ELECTIONS IN JAPAN

Evening Star, Issue 22271, 24 February 1936, Page 9

ELECTIONS IN JAPAN

LIBERAL CANDIDATES’ SUCCESS SMALLER PARTIES MAY CO-OPERATE Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright TOKIO, February 23. Following is the election result: — Minseito (or Liberals) ... 205 Seijukai (or Conservatives) 174 _ It is expected that the smaller parties, with 35 seats, will co-operate with the Minseito and support M. Okada’s non-party Government, which would thus have a clear majority. The Socialists, with 18 seats, will remain outside the coalition. SOCIALISTS GAIN SEATS LONDON, February 22. The ‘ Daily Telegraph’s ’ Tokio correspondent says; “ Though the General Election returns are incomplete, the Socialists already hold 17 seats, with a possibility of more, whereas they have never previously held more than six. They may even hold the balance of power in the Lower House. The Socialist victory is not due to any revulsion of feeling, but to the Government’s rigorous and successful efforts to ensure a clean election by restricting campaigning expenses and enabling poorer candidates to obtain fuller voting strength. VOTE AGAINST FASCISM TOKIO, February 23. (Received February 24, at 1.30 p.m.) The Tokio correspondent of 1 The Times ’ points out that the Japanese elections resulted in a strong popular vote against the Fascist tendencies in the Seiyukai Party, some of whose leaders angled for reactionary support, but which lost 130 seats. The Minseito Party, which demanded constitutional government and the extermination of Fascism, gained 59. The newspapers ascribe Labour’s unexpected successes to public disgust at the orthodox parties’ failure to combat Fascism. The results generally encouraged the friends of parliamentary government, to which the Liberals regard the. situation as a halfway stage.