Hoshu Gōdō
As Hoshu Gōdō ( Japanese. 保守 合同 , dt. "Conservative Fusion") in Japan the amalgamation of the Liberal Party and the Democratic Party is referred to, through which on November 15, 1955 the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) emerged as a bundling of conservative forces that the party landscape in Japan still dominates today. This was preceded by the unification of the right and left wings of the Socialist Party of Japan (SPJ). Through these two mergers, a roughly two-party system (neglecting the CPJ and smaller parties), the so-called55 system made up of LDP and SPJ, which remained in its basic structure until 1993.
background
Immediately after the end of the Second World War , the conservative politicians of the two major pre-war parties, Rikken Minseitō and Rikken Seiyūkai, jointly planned to found a new party, also because they feared the increasing influence of socialism . The Seiyūkai politicians sought to make their former co-chair Hatoyama Ichirō the leader of the new party; and Minseitō politicians around Miki Bukichi , who had fought against the military within Yokusan Gikai together with Hatoyama during the war , approved the implementation of this plan. However, a large part was the Minseitō politician believes that its last pre-war Chairman Machida Chuji be more suitable: This dissatisfied established in direct continuity with the Dainihon Seijikai ( 大日本政治会 , such as "United Japanese Government Assembly"; unit fraction 1945) the Fortschrittspartei Japan ( 日本 進 歩 党 , Nihon Shimpotō ), whose members were largely eliminated because of the ban on office imposed by the US occupation authorities against former officials. In the meantime, the newly formed Liberal Party around the party chairman Hatoyama and the politicians who were largely connected to the Seiyūkai became the strongest party in the first general election after the war in 1946 .
Shortly afterwards, however, Hatoyama and Miki as well as many members of their party leadership were banned from office. (Many MPs were elected to parliament for the first time, so that the party as a whole was less affected than the Progress Party and remained the strongest force.) It was therefore planned to make Foreign Minister Yoshida Shigeru party chairman and prime minister, who should leave his offices to Hatoyama as soon as this would return to politics.
However, Yoshida rejected this plan after the ban on office was lifted in 1951. In the meantime, the composition of the party had changed and it now consisted mainly of young MPs who came from the ministerial bureaucracy and were close to Yoshida, the so-called "Yoshida School". In addition, Yoshida had started to establish Ogata Taketora as his successor under the pretext of Hatoyama's state of health . Therefore, the Liberal Party split into supporters of Yoshidas (mostly former officials) and Hatoyamas (mostly party politicians).
In 1954, Hatoyama, along with Miki Bukichi, Kōno Ichirō , Kishi Nobusuke and others, founded the Democratic Party of Japan with the aim of turning it into a conservative reservoir for politicians from the Liberal Party who were dissatisfied with Yoshida and opposition groups such as the Kaishintō of Shigemitsu Mamoru and Miki Takeo to make. Meanwhile, the popular dissatisfaction with the leadership style of Yoshida, who directed the Liberal (rump) party as a one-man show , so that members of the presidium around Ogata Taketora suggested that he resign. Finally, in December 1954, Yoshida decided to resign his cabinet and left Ogata to chair the party. However, in the election of the prime minister in parliament , Hatoyama managed to beat Ogata. Hatoyama formed a transitional government, the 1st Hatoyama Cabinet , to prepare new elections.
The creation of the LDP
In January 1955, the right and left wings of the SPJ, which had been separate since 1950, agreed to unite, creating a perceived threat to the conservative parties. In order to counter this threat, the liberals under Ogata Teketora in particular pushed for a conservative merger of the Liberal and Democratic Party. The Democrats, who had just taken over the government, initially showed no interest; some, especially former Kaishinto politicians such as Matsumura Kenzō , Utsunomiya Tokuma and Miki Takeo, but also the chairman of the Executive Council Miki Bukichi, rejected a merger entirely.
In the Shūgiin election in 1955 , the Democratic Party of Japan succeeded in becoming the strongest party, but not in gaining an absolute majority. The starting point for the concrete negotiations on the unification of the Liberal and Democratic Parties were the exploratory talks and coalition negotiations that followed, which were intended to give Hatoyama a majority in parliament that could govern. While the Democratic Party of Japan was ready for coalition talks after a few weeks, the Liberal Party refused to cooperate without a party merger. It was only through joint votes with the socialists - as in the election of the President and Vice-President of the Shūgiin - and the threat of no-confidence votes that she succeeded in forcing the Democrats to give in. Negotiations began in the summer of 1955, in particular the question of whether and how long Hatoyama should remain chairman of the joint party (and thus prime minister).
The compromise on the party chairman ( 総 裁 , sōsai as with Rikken Seiyūkai and the Liberal Party) was reached in early November 1955 and provided for a joint chairmanship of four by the party and executive council chairmen of the predecessor parties Hatoyama, Ogata, Miki and Ōno Bamboku . (Five months later, in April 1956, and after Ogata's death, Hatoyama assumed sole chairmanship.) The two parties merged to form the Liberal Democratic Party on November 15, 1955.
The danger of a split in the LDP
In the beginning, intra-party relations were difficult because of the rivalries between Yoshida supporters and opponents, party politicians and ex-bureaucrats, pre- and post-war politicians. The fact that three major opponents of Hatoyama, Yoshida Shigeru, Satō Eisaku and Hashimoto Tomisaburō , initially did not join the LDP, initially caused concern. (All three became LDP members after Hatoyama's resignation in 1957.)
At the time of the Conservative Merger, Miki Bukichi said you had to last ten years; Matsumura predicted a split after 30 years. However, the rapid economic growth in Japan and the organization of the LDP ( factionalism , "iron triangle" made up of economy, politics and administration, the distribution of public money) cemented its political base.
The LDP later survived the "40-day dispute" of 1979, when the Ōhira faction and the Fukuda faction vied for leadership of the party (and thus the country), and the "boom of new parties" in the early 1990s, when she lost her participation in the government for almost a year by leaving the party. In the meantime, she was forced to join coalition governments (with the New Liberal Club , the Kōmeitō and, in 1994, even with the SPJ), but she has been able to defend her dominant position in Japanese politics in over 50 years of government to this day.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Masaru Kohno: Japan's Postwar Politics . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1997, ISBN 0691015961 , pp. 68-90: Chapter 5, The Creation of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955.