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 February 1990 to elect the 512 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

lower house A lower house is the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature, where the other chamber is the upper house. Although styled as "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or otherwise e ...

of the

National Diet , transcription_name = ''Kokkai'' , legislature = 215th Session of the National Diet , coa_pic = Flag of Japan.svg , house_type = Bicameral , houses = , foundation=29 November 1890(), leader1_type ...

.Elections held in 1990
Inter-Parliamentary Union

Background

As with the previous House of Councillors election, the "four-point set of evils" in the minds of voters were the controversial

consumption tax A consumption tax is a tax levied on consumption spending on goods and services. The tax base of such a tax is the money spent on Consumption (economics), consumption. Consumption taxes are usually indirect, such as a sales tax or a value-added ta ...

, the Recruit scandal, agricultural import liberalisation, and former Prime Minister Sōsuke Uno's sex scandal. Political commentators excitedly speculated whether a "Great Reversal" would finally come about in which the LDP loses its majority in the House of Representatives, as the prior 1989 election saw the LDP lose its long-held majority in the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives (Japan), House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers (Japan), House of Peers. If the t ...

Results

By prefecture

Analysis

Although the LDP lost a net total of 25 seats, it still held onto its majority in the House of Representatives with a margin of 19 seats. This was due to the inequitable districting practices in Japan at the time, as individual voters in rural districts tend to both favour the LDP and also be disproportionately influential. However, the LDP did see losses among rural voters in the 1989 elections, and as a result the party pivoted away from their commitment to liberal import policies and back into a more

protectionist Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...

rhetoric, declaring that "not one grain of foreign

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

will be imported into Japan." The LDP also acquiesced by revising the consumption tax law to allow for exceptions; moreover, public resistance to the new tax had slightly decreased since the 1989 Upper House election. Although party leadership tends to have only minor influence on Japanese elections, positive cabinet approval ratings for the LDP bounced back from

Noboru Takeshita was a Japanese politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1987 to 1989. Born in Shimane Prefecture, Takeshita attended Waseda University and was drafted into the army during the Pacific War. He was first elected to the National Diet ...

's low of 10% to the reform-minded Toshiki Kaifu's 33%. In addition, the LDP also made sure to field an ample amount of candidates and to informally support independents, who increased by 12 in this election. The clear winner in the elections was the Japan Socialist Party, whose number of seats rose by 51 and whose popular vote rose by 7.12% from the last election. This was the JSP's strongest performance in a general election since

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

, and left it as the only party to gain any seats. Meanwhile, the other three main opposition parties (

Komeito , 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, i ...

, the JCP, and the DSP) lost 11, 10, and 12 seats respectively, and all of them also saw reductions in their popular vote. According to surveys, however, the shift in support for the JSP was more to do with the familiar Japanese tendency to cast

protest vote A protest vote (also called a blank, null, spoiled, or "none of the above" vote) is a vote cast in an election to demonstrate dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates or the current political system. Protest voting takes a variety of forms ...

s against the LDP rather than expressions of support for all of the opposition's platform. Moreover, the JSP continued to suffer from factional infighting and a relative lack of fund-raising when compared to the LDP, and thus its fortunes would only wind up being in the short-term.

Notes

References

{{Japanese elections

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

General elections in Japan

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results