The 17th presidential election of the Republic of Japan (第17回日本民国大統領選挙, dai-jūnanakai Nippon Minkoku Daitōryō senkyo) was held on Sunday, 25 March 2012, to elect the President and Vice President of the Republic of Japan. The Democratic incumbents, President Kan Naoto of Tokyo and Vice President Okada Katsuya of Mie, sought a second term in office. However, they were defeated in a landslide by the Liberal Democratic ticket of Koike Yuriko of Tokyo and Tanigaki Sadakazu of Kyoto. The presidential election was held concurrently with the 33rd National Assembly and Senate elections.
This election was held in the aftermath of the 2010 Japanese political scandal, which had culminated in the impeachment and resignation of President Ozawa Ichirō. After Ozawa's resignation, his Vice President, Hatoyama Yukio, had also resigned, leading to the succession of Kan to the presidency. Kan's administration over the next two years attempted to rehabilitate the Democratic Party's standing. However, the Democrats' reputation soured further after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. They suffered embarrassing losses in local elections that April, which foreshadowed their fall from power in 2012. The Democratic vote collapsed; the opposing Liberal Democrats secured a landslide victory, and many left-leaning Democratic voters flocked to the Social Democrats, whose nominee, Yoshida Tadatomo, emerged from the election with the second-most votes — the first time an SDP nominee had risen above third place since 1992.
The 2012 election left the Democratic Party deeply scarred, and it eventually splintered and dissolved in 2016. After a series of splits and mergers, what remained of the old Democratic Party has since coalesced into the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Democratic Party for the People, which both constitute the current governing coalition as of 2020.
