1972 Japanese General Election
10 December 1972 · The 1955 system · 491 seats, 246 for a majority
Little changed in the aftermath of the election; the LDP saw a slight decrease in seat numbers (debatably due to it fielding more candidates than ever before as a result of regained confidence in 1969), and its vote share remained below 50% (even with the addition of conservative-aligned independents).
Prime Minister before
Kakuei Tanaka
LDP
Prime Minister (continued)
Kakuei Tanaka
LDP
Largest force
Liberal Democratic Party
271 of 491 seats
Turnout
71.8%
The result
| Share of the House | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal Democratic Party | Kakuei Tanaka | 271 | -17 | 24,563,199 | 46.9% | -0.8 | |
| Japan Socialist Party | Tomomi Narita | 118 | +28 | 11,478,742 | 21.9% | +0.5 | |
| Japanese Communist Party | Kenji Miyamoto | 38 | +24 | 5,496,827 | 10.5% | +3.7 | |
| Kōmeitō | Yoshikatsu Takeiri | 29 | -18 | 4,436,755 | 8.5% | -2.5 | |
| Democratic Socialist Party | Kasuga Ikkō | 19 | -12 | 3,660,953 | 7.0% | -0.8 | |
| Independents | — | 14 | -2 | 2,645,582 | 5.0% | — | |
| Other parties | — | 2 | +2 | 143,019 | 0.3% | — |