Japan New Party
日本新党
Nihon Shintō
LeaderMorihiro Hosokawa[1]
FounderMorihiro Hosokawa[2]
Founded22 May 1992
Dissolved9 December 1994
Split fromLiberal Democratic Party
Merged intoNew Frontier Party[1][2]
IdeologyLiberalism[3][4][5]
Liberal conservatism[6]
Political positionCentre[7] to centre-right[8][9]
ColorsGreen

The Japan New Party (日本新党, Nihon Shintō) was a Japanese political party that existed briefly from 1992 to 1994.[10]

The party, considered liberal, was founded by Morihiro Hosokawa, a former Diet member and Kumamoto Prefecture governor, who left the Liberal Democratic Party to protest corruption scandals. In 1992, the party elected four members to the House of Councillors, including Hosokawa. Although this was a disappointing result for them, in 1993 they were able to capitalize on voter dissatisfaction with the LDP, electing a total of 35 members (including 3 who joined after the election). Hosokawa became Prime Minister leading a broad coalition, but was soon forced to resign.

The party defended the political reformism,[11][12] rights of consumers[12] and supported decentralization.[12]

By 1994, the Japan New Party dissolved, its members flowing into the New Frontier Party (新進党).

Several Diet members who've become prominent in other parties were first elected for the Japan New Party, including Yoshihiko Noda, Seiji Maehara, Yukio Edano, Toshimitsu Motegi and Yuriko Koike.

List of leaders of JNP

No. Name
(Birth–death) 		Portrait Constituency / title Term of office Prime Minister (term)
Took office Left office
Split from: Liberal Democratic Party
1 Morihiro Hosokawa
(b. 1938)
 Rep for
Kumamoto 1st 		22 May 1992 9 December 1994 Miyazawa 1991–93
himself 1993–94
Hata 1994
Murayama 1994–96
Successor party: New Frontier Party

Election results

House of Representatives

Election Leader Votes % Seats Position Status
1993 Morihiro Hosokawa 5,053,981 8.05
35 / 511
 5th Governing coalition

House of Councillors

Election Leader Constituency Party list Seats Position Status
Votes % Seats Votes % Seats
1992 Morihiro Hosokawa — 3,617,247 7.97
4 / 126
4 / 252
 4th Opposition

See also

References

  1. ^ a b ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典の解説 [The Encyclopædia Britannica: Micropædia's explanation]. kotobank.jp (in Japanese). The Asahi Shimbun Company. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  2. ^ a b Hashimoto, Goro; Mizuno, Masayuki. 日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)の解説 [The Nihon Dai Hyakka Zensho: Nipponica's explanation]. kotobank.jp (in Japanese). The Asahi Shimbun Company. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  3. ^ Austrian Foreign Policy Yearbook. Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs. 1993. p. 98. The new reform parties were successful, but the socialists lost almost half of their seats . a At the beginning of August the leader of the liberal Japan New Party, Morihiro Hosokawa, formed a new broadly - based coalition government ...
  4. ^ "Yuriko Koike, a political outsider taking on Japan's grey elite". Financial Times. 30 September 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2022. Those years gave her a high public profile and formidable communication skils, which she brought to politics in 1992 as a candidate for the liberal Japan New party, an LDP breakaway that prefigures her Party of Hope.
  5. ^ Mark R. Mullins; Koichi Nakano, eds. (1993). Disasters and Social Crisis in Contemporary Japan: Political, Religious, and Sociocultural Responses. Springer. p. 98. ISBN 9781137521323. Among politicians, in 2014, Koizumi Junichiro (former Prime Minister 2001–2006; rightwing populist; LDP) together with Hosokawa Morihiro (former Prime Minister 1992–1994; liberal; Japan New Party) created an antinuclear forum, ...
  6. ^ Murakami, Hiroshi [in Japanese] (2009). "The changing party system in Japan 1993-2007: More competition and limited convergence" (PDF). Ritsumeikan Law Review. Ritsumeikan University. 26: 30. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  7. ^ Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1992-1993. University Press of America. 1994. p. 332. ISBN 9780932088819.
  8. ^ J. Dennis Derbyshire (2016). Encyclopedia of World Political Systems. Vol. 1. Routledge. p. 415. ISBN 9781317471554. OCLC 948171409. Retrieved 4 August 2021. A year earlier, in 1992, another center-right reform party, the Japan New Party (JNP), was set up by Morihito Hosokawa, a former LDP governor.
  9. ^ The Corruption Notebooks: 25 Investigative Journalists Report on Abuses of Power in Their Home Country. Public Integrity Books. 2004. p. 151. August 1993 Morihiro Hosokawa, former LDP member and head of the Ministry of Finance, is elected prime minister by a new coalition government as the candidate of the center-right Japan New Party ( JNP - Nihonshinto ).
  10. ^ Schoppa, Leonard J. (2011). "Path Dependence in the Evolution of Japan's Party System since 1993". In Schoppa, Leonard J. (ed.). The Evolution of Japan's Party System: Politics and Policy in an Era of Institutional Change. The University of Toronto Press. pp. 14–42. ISBN 9781442611672.
  11. ^ "Hosokawa Morihiro, prime minister of Japan". britannica.com. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  12. ^ a b c Seiji Keizai Kyoiku Kenkyukai, ed. (2019). Seiji keizai yogoshu [Political and economics glossary] (in Japanese) (2 ed.). Yamakawa Shuppansha. p. 79. ISBN 978-4-634-05113-3.
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