2005 Japanese general election

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General elections were held in Japan on 11 September 2005 for all 480 seats of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Diet. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called the election almost two years before the end of the term taken from the previous elections in 2003, after bills to privatize Japan Post were voted down in the upper house (which cannot be dissolved), despite strong opposition from within his own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The elections resulted in a landslide victory for Koizumi's LDP, with the party winning 296 seats, the largest share since World War II, and marked the first time the LDP had won an overall majority in the House of Representatives since 1990. With its partner, New Komeito, the governing coalition then commanded a two-thirds majority in the lower house, allowing them to pass legislative bills over the objections of the upper house and (though the government did not attempt this) to approve amendments to the Constitution, then submit them to...

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