The Issue of Universal Suffrage in the 42nd Diet and Kenseikai (Special Issue Dedicated to Professor Norio KITAGAWA)

The movement for universal suffrage began in 1897. Thereafter, the law of universal suffrage was proposed in the Diet but was refused by the Upper House and/or Lower House. The riots caused by the price rise of rice during the World War I frightened the rulers including Genro and they accepted the party cabinet for the first time. Then Takashi Hara assumed the prime minister and formed the Seiyukai cabinet. In the 41st diet that Hara had the first as a prime minister, he proposed the correction of election law of the Lower House which included the expansion of franchise. The other parties, Kenseikai and Kokumintou, also proposed the expansion of franchise even more, but they didn't propose the universal suffrage in the 41st diet. The political and economical situation, however, had changed dramatically after the 41st diet. The movement for universal suffrage initiated by workers and students got national wide supports. Kenseikai, the first opposition party in those days, lost the local election in autumn 1919, so that it had to set a new agenda with which it could attack the government in the next diet. The universal suffrage seemed to be such agenda. But it also had a political risk that it might cause a dissolution of the Lower House and Kenseikai would loose the general election. In addition, claiming the universal suffrage, Kenseikai might get hostility from Genro, the Privy Council and the Upper House so that Kenseikai could not come to power. The old members of Kenseikai opposed the universal suffrage for that reason. There was a struggle in Kenseikai as to propose the law of universal suffrage in the 42nd diet. As a result they agreed to propose it but they refused to unite the proposal of universal suffrage by other parties because they didn't aim to realize the universal suffrage seriously. The proposal of universal suffrage provided Hara with a good excuse of the dissolution of the Lower House. In the general election after the dissolution, Seiyukai had a landslide victory. It took five years to pass the universal suffrage in the diet.7KJ00006960799論文Articledepartmental bulletin pape