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759 seats to the Legislative Yuan | |||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1st Legislative Yuan election was held in China between 21 and 23 January 1948. This election, and the preceding 1947 National Assembly election are the first elections of under the newly ratified 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China. Under this constitution, the Legislative Yuan is a standing legislature when the National Assembly is not in session. At the time most of Chinese territory was under the control of the government of the Republic of China, using a direct voting system elected 759 Legislative Representatives. Using the Republic's then 461 million population[1] to calculate, on average 600,000 people elected one representative in the Legislative Yuan. The election along with the one held for the National Assembly also made China the largest democracy at the time.
The newly elected Legislative Yuan met for the first time on 21 May. Over a year later, the Communists overran the mainland, forcing the Nationalist government to flee to Taiwan. To date, the 1948 election is the last contested election held on the mainland until 1992 in ROC-controlled Kinmen and Matsu; as well as 2012 in the communist-controlled city of Wukan, Guangdong during the Wukan protests.