left and main opponent of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party for most of its ex ...

won over 100 seats following its disastrous results in the 1969 Japanese general election, although infighting continued within the party over choosing cooperation with

Kōmeitō , formerly New Komeito (NKP) and commonly referred to as simply Komei, is a political party in Japan founded by the leader of Soka Gakkai, Daisaku Ikeda, in 1964. It is generally considered centrist and socially conservative. Since 2012, ...

or the

Japanese Communist Party The is a communist party in Japan. Founded in 1922, it is the oldest political party in the country. It has 250,000 members as of January 2024, making it one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party is chaired ...

, coined "Civil Service or Joint Struggle". Fears remained that it would be overtaken by the resurgence of the JCP. The

was arguably the biggest winner of the election. Its seat count nearly tripled in relation to the 1969 election, and in the span of two elections, it had gone from 5 to 38 seats. This meant it beat its post-war peak of 35 representatives in

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2025 * January 2 – Luis ...

. The other two opposition parties, the DSP and

, suffered losses despite cooperation with each other. Kōmeitō was going through a series of scandals around its censorship of press critical to it (aptly named the ) which severely damaged its public image, and gave favor to the JCP, with image of the

Soka Gakkai is a Japanese new religions, Japanese new religion led by Minoru Harada since December 2023 based on the teachings of the 13th-century Buddhist priest Nichiren. It claims the largest membership among Nichiren Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhist group ...

as a cult beginning to emerge. The DSP also lost 12 seats.

Results

By prefecture

References

{{Japanese elections

General election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

General elections in Japan Japanese general election Election and referendum articles with incomplete results