The Liberal Democratic Party: Still the Most Powerful Party in Japan

Home , Coalition government, Japan New Party, New Liberal Club

Ronald J. Hrebenar and Akira Nakamura

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was the national-level ruling party of Japan throughout the entire First Party System (1955–1993). Among the politi- cal systems of non-Socialist developed nations, Japan is unique in that except for a short period after World War II, when a Socialist-centered coalition government ruled Japan in 1947–1948, conservative forces have continuously held power on the national level. In 1955, when two conservative parties merged to form the LDP, conservative rule was concentrated within that single organiza- tion and maintained its reign as the governing party for thirty-eight years. It lost its majority in the weak House of Councillors (HC) in the 1989 elections and then lost its control of the crucial House of Representatives (HR) in 1993. However, it returned to the cabinet in January 1996 and gained a majority of HR seats in September 1997. Since the fall of 1997, the LDP has returned to its long-term position as the sole ruling party on the Japanese national level of politics. However shaky the LDP’s current hold, its record is certainly un- precedented among the ruling democratic parties in the world. All of its com- petition for the “years in power” record have fallen by the sidelines over the decades. The Socialist Party of Sweden and the Christian Democratic Party of Italy have both fallen on hard times in recent years, and whereas the Socialists have managed to regain power in Sweden in a coalition, the CDP of Italy has self-destructed while the leftists have run Italy since 1996. The LDP prime minister in office when his party regained a majority in the HR, Hashimoto Ryutaro, seemed to have a good future to continue on as the prime minister until the new century, but it all collapsed in July 1998 when the LDP was hammered in the HC elections. Hashimoto was forced to re- sign, and the apparently secure LDP had to contemplate new elections for the HR less than two years after the previous contest. The LDP still governs Japan, but its grip on power is shaky (see Table 4.1)

Source: Hrebenar, Ronald J., “The Liberal Democratic Party: Still the Most Powerful Party in Japan, in Ronad J. Hrebnar, Japan’s New Party System, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000, ch. 4, pp. 85–147.

BOX 4.1 Coalition Governments in Postwar Japan

The LDP-Liberal Party coalition government established in January 1999 was the tenth such coalition government in the postwar era. Five of these coalition governments have been formed during the Second Party System (1993–). Several of the early coalitions were formed by various parties from both the left and right wings of Japanese politics in the years of the later 1940s. The first coalition was formed in 1946 by Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru between the Liberal and Progressive Parties. Perhaps the most famous of these pre-1955 coalitions was the 1947 Katayama coalition government, which was the first and last Socialist government until the 1994 Murayama coalition. Beginning in 1955 with the formation of the LDP, there were no coalitions of any type until the LDP invited Kono Yohei’s New Liberal Club, a conservative splinter group from the LDP, to join the Nakasone cabinet in 1983. The LDP had won only 250 HR seats in the 1983 elections, and after adding 9 independents to the party it had a pure majority but not a comfortable “working majority.” The eight HR seats held by the NLC provided that margin sought by the LDP. The NLC filled the home affairs minister portfolio in two Nakasone cabinets and received a total of three ministries and three parliamentary vice ministers positions during the three years of the coalition (1983–1986). The beginning of the Second Party System in 1993 has been marked by a coalition-government style of politics. Hosokawa’s cabinet was a com- bination of ministers representing almost all the HR parties except the LDP and JCP. The Hata government, which lasted only a few weeks in 1994, represented all the HR parties except the LDP, JCP, and Socialists. The most interesting, and certainly the most unexpected, coalitions were the two Murayama “grand coalitions” of the LDP-SDP-Sakigake Parties. The LDP had the numbers—both in the HR and in the cabinets— while the SDP got the prime minister and a few minor cabinet ministries and the Sakigake received the finance ministry at a time of unremitting financial troubles in Japan. These “grand coalitions” continued until after the October 1996 HR elections in which the LDP did well enough to form a minority government cabinet with Sakigake and SDP support in the Diet. These noncabinet “coalitions” fell apart after the LDP secured enough seats in the HR in September 1997 to have a pure majority by itself.