Politics of Tokyo City  The politics of Tokyo City, as the capital of the Empire of Japan, took place under special regulations that limited its local autonomy compared to other municipalities in Japan. In 1943, the city's independent institutions were eliminated altogether under the authoritarian Tōjō cabinet and the administration was absorbed by the appointed government of Tokyo prefecture. As one of the "three capitals" ("santo") of Japan, Tokyo city was initially not allowed to elect its mayor when (albeit limited) local autonomy for Japanese municipalities was introduced in the Meiji era, mostly following a Prussian model. In the prefectures of Tokyo, Ōsaka and Kyōto, the appointed Prefectural governor also took the role of mayor of the prefectural capital under a special imperial ordinance, the "shisei" "tokurei" (市制特例). Elections for the city council and the prefectural assembly took place as in other parts of the country. When one of the major goals of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, a national-level parliamentary representation had been achieved in form of the Imperial Diet, its constitutional successor parties ("mintō", the "civil" or "democratic" parties opposed to the parties that supported the Meiji oligarchs in government) in the House of Representatives sought to repeal the Imperial ordinance that barred the three largest cities from having independent mayors; but resistance from the House of Peers kept the regulation alive until 1898 when the upper house passed its abolition. From then on the mayor of Tokyo city was appointed independently from the governor and prefectural and city administration were separated. Finally, beginning in the 1920s, the mayor was elected by the city council from among its members. Tokyo's Politics changed drastically during the 1950s when the U.S. completely redid the Gov. of Japan, turning it into a Democracy and rearranging the entire Edu. system, Government(as it was formerly an Empire), and more. Tokyo city was initially represented by nine members in the House of Representatives, the elected lower house of the Imperial Diet: In the initial election of 1890, Tokyo city's wards were distributed over nine single-member electoral districts (Tokyo 1 to 9). In the early 20th century it elected eleven Representatives in the Tokyo city district. During the short return to single-member districts in the elections of 1920 and 1924, the city was covered by eleven single-member districts. After that, Tokyo city (in its pre-1932 borders) elected 18 Representatives in four districts.