General elections were held in
Japan on 18 February 1990 to elect the 512 members of the
House of Representatives, the
lower house of the
National Diet.
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. Consumption taxes are usually indirect, such as a sales tax or a value-added tax. However, a consumption ...
, 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.
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 rhetoric, declaring that "not one grain of foreign rice 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 during the bubble economy.
Takeshita led the largest faction at the time in the Liberal Democratic Party, which he inherited from Kakuei Tanaka, from the 1980s ...
's low of 10% to the reform-minded Toshiki Kaifu
was a Japanese politician who served as the 77th Prime Minister of Japan from 1989 to 1991.
Early life and education
Kaifu was born on 2 January 1931, in Nagoya City, the eldest of six brothers. His family's business Nakamura Photo Studio w ...
'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
The was a socialist and progressive political party in Japan that existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was founded as the Social Democratic Party of Japan by members of several proletarian parties that existed before World War II, including ...
, 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 Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
* January 5
** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...
, and left it as the only party to gain any seats. Meanwhile, the other three main opposition parties ( Komeito, 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 votes 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.
References
{{Japanese elections
Japan
1990 elections in Japan
General elections in Japan
February 1990 events in Asia
Election and referendum articles with incomplete results