General elections were held in Japan on 21 August 1976. Voter turnout was 73.6%. It was the first time since 1953 a general election was triggered by a vote of no conifdence in the Cabinet. It was triggered after the government of Takeo Miki, at the time a member of the LDP, was pushed out by the 2 main factions in the LDP working together to take it down in the "Down With Miki" (三木おろし) movement. After he was pushed out, Miki tied his faction (The relatively left wing Banchō Seisaku Kenkyūjo) to the Socialist Citizens League (Shakai Shimin Rengo) of Saburō Eda, a cross party alliance of centrist left wingers. This led to members of the faction being kicked out of the LDP, and Miki formed a new party with them called the National Party. Soon after, Tomomi Narita, leader of the Japan Socialist Party, organised a vote of no confidence in the cabinet. The dissolution of parliament became known as the "Split Party dissolution" (分党解散 Bun tō kaisan), as this vote of no confidence wouldn't have passed without the support of both the National Party, and another split from the LDP called the New Liberal Club.

While the Liberal Democratic Party wound up, as usual, with more seats than any competing party, it lost 52 seats to finish with less than a majority, winning 219 of 511 races (42%), this election saw the sharpest decrease in the constant trend of the LDP's popular vote decreasing with each election which had started all the way back in the 1949 election. The 1976 election was heavily informed by the Lockheed bribery scandals and became popularly known as the Lockheed Election (ロッキード選挙, rokkīdo senkyo). The incumbent Prime Minister, Takeo Fukuda, had taken power from Takeo Miki, and he was expected to obstruct the investigations into the Lockheed scandal. Because of this, Fukuda's cabinet had low approval ratings, with positive ratings across different news sources ranging from 30-36% and negative ones typically being higher, at 29-41%. The scandal reflected poorly on the LDP and the party lost 10pp from the last election, in the process losing its majority control over the House of Representatives for the first time since the party's founding. This led to a minority government, led by Miki's National party, and including the JSP, Kōmeitō, the DSP, and the NLC being formed.

The two left-wing opposition parties, the Socialist Party and the Japanese Communist Party, saw noticeable setbacks. The JSP did gain seats, but it was only three, and in the process two former chairmen (Kōzō Sasaki and Seiichi Katsumata) and the incumbent vice-chairman and former chairman Saburō Eda all lost their seats. The JCP suffered far worse, losing 21 seats and falling to less than half its number of seats compared to the last election, likely due to protest votes going towards the new moderate options such as the National Party and the NLC instead of the JCP. The main winners among the traditional opposition were the moderate parties. In the case of Kōmeitō, the party recovered from scandals in the 1972 general elections by distancing itself from Soka Gakkai and putting up non-Soka Gakkai adherents as candidates in the 1975 local elections as well as this election. Komeito also reinforced its image as an anti-LDP party by endorsing various leftist campaigns. On the other hand, the Democratic Socialist Party, which did see a slight decrease in popular votes, nonetheless had managed to gain four seats in this election. Historians debate the role tactical voting played in the general decrease in the popular vote many opposition parties faced.

After the election, Masayoshi Ōhira broke his promise to Takeo Fukuda during the Miki Oroshi movement and challenged him for leadership. This kicked off the Second Kaku-Fuku war.

Second Cabinet of Takeo Miki from September 19, 1976 to October 27, 1978
Portfolio			Term of Office
Prime Minister	Takeo Miki	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Chief Cabinet Secretary	Yōhei Kōno	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Deputy Prime Minister	Tomomi Narita	R	September 19, 1976 – 13 December 1977
Deputy Prime Minister	Ichio Asukata	-	13 December 1977– October 27, 1978
Minister of Foreign Affairs	Tomomi Narita	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Justice	Kasuga Ikkō	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Finance	Saburō Eda	R	September 19, 1976 – May 22, 1977
	Hideo Den	C	May 23, 1977 – October 27, 1978
	Hideo Den	C	May 23, 1977 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Education	Toshiki Kaifu	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Health and Welfare	Ryōsaku Sasaki	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Labour	Yoshikatsu Takeiri	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries	Hideji Kawasaki	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of International Trade and Industry	Toshio Komoto	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Transport	Hirohide Ishida	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Construction	Masashi Ishibashi	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Home Affairs Director of the National Public Safety Commission	Takeshi Hirabayashi	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Minister of Posts and Telecommunications	Kōshirō Ishida	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Director of the Management and Coordination Agency	Junya Yano	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Director of the Japan Defense Agency	Michita Sakata	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Director of the National Land Agency Director of the Hokkaido Development Agency Director of the Okinawa Development Agency Development,	Toshio Yamaguchi	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Director of the Economic Planning Agency	Tomiichi Murayama	R	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Director of the Environment Agency	Ryokichi Minobe	-	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Director of the Science and Technology Agency	Satsuki Eda	C	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978
Director of the Science and Technology Agency	Satsuki Eda	C	September 19, 1976 – October 27, 1978

House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on 10 July 1977. Only half of the House of Councillors was up for election.

The main question of this election was whether or not the governing coalition would be able to win an absolute majority of the seats in the House of Councillors. Early forecasts had speculated that a dramatic downturn for the LDP, which would have been a victory for the government, may have been possible, but in the end the LDP kept its razor-thin hold on majority control, as enough independents were willing to cooperate with the LDP to prevent the government from passing bills. As per usual for the time, the LDP did very well in the sparsely-populated single member districts and even managed to hold its own not only in the two-member districts, but even in the more heavily urbanised three- and four-member districts which were projected to be tough wins for the LDP.

The LDP's clearest struggling was in the national district, where its popular vote declined by 11.1% when compared to the previous House of Councillors election. In any event, the pessimistic forecasts of the election results ended up influencing the LDP's approach in fielding relatively few candidates, and members of the party believed that if they disregarded the polls and fielded more candidates, they could have won a larger share of the seats in this election. Meanwhile, the Japan Socialist Party also saw a loss in seats (partly due to vote splitting with the vaious centrist parties, including former member Saburō Eda's SCL splinter party siphoning away votes from the JSP.) The Japanese Communist Party also saw a decline in fortunes, with Kōmeitō and the Democratic Socialist Party showing the most promise among well-established opposition parties.

Life Cycle Planning edit

Japan National Party
日本国民党

*Nihon Kokumintō*
Japan National Party; 日本国民党 Nihon Kokumintō
Leader	Takeo Miki
Founded	June 23, 1976
Dissolved	12 May 1982
Split from	Liberal Democratic Party
Preceded by	Banchō Seisaku Kenkyūjo
Merged into	National Democratic Party
Ideology	Liberalism; Japanese nationalism;
Political position	Centre to centre-right
International affiliation	Liberal International
Colors	Blue

1977 Japanese House of Councillors election
126 of the 252 seats in the House of Councillors; 127 seats needed for a majority
President of the House; of Councillors before election; Kazuo Maeda; Liberal Democratic	Elected President of the House; of Councillors ; Kan Kase; Socialist

1976 Japanese general election
All 511 seats in the House of Representatives; 256 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	73.6% ( 1.84pp)

Life Cycle Planning (ライフサイクル計画, Raifusaikuru keikaku) was a set of proposed social welfare policies proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Miki, initially in 1975, and again in 1978. The goal was to allow for people to get themselves out of poverty by providing investments into education, housing, healthcare and pensions, as well as providing changes to labour laws.

Initially, the plan was scrapped due to a poor reaction from the LDP and the bureaucracy in 1975. However in 1978, he returned to the idea after returning to the premiership as the head of a progressive coalition. Miki ran into difficulty in passing the plan through the LDP dominated House of Counicillors, which led to him calling the 1978 general election to try and pressure lawmakers to pass it with as view ammendments as possible

Election of the prime minister edit

6 August 1993 Absolute majority (256/511) required
House of Representatives
Choice		First Vote
Choice		Votes
	YTakeo Miki	257 / 511
	Takeo Fukuda	223 / 511
	Kenji Miyamoto	17 / 511
	Others and Abstentions (Including Speaker and Deputy)	14 / 511
Source^[1]

1978 Japanese General Election

← 1976

September 20, 1978 (1978-09-20)

1980 →

^ Banks, Arthur S.; Day, Alan J.; Muller, Thomas C. Political Handbook of the World 1998. p. 475.

[1] Banks, Arthur S.; Day, Alan J.; Muller, Thomas C. Political Handbook of the World 1998. p. 475.

[1]

User:Swanstarr/sandbox

Life Cycle Planning edit

Election of the prime minister edit