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 18 December 1983 to elect the 511 members of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

. The voter turnout was 67.94%, the lowest it had ever been in post-war history up to that point, and a low which would not be surpassed until ten years later. Contrary to pre-election polls by national daily papers which projected a comfortable majority for the LDP, the latter party lost 34 seats compared to the previous election, falling six seats short of the 256 needed for majority control. As a result, the major conservative party was forced to form a majority

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

for the first time since

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

. In order to do so, the LDP formed a coalition with the New Liberal Club, a move which JSP leader Masashi Ishibashi called a "betrayal of the electorate." It is likely that the LDP's losses resulted in great part due to running too many candidates and thus falling prey to the

spoiler effect In social choice theory and politics, a spoiler effect happens when a losing candidate affects the results of an election simply by participating. Voting rules that are not affected by spoilers are said to be spoilerproof. The frequency and se ...

. The biggest winner among the opposition was

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, ...

, which saw an increase in terms of both seats as well as the popular vote that exceeded all of the other parties. This election also saw considerable

tactical voting Strategic or tactical voting is voting in consideration of possible ballots cast by other voters in order to maximize one's satisfaction with the election's results. Gibbard's theorem shows that no voting system has a single "always-best" stra ...

cooperation between the Japan Socialist Party, Komeito, Socialist Democratic Federation, and Democratic Socialist Party in various combinations, which resulted in varying levels of success for the opposition, but primarily for Komeito's outcome.

Results

By prefecture

References

{{Japanese elections General elections in Japan

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 ...

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results