Editing Hitoshi Ashida (section)

==Premiership (1948)==
{{seealso|Ashida Cabinet}}
[[File:Hitoshi Ashida - Golda Meir - Kuniyoshi Negishi 1958.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Hitoshi Ashida (L) during a visit to Israel in 1958, with [[Golda Meir]] and the Japanese Ambassador to Israel, Kuniyoshi Negishi]]
Ashida became prime minister in 1948, leading a [[coalition government]] of Democratic and Socialist members. His tenure ended just seven months after it began. Two of his cabinet ministers were accused of corruption in the Showa Electric scandal, which forced the cabinet to resign.<ref name="Kōno1997">{{cite book|author=Masaru Kōno|title=Japan's postwar party politics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tMiolfyjtw8C&pg=PA64|access-date=24 May 2013|year=1997|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-01596-5|page=64}}</ref> One of them was [[Takeo Kurusu]], a state minister without a portfolio.<ref>{{cite book|author=Richard H. Mitchell|title=Political Bribery in Japan|date=1996|pages=102–103|publisher=University of Hawaii University|doi=10.1515/9780824863968 |isbn=9780824863968
|url=https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824863968}}</ref>

Ashida's government was hampered by taking over at the end of the fiscal year. The country operated on a temporary budget until a budget was passed in July.{{sfn|Cole|Totten|Uyehara|1966|pp=154}}