2012 Japanese general election

2012 Japanese general election

← 2009 16 December 2012 2014 →
← outgoing members members elected →
All 480 seats in the House of Representatives 241 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	59.31%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Shinzō Abe Yoshihiko Noda Shintaro Ishihara Party Liberal Democratic Democratic Restoration Last election 119 seats 308 seats – Seats won 294 57 54 Seat change 175 251 New Popular vote 16,624,457 9,268,653 12,262,228 Percentage 27.79% 15.49% 20.50% Swing 1.06pp 26.92pp New   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Natsuo Yamaguchi Yoshimi Watanabe Yukiko Kada Party Komeito Your Tomorrow Last election 21 seats 5 seats – Seats won 31 18 9 Seat change 10 13 New Popular vote 7,116,474 5,245,586 3,423,915 Percentage 11.90% 8.77% 5.72% Swing 0.45pp 4.50pp New   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   Leader Kazuo Shii Mizuho Fukushima Muneo Suzuki Party Communist Social Democratic New Party Daichi Last election 9 seats 7 seats 1 seat Seats won 8 2 1 Seat change 1 5 Popular vote 3,689,159 1,420,790 346,848 Percentage 6.17% 2.38% 0.58% Swing 0.86pp 1.89pp 0.04pp
districts and PR districts, shaded according to winners' vote strength.
Prime Minister before election Yoshihiko Noda Democratic Prime Minister after election Shinzo Abe Liberal Democratic

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General elections were held in Japan on 16 December 2012. Voters gave the Liberal Democratic Party a landslide victory, ejecting the Democratic Party from power after three years. It was the fourth worst defeat suffered by a ruling party in Japanese history.

Voting took place in all representatives' constituencies of Japan including proportional blocks, in order to appoint Members of Diet to seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet of Japan.

In July 2012, it was reported that the deputy prime minister Katsuya Okada had approached the Liberal Democratic Party to sound them out about dissolving the House of Representatives and holding the election in January 2013.^[1] An agreement was reached in August to dissolve the Diet and hold early elections "shortly" following the passage of a bill to raise the national consumption tax.^[2] Some right-wing observers asserted that as the result of introducing the consumption tax to repay the Japanese public debt,^{[3][4][5][6][7]} the DPJ lost around 75% of its pre-election seats.^[8][9]