Japanese general election, 1928

← 1924

20 February 1928

1930 →

All 466 seats to the House of Representatives
234 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party

Leader	Tanaka Giichi	Hamaguchi Osachi
Party	Seiyūkai	Minseitō
Last election	113 seats
Seats won	217	216
Seat change	+114	New

Prime Minister before election

Tanaka Giichi
Seiyūkai

Prime Minister-designate

Tanaka Giichi
Seiyūkai

General elections were held in Japan on 20 February 1928, the first after the introduction of universal male suffrage. The ruling Rikken Seiyūkai led by Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi won one more seat than the opposition Rikken Minseitō led by Hamaguchi Osachi, although Rikken Minseitō had received slightly more votes. The hung parliament led to the Tanaka government continuing in office.

Following electoral reforms in 1925, the 466 members of the House of Representatives were elected from multi-member constituencies with between three and five seats. Voting had previously been restricted to men aged over 25 who paid at least 3 yen a year in direct taxation, but the reforms had also abolished the taxation requirement. As a result, the electorate increased from 3.3 million in the 1924 elections to 12.4 million.

The Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin was assassinated by the Japanese army in June 1928. Tanaka denounced the army for this, but lost support and was forced to resign in July 1929. Opposition leader Hamaguchi became Prime Minister and formed a new government.

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