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50-627: The New Fraternity Party ( 新党友愛 , Shintō Yūai ) was a Japanese political party that existed in early 1998. It was founded by Diet members that broke away from the New Frontier Party in January 1998. The party has political roots in Minsha kyōkai , and Minsha kyōkai is now the main political factions of the centrist DPP . The name has its origins in the Taishō period democratic movements, which used

100-498: A coalition with the LDP. This arrangement proved as a gateway to death for the JSP, whom repudiated many of its defining principles, namely the anti- Self Defense Forces and anti- US alliance stances, in exchange for prime-minister's office. Core leftist supporters of the JSP rebuked the coalition and the JSP's leaders remained unimpressed with the deal, as policymaking, the main instrument of power,

150-581: A few weeks later. All member parties of the parliamentary group eventually merged with the Democratic Party to form the ("New") Democratic Party of Japan in April 1998. In terms of policy, the New Frontier Party took a hawkish position on foreign, security policy and related constitutional matters (which had been the main dividing line between political left and right in the 1955 System ) similar to

200-458: A law outlining the reforms passed. Hashimoto sought to focus power in the hands of the prime minister and subsequently political leadership by combining former bureaucratic agencies (twenty-three ministerial level organizations to twelve) and replacing the Prime Minister's Office with a new Cabinet Office . The implementation of such changes allowed the prime minister, for the first time ever,

250-433: A minority party looking to win one or more seats in order to earn official party status or the balance of power in a minority or coalition situation. The new electoral system, furthermore, did not produce what was initially hoped – a two-party parliamentary system . In spite of different views in regard to the number of seats being reduced, a major referendum was approved, thus deflating the original 200 seats allocated to

300-565: A third force in Japanese politics against the LDP and the New Frontier Party . The idea was supported by his brother Kunio , then a member of the New Frontier Party , and many members of the Social Democratic Party of Japan , but opposed by leaders of the Social Democratic Party of Japan and New Party Sakigake who had been discussing the organizational merger of the two parties. Prior to

350-449: A way to more accurately approximate the seats in the House of Representatives of Japan to the actual party votes in an effort to achieve more proportional representation. The ruling coalition was the coalition formed between the LDP, New Party Sakigake and Social Democratic Party of Japan. The LDP was led by Ryutaro Hashimoto, who became Prime Minister of Japan after the election. The party

400-603: The Democratic Party . The party was later dissolved in 1998. The Japan Socialist Party (JSP) was led by Takako Doi. The party formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 1994 to January 1996. The LDP coaxed the Social Democrats into this coalition by forgoing the Prime Minister title. Consequently, the office of Prime Minister was given to JSP's leader, Murayama Tomiichi . He

450-520: The Democratic Reform Party ( 民主改革連合 , Minshu-Kaikaku-Rengō ) to form the brand-new Democratic Party (1998) . This article about a Japanese political party is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . New Frontier Party (Japan) The party was founded on 10 December 1994 by former member parties of the anti- Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) opposition coalition led by Morihiro Hosokawa who had resigned in April. During

500-706: The Japan Renewal Party , a part of Kōmeitō which had split a few days before, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), the Japan New Party and the Jiyū Kaikaku Rengō    [ ja ] ("Liberal Reform League" a federation of several small groups of Diet members who had broken away from the LDP) formed the New Frontier Party, becoming the largest single party formed in post-war Japan other than

550-400: The LDP manifesto, administrative reform is given top priority over any other campaign issues. While reflecting on the past 50-years of administrative policy prioritizing production and supply with strong centralization and bureaucratization as an effective method in simultaneously achieving economic growth and tackling social inequality, the LDP admits this system is "at a deadlock" considering

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600-447: The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) imposed " best loser rule " for resurrection encouraged candidates to gain a certain number of personal votes in the SMD tier to 'qualify' for Proportional Representation tier. The Policy Affairs Research Council (PARC), originally a strategic instrument for vote-gaining in the single non-transferable vote system (SNTV), could still be used to gain votes in

650-436: The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) , and no party had a majority in parliament since then. During the following three years, Japan had a succession of four coalition governments, which hampered effective government policy making and implementation. Furthermore, the constant replacement also slowed down the process of economic recovery. There were expectations that the 1996 election would restore political stability. The election

700-511: The Liberal Democratic Party , New Party Sakigake and the Social Democratic Party , led by incumbent Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto of the LDP won the most seats. These were the first elections held after the 1994 electoral reforms . Previously, each district was represented by multiple members, sometimes from the same party, causing intra-party competition. Under the new rules, each district nominated one representative , elected using first-past-the-post voting . A separate party-list vote

750-764: The Sun Party of Tsutomu Hata in 1996 and the From Five of Morihiro Hosokawa in 1997 – and another party from the former anti-LDP coalition that hadn't joined the NFP: the Minshu Kaikaku Rengō ("Democratic Reform League"). The joint parliamentary group gave the DPJ the role of leading the opposition in the Diet. Three member parties together formed the Minseitō ("Democratic" or "Good Governance Party")

800-458: The single-member district (SMD) and the proportional representation (PR) tier. This provision was met with harsh commentary from the press who criticized the system as a method through and around which incompetent candidates move in their search for a Diet position. Candidates who 'died' in the SMD were then to be 'revived' in the PR as 'zombie Diet members.' Despite no major laws were enacted to address

850-472: The "5 contracts with the people (国民との５つの契約)", aimed at "revitalizing the lives of citizens" for the coming 21st century. The 5 promises were as follows. The Democratic party introduced the following "7 major issues" as the backbone of their manifesto. The Communist party's manifesto is centered around three key issues: stopping the consumption tax raise, the abolishment of US military bases in Okinawa following

900-533: The 2012 and 2014 elections. The statistics of the 2012 election verifies the uniqueness of the LDP-Komei coalition. In that election, Komei redirected 10.34 percent of the SMD vote it could have won to the LDP, allowing for overwhelming vote differential between DPJ and the LDP to emerge. If the Komei's vote had gone to the DPJ, the LDP and DPJ gap in share of the vote in the SMD tier would not have been significant. Although

950-534: The House of Representatives was not supposed to be due until July 1997, but on 27 September 1996, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto dissolved the parliament, thus calling for a snap-election. This move to call premature elections had been widely expected as the Prime Minister's last effort to sustain power in the midst of a controversial sales hike. The last election in July 1993 ended the 38-year-long rule of Japanese politics by

1000-486: The LDP and the creation of opposition parties that advocated for a new electoral system. As a result, a new system emerged, adopting both the single member district (SMD) competition and proportional representation (PR) . Under the new system, each district has only one representative portraying a wide range of interests for his or her district. A separate party-list was introduced for voters to choose their favored party (in addition to votes for individual candidates) as

1050-404: The LDP, but pushed for more deregulation, decentralization and political reform. It thereby tried to attract disgruntled LDP voters who would seek for new answers to the political challenges posed in the wake of the burst bubble economy and by the dawning demographic transition. In contrast, the Democratic Party of Japan that was formed two years later to provide an alternative to the old LDP and

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1100-577: The LDP. On 8 December 1994, the Diet members of the future party elected former LDP Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu as leader, Kaifu received 131 votes, former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata 52 and DSP leader Takashi Yonezawa 32 votes. In 1995, Kaifu was succeeded by Ichirō Ozawa who led the party from 1995 until its dissolution in 1997. Ozawa won the leadership election among party members and registered supporters ( tōyū ) in December 1995 with 1,120,012 votes against Tsutomu Hata who received 566,998 votes. Ozawa

1150-527: The LDP: In less than a year, the anti-LDP coalition had broken down. After the electoral reform initiated by the anti-LDP coalition had been passed by the new LDP-JSP coalition in November 1994, the opposition parties negotiated on creating a unified force to contest the newly introduced First-past-the-post voting single-member electoral districts that now elect the majority of the House of Representatives: In December,

1200-494: The New Frontier Party dissolved in 1997, its remnants collated into several small parties: The latter two parties immediately joined the Democratic Party in one parliamentary group (then renamed 民主友愛太陽国民連合, Minshu Yūai Taiyō Kokumin Rengō , "Democratic Fraternity Sun People's League", abbreviated as 民友連, Min'yūren ). They were joined by two parties who had broken away from the NFP earlier –

1250-815: The Ozawa-dominated NFP, took a similar stance to the NFP on economic reform, but a more dovish position on foreign policy, thereby also becoming appealing to traditional JSP voters. 1996 Japanese general election Ryutaro Hashimoto LDP Ryutaro Hashimoto LDP Naruhito [REDACTED] Fumihito [REDACTED] Shigeru Ishiba ( LDP ) Second Ishiba Cabinet ( LDP – Komeito coalition ) [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Fukushiro Nukaga Kōichirō Genba [REDACTED] Masakazu Sekiguchi Hiroyuki Nagahama Saburo Tokura Kazuo Ueda General elections were held in Japan on 20 October 1996. A coalition of

1300-450: The PR tier to 180 before the second election. The double candidacy system preserved incentives for personal votes and, thus, also incentives for individual candidates to maintain their Koenkai and for new candidates to form their own. Unrevised campaign restrictions meant that candidates running in the SMD tier were still permitted to mobilize votes by means of a provision of constituency services and benefits to their district. Meanwhile,

1350-551: The SDP was already in the advanced stages of its decline to a micro-party), In 1996, Ozawa's NFP made little use of the possibility to nominate dual candidates that stand in both the majoritarian and the proportional election at the same time under the new parallel electoral system. Thereby, the party lost a string of experienced politicians who were not "insured" by a dual candidacy on a proportional list. In total, more than 40 NFP incumbents who sought reelection lost their seats in 1996. After

1400-417: The SMD system. Between 1947 and 1993, there were only eighteen incidents of by-election; whereas in the first two mixed-member elections , there were twelve by-elections. The Diet responded to this unanticipated consequence by holding by-elections on the same day twice a year for both upper and lower houses. It is important to know that by-elections can have interesting political consequences such as that of

1450-460: The abandonment of the US-Japan security treaty , and to increase social security and welfare. In the manifesto, the party gives a national outlook, summarized in three parts; The Social Democratic Party proposed three slogans - "Yes, let's go with SDP", "A new dynamism, SDP", and "What can only be done by the SDP" - and fought the election. The following 5 manifestos were considered the cornerstones of

1500-436: The authority by law to initiate basic policymaking, the power which previously was solely allocated only to powerful bureaucracies. Additionally, the new Cabinet Office was composed with advisory councils, appointed from both within and outside the government, to the prime minister on economic and fiscal policies. Hashimoto, furthermore, used exactly the same method by which the powerful bureaucracies maintained their authority. If

1550-422: The controversy, press complaints declined with the 2000 electoral law revision in which candidates who failed to collect at least one-tenth of the effective vote in an SMD election are immediately disqualified. On another note, the 1996 election saw a higher incidence of by-elections . Under the old system, by-elections were held only if two seats became vacant; however, the number of by-elections rose rapidly in

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1600-409: The economic bureaucracy in the 1960s and 1970s imposed on the Prime Minister's office and the Diet their own members as a method to secure supremacy over policy-making decision, then Hashimoto also increased the power of political leaders by replacing vice ministers with Diet members whom he trusted. The leader of the opposing coalition NFP's manifesto was directly against that of the LDP, introducing

1650-609: The election, there was a frenzy of creation and destruction of parties, and the public's interest in politics was on the decline. However, the few campaign issues that were of the public's interest included the electoral reforms, potential raise in consumption tax, and how the large coalitions will play out. From the perspective of the voters, the most important issue was the potential raise in consumption tax. According to scholar Ichiro Miyake, voter's opinion possession rate, party position perception rate, personal importance cognition rate of "tax increase" exceeded that of "regime change." In

1700-479: The election. Voter turnout fell below 60% for the first time in a general election. The last election was the lowest of all previous elections, at 67.26%. The ruling coalition (LDP, SDP, NPH) gained a majority seating in the House of Representatives with 256 seats, but the SDP and NPH lost most of their seats for forming a coalition with LDP. While the opposing coalition (NFP, DPJ, JCP, and others) gained 235 seats, their total local constituency votes were larger than

1750-658: The formation of the succeeding Hata cabinet, several coalition parties formed a joint parliamentary group. But at the same time, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and the New Party Sakigake withdrew from the eight-party coalition and left Hata without majority. In June, the LDP returned to power by striking a "grand" coalition deal with the JSP under which the Socialists would receive the prime ministership. Hata resigned before an impending no-confidence vote submitted by

1800-457: The increasing diversity of their smaller constituency. Those running in the PR tier needed to increase party vote, as such found it necessary to specialize in order to serve a large-scale and more diverse audience across an extensive geographical area. Consequently, the PARC was modified to provide representatives with information on many fields of policy. In the first election of 1996, the LDP relied on

1850-408: The new election system. In the old system, PARC was used by candidates to distinguish themselves amongst fellow same-party rivals. To win in a multiple-seats constituency , it was important for candidates to hold expertise and influence in a policy-sector in the district they were running for. This is not to say that under the new electoral system, candidates had less need for specialization because of

1900-442: The power of the bureaucrats, Hashimoto marched towards shifting bureaucratic power to the hands of political leaders, effectively giving policy-making power to the Prime Minister's Office. His ambition was, without doubt, met with strong resistance from the bureaucrats, who stood almost unchallenged at the center of public life during the high growth period . Despite his short tenure, he was not forced out of office before he had gotten

1950-417: The ruling coalition, at 53.45%. Three aspects of the new electoral system drew serious criticisms after the first election in 1996, two of which had been curbed through law enactments. Immediately after the 1996 election, double candidacy became a major concern of the media and the most controversial aspect of the new system. In the new system, candidates are allowed to transfer between tiers, running for both

2000-528: The significance of Koenkai had diminished as compared to pre-reform, the Koenkai withstood the electoral reform fairly well. The electoral reform initially hoped to relegate the role of the Koenkai by moving politicians away from their original electoral district in which they had invested years cultivating personal networks. In theory, this tactic should prompt candidates to rely on the party branch and party label for electoral success instead of personal networks. Yet,

2050-432: The situation regarding women, increasing urban-rural disparities and the issue of low-birth rate . To tackle these issues, the LDP introduced the " Hashimoto Administrative Reform Vision (橋本行革ビジョン)", which included changes such as; Hashimoto reform vision strays far from previous LDP reforms, notably under Nakasone . While previous reforms focused on the privatization of public corporations and abstained from challenging

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2100-497: The strategy of coalition to oust the ruling Japan Socialist Party (JSP) from power. Later on, coalition became "the only one way of getting back into power." Under the new system of one representative per district, the LDP forge coalitions with different parties to gain a majority in the Diet. After the 1993 election, the LDP remained the largest party in the Diet, hence the Japan Socialist Party had no choice but to enter in

2150-599: The word yūai ( fraternity ) as a motto. The party also claimed that yūai had a phonetic similarity to the English "you and I", representing their hope of cooperating with ordinary Japanese. The party was led by Lower House member Kansei Nakano , now a member of the Democratic Party . In April 1998, the New Fraternity Party merged with the Good Governance Party , the previous Democratic Party (1996) and

2200-511: Was in the hands of the LDP. As a result, the JSP fell apart soon after. Coalition further proved to be instrumental to LDP prolonging power in further elections until 2009. After the coalition with the JSP fell apart, the LDP turned to the Liberal Party led by Ozawa Ichiro a leader of one of the new parties that was formed from a defection of the LDP, now merged with the Democratic Party (DPJ). This coalition, similarly, did not last long. It

2250-406: Was introduced for voters to choose their favored party in addition to votes for individual candidates, as a way to more accurately approximate the seats in the House of Representatives of Japan to the actual party votes, in an effort to achieve more proportional representation. The 41st general election of members of the House of Representatives took place on 20 October 1996. A general election for

2300-402: Was pro-business at the time, thus its campaign focused on policies countering Japanese economic slump. The New Party Sakigake was led by Shoichi Ide  [ ja ] , a political party formed as a defect of LDP on 22 June 1993. In September 1996, Sakigake and Japan Socialist Party (JSP) politicians who did not support their respective parties alliances with the LDP broke away to found

2350-505: Was reelected just a few days before the party dissolved in a vote among NFP Diet members and delegates from NFP prefectural federations in December 1997, defeating Michihiko Kano by 230 votes to 182. The party held onto 156 seats in the 1996 general election , losing a net four seats and failing to attack the LDP-SDP government majority, but remaining the largest opposition party. Unlike the other major, nationwide parties (mainly LDP and DPJ,

2400-666: Was the 81st Prime Minister of Japan. Other opposition parties to the ruling coalition came from the right-wing New Frontier Party (NFP) led by Ichiro Ozawa . It was formed in December 1994 by defectors of the Japan Renewal Party , Komeito , Democratic Socialist Party and a couple of other small groups. Another rival party was the Democratic Party . The Democratic Party was formed officially in September 1996 with Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan as co-leaders. The move for formation began in June 1996 when Hatoyama announced his idea of organizing

2450-509: Was the coalition with the Komeito after which proved enduring and strategic until the 2009 election. Post-2009 and until present, however, coalition strategy remains inextricable from electoral success. Coalition with Komeito still proves strategic, as Komei continues to instruct supporters to vote for LDP candidates in the SMD tier in exchange for greater power in the coalition. Komei's support arguably contributed greatly to LDP's landslide win in

2500-411: Was the first election under the new electoral system established in 1993. The multi-member constituencies were replaced with single member districts, and separate party list seats chosen proportionately. Prior to 1993, each district was represented by multiple members, sometimes from the same party, leading to severe corruption and intra-party competition. The latter consequence resulted in defections from

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