1962 Japanese House of Councillors election

1962 Japanese House of Councillors election

← 1959 1 July 1962 1965 →
127 of the 250 seats in the House of Councillors 126 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader Hayato Ikeda Jōtarō Kawakami Kōji Harashima Party LDP Socialist Kōmeitō Seats after 142 66 15 Seat change 10 19 15 Popular vote 16,581,637 8,666,910 4,124,269 Percentage 46.4% 24.2% 11.5% Swing 5.2% 2.3% N/A   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Suehiro Nishio – Kenji Miyamoto Party Democratic Socialist Dōshikai JCP Seats after 11 7 4 Seat change 11 4 1 Popular vote 1,899,756 1,660,466 1,123,947 Percentage 5.3% 4.6% 3.1% Swing N/A 3.4% 1.2%
President of the House of Councillors before election Tarō Hirai LDP President of the House of Councillors-designate Yōtoku Shigemasa LDP

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House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on 1 July 1962,^[1] electing half the seats in the House. The Liberal Democratic Party won the most seats. This was the first Japanese national election to feature the Kōmeitō as a candidate, as it had formed earlier in the same year.

As is typical for House of Councillors elections, candidate personality and public appeal played a stronger role than they would in a House of Representatives election; the first place winner for the national district voting was Aki Fujiwara, a panelist on the Japanese version of I've Got a Secret, who broke all of the previous House of Councillors records by obtaining 1,160,000 votes.^[2]

The Japan Socialist Party (JSP) had attempted to make questions of constitutional revision the main issue for the election, whereas the LDP attempted to sideline the issue by claiming that it would not pursue any constitutional amendments unless it were to receive recommendations from the Constitutional Investigation Commission, which was still in the process of deliberating at the time of the election. Overall, the JSP lost the most in this election, losing 19 seats, whereas the LDP gained 10 seats.^[2]