On this day, 32 years ago, July 18, 1993 (May 29, 1993, the Liberal Democratic Party, which had been in power for 38 years, stepped down. On July 18, 1993, Japan held its 40th House of Representatives election. This was a landmark election in Japan's post-war political history. Japan's House of Representatives is re-elected every four years. The last election was held in February 1990. According to normal procedures, this election should be held in early 1994. However, after entering 1993, scandals broke out in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. In particular, after Shinobu Kinmaru, a powerful figure in the Liberal Democratic Party and former Deputy Prime Minister, was arrested by the prosecution authorities for concealing political donation income and deliberately tax evasion, the people hated the corruption of the Liberal Democratic Party. Although Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa has repeatedly declared that he would implement political reforms, he could not do anything under the control of conservative forces in the Liberal Democratic Party until he violated his promise to complete political reforms in the 126th National Assembly held in the first half of the year and announced that he would postpone consideration of relevant political reform proposals until the next National Assembly. This move aroused strong dissatisfaction among opposition forces and also led to a showdown between radical reform forces and conservative forces within the Liberal Democratic Party. On June 18, the Socialist Party, the Komeito Party and others jointly proposed a no-confidence motion against the Miyazawa cabinet. Members of the Haneda faction of the Liberal Democratic Party and a group of young members led by Masayoshi Takeura, director of the "Political Reform Promotion Headquarters", voted in favor of the opposition party's proposal or deliberately absent during the voting, resulting in the passage of the proposal. According to the Constitution of Japan, after the House of Representatives passes a no-confidence motion against the cabinet, the cabinet will either resign in general or dissolve the House of Representatives and hold another general election. The Miyazawa cabinet chose the latter and announced the dissolution of the House of Representatives on the evening of June 18. In this way, the 40th House of Representatives election was held ahead of schedule in mid-July 1993. On July 4, the list of candidates for the 40th House election was officially announced, thus kicking off the electoral battle. Prior to this, the Liberal Democratic Party suffered its biggest split since its founding: Masayoshi Takeura and others, who rebelled against the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party in the June 18 vote, separated from the Liberal Democratic Party and established the Pioneer New Party on June 21. 44 members of the Haneda faction also established a new mountain on June 23 to form the New Life Party. The New Life Party has also formed a five-party alliance with the opposition Socialist Party, Komeito Party, Democratic Social Democratic Party, and Democratic Social Democratic Alliance to jointly poach the Liberal Democratic Party. In the two weeks leading up to the official vote on July 18, the most intense electoral battle was launched between the ruling and opposition parties after the war. On July 19, the results of the general election were officially announced: the Liberal Democratic Party won 224 seats, the third time since 1976 and 1983 that it failed to reach a majority of seats, and 32 seats less than the half needed to control the House of Representatives; the Socialist Party won 70 seats. It also suffered a historic defeat; The New Party won 55 seats and the new party leader won 13 seats, both increasing from before the election; the New Party of Japan won 35 seats, achieving a "zero" breakthrough; the Komeito Party won 51 seats; the Democratic Socialist Party won 15 seats; the Communist Party won 15 seats; the Communist Party won 15 degrees; Non-party members won 30 seats. Voter turnout was only 67.3%, the lowest in any post-war election. After the election, given that although the Liberal Democratic Party had less than half of the seats, it was still the largest party in the parliament, the five-party alliance actively wooed the New Party and the New Party Leader of Japan, won the cooperation of these two parties and the Senate Democratic Reform Federation, and formed a seven-party one-party alliance. It elected the leader of the New Party of Japan Morihiro Hosokawa as the candidate for prime minister, and issued a document with the nature of a common program for a coalition government. On August 5, the 127th Provisional Parliament opened. Takako Doi, former chairman of the Socialist Party, became the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in history. The next day, Morihiro Hosokawa defeated the Liberal Democratic Party candidates in the prime minister nomination election and was elected as the 79th Prime Minister of Japan. He led the formation of a seven-party one-faction coalition cabinet. At this point, the Liberal Democratic Party's 38 consecutive years of power since 1955 finally came to an end.