1946 Japanese general election

← 1942 10 April 1946 1947 →
All 468 seats in theHouse of Representatives 235 seats needed for a majority
Registered	36,878,417 152.7%[a]
Turnout	72.08% 11.08pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Ichirō Hatoyama Chūji Machida Tetsu Katayama Party Liberal Progressive Socialist Seats won 141 94 93 Popular vote 13,505,746 10,350,530 9,924,930 Percentage 24.36% 18.67% 17.90%   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Yamamoto Sanehiko [ja] Kyuichi Tokuda Party Cooperative JCP Seats won 14 5 Popular vote 1,799,764 2,135,757 Percentage 3.35% 3.85%
Districts shaded according to winners' vote strength
Prime Minister before election Kijūrō Shidehara Independent ElectedPrime Minister Shigeru Yoshida Liberal

General elections were held inJapan on 10 April 1946, the first afterWorld War II, during theAllied occupation. All 468 seats in the House of Representatives were elected bylimited voting. The result was a victory for theLiberal Party, which won 141 of the 468 seats.^[1] Voter turnout was 72.1 percent.

Prime MinisterKijūrō Shidehara, who had been appointed by the EmperorHirohito in October 1945, dissolved the House of Representatives in December 1945. Shidehara had been working withAllied occupation commanderDouglas MacArthur to implement a new constitution and other political reforms.

In the months following the war, theImperial Rule Assistance Association caucus broke up and three major political parties emerged in the Diet, loosely based around the major parties that stood in the1937 election prior to the war. TheLiberal Party was mainly composed of formerRikken Seiyūkai members,^{[citation needed]} while theProgressive Party was mainly composed of formerRikken Minseitō members^{[citation needed]} and theSocialist Party was mainly composed of formerShakai Taishūtō members.^{[citation needed]}

This was the first timeJapanese women were allowed to vote. 39 women were elected to office; this was the largest number of women deputies elected until2005. On the other hand,Taiwanese andKoreans in Japan had their rights to vote and to run for office suspended inasmuch as their home territories had ceased to be part of Japan.

The electoral system use was a special type ofLimited voting with district magnitude mostly ranging from 6 to 23, many parties (usually 4 to 7 or more) elected representatives in almost every district.^[2]

Following the election, there was a brief attempt to have Shidehara join the Progressive Party and remain in power, which the other major parties opposed. The Liberals and Progressives agreed to form a government under Liberal leaderIchiro Hatoyama on 2 May, but Hatoyama was promptlypurged on 4 May and anew government formed under Foreign MinisterShigeru Yoshida, who officially became Prime Minister on 22 May.

Party		Votes	%	Seats
	Liberal Party	13,505,746	24.36	141
	Japan Progressive Party	10,350,530	18.67	94
	Japan Socialist Party	9,924,930	17.90	93
	Japanese Communist Party	2,135,757	3.85	5
	Japan Cooperative Party	1,799,764	3.25	14
	Other parties	6,488,032	11.70	38
	Independents	11,244,120	20.28	81
Vacant				2
Total		55,448,879	100.00	468
Valid votes		26,100,175	98.19
Invalid/blank votes		482,000	1.81
Total votes		26,582,175	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		36,878,417	72.08
Source: Oscarsson,[3] Nohlenet al.

• General elections in Japan
• 1946 elections in Asia
• 1946 elections in Japan
• April 1946 in Asia

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from July 2023
• Election and referendum articles with incomplete results