Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Liberal Democratic Party
Jiyūminshutō
Liberal Democratic Party of Japan
Party presidency ( sōsai) Shinzo Abe
Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai
Executive Board Chair Shun'ichi Suzuki
PARC Chair Fumio Kishida
Parliamentary affairs Hiroshi Moriyama
Group chairmanship in the Shūgiin Shinzo Abe
Group chairmanship in the Sangiin Masakazu Sekiguchi
founding 1955
Headquarters 1-11-23 Nagatachō , Chiyoda , Tokyo Prefecture
Members 869,748 (2016)
MPs in the Shūgiin
283/465
(September 2018)
MPs in the Sangiin
122/242
(September 2018)
Government grants 17.5 billion yen (2018)
Number of members 869,748 (2016)
International connections formerly IDU (founding member)
Website www.jimin.jp

The Japanese Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP ; 自由民主党 Jiyūminshutō shortly 自民党 Jimintō ; English Liberal Democratic Party of Japan ) is a political party and provides since 1955, except for the years 1993-1994 and 2009-2012 the government . The number of members in 2018 was 869,748 paying members, in the past it fluctuated widely between one million and five million. In 2006 it was 1.21 million paying members.

Due to its status as a people 's party and the strongly person-oriented Japanese politics, the LDP is difficult to classify politically. According to European ideas, it is generally national-conservative , economically, socially-market-based , close to the economy and strongly pro-American in terms of foreign policy, which has recently become particularly noticeable in the support of the security and anti-terrorism policy of the former Bush administration and, as a result, a stronger military commitment made. So she sent Japanese soldiers and ships to Iraq in support of Operation Enduring Freedom . Chairman Abe and many other party members are also members of the Nippon Kaigi , which is classified as revisionist and nationalist , or are close to it. Due to the almost uninterrupted rule of the party since 1955, there are very close ties to the economy and bureaucracy, which is regularly expressed in corruption scandals, but also contributed to economic growth in the post-war decades. The relationship between the party, business and bureaucracy is also known as the so-called " iron triangle ".

The most important leadership positions of the LDP are filled by party chairman Shinzō Abe , general secretary Toshihiro Nikai , chairman of the executive council Shun'ichi Suzuki and chairman of the political research committee Fumio Kishida . The internal party decision-making processes are largely determined by the factions and their chairmen.

history

Founding party conference 1955
The coat of arms ( Mon ) of the LDP is a modified form of the national and imperial seal


Direct voting share in national lower house elections
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
'58
'60
'63
'67
'69
'72
'76
'79
'80
'83
'86
'90
'93
'96
'00
'03
'05
'09
'12
'14
'17
Relative House of Commons
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
'96
'00
'03
'05
'09
'12
'14
'17

After some mergers and dissolutions of various conservative parties in the years 1945 to 1955, the LDP was formed on November 15, 1955 in the " Conservative Fusion " of the Liberal Party and the Democratic Party of Japan in response to the merger of the right and left wing of the Socialist Party of Japan . The economic miracle of the 1960s, an undisguised clientele policy , the generally higher voting weight of rural voters , the often lack of unity of the opposition and the tendency of the Japanese to vote in a person-oriented and not program-oriented manner - favored by institutional factors such as election campaign regulations or the Kōenkai - the LDP was able to secure large majorities in parliament for decades (cf. 1955 system ).

Since the late 1960s, the LDP's share of the vote in lower house elections has consistently been below 50 percent; When the consequences of the oil crisis slowed the economic upturn in the 1970s and several political scandals, in particular the Lockheed scandal , became public, the party also lost an absolute majority of the seats in the 1976 election , but was able to continue to govern with the help of non-party MPs. In the same year six MPs had left the party under the leadership of Yōhei Kōno and founded the New Liberal Club , which existed until 1986 and was involved in a coalition government in the 1980s. At the same time, the 1970s and 1980s were dominated by an intra-party power struggle between Kakuei Tanaka and Takeo Fukuda , the so-called Kaku-Fuku War , which was partly fought by proxy and led, among other things, to the early 1980 elections.

In 1982 (initially with the support of Kakuei Tanaka) Yasuhiro Nakasone became party chairman-prime minister, who in 1983 had to accept a loss of the absolute majority of seats, but due to his “neoconservative” combination of economic deregulation and privatization and a more self-confident foreign policy in close coordination with the alliance partner under President Ronald Reagan helped the LDP in 1986 to its best election result (49.4%) in decades. However, new scandals among his successors, in particular the recruit scandal and the Sagawa Express scandal, intra-party power struggles and finally the bursting of the bubble economy and the debate about “political reform” (of the electoral law and party funding) led to renewed loss of popularity. In the upper house elections in 1989 , the LDP suffered its first clear electoral defeat - for the first time since the LDP was founded, a “twisted parliament” emerged . In 1993 she lost the lower house majority after leaving the party and after the lower house election in 1993 she had to join the opposition for the first time in her history. Under the party chairman Yōhei Kōno, she was able to return to government in 1994 through a coalition agreement with the Socialist Party of Japan . From 1996 she again appointed the Prime Minister. Since 1999 the LDP ruled in coalition with smaller partners.

In 2005, the party chairman Jun'ichirō Koizumi drove the so-called "rebels", opponents of his plans for post-privatization, out of the LDP and initiated early elections in which he was able to win a clear majority for the LDP. Some of the "rebels" founded the New Japan Party and the New People's Party . After Koizumi's tenure as party chairman, Shinzō Abe took over the party chairmanship in 2006 , Yasuo Fukuda in 2007 and finally Tarō Asō in 2009 . The 2009 general election ended in a landslide defeat. Asō resigned, the new chairman Sadakazu Tanigaki was supposed to renew the LDP in the opposition and was able to attack the narrow majority of the new government in the 2010 upper house election . In September 2012, Shinzō Abe, who had since resigned, was re-elected party leader.

In view of the unpopularity of the Democrats, party fragmentation and falling voter turnout, the LDP won the following lower house election in December 2012 despite the fact that the absolute number of votes was still lower than in 2009 (in the majority election: 2005 32.5 million, 2009 27.3 million, 2012 25.6 million .) in a landslide comparable to Koizumi's 2005 election victory (237 majority seats, 294 in total). Since then she has reigned in coalition with the Kōmeitō. After the successful upper house elections in 2013 and 2016 and Tatsuo Hirano's accession in 2016, she had absolute majorities in both chambers of the national parliament for the first time since 1989 until the 2019 election , but the coalition continued to rule unchanged. Abe is already one of the party chairman-prime ministers with the longest term in office. In 2016, the party increased the term limit of the party chairmanship: Abe was re-elected in the Sōsai election in 2018 and could remain in office until 2021.

Management structure

Party leader

Party headquarters in Tokyo's government district Nagatachō .
The first party leader Ichirō Hatoyama and the leaders of the LDP in 1955.

The party leader of the LDP is referred to as sōsai ( 総 裁 ), while the leaders of most other parties are called daihyō ( 代表 ). This naming ties in with the tradition of the Liberal Party and the pre-war Rikken Seiyūkai party . Because of the dominant position of the LDP, the party chairman is usually also Prime Minister ( sōri-daijin ), which is why his dual function is also known as sōri-sōsai ( 総 理 総 裁 ).

Election of the chairman

The party chairman was appointed in a number of ways over time. It was often determined after negotiations between the leaders of the factions and confirmed by a meeting of deputies. At times he was determined by internal party primaries. In the 2018 election, 405 MPs and 405 delegates from the prefectural associations were eligible to vote, who were elected by party members and members of party-affiliated organizations in proportional representation.

During his tenure, the party leader usually gives up his official membership.

List of party leaders

With the exception of Yōhei Kōno and Sadakazu Tanigaki, all party leaders were also prime ministers. Conversely, all prime ministers since 1955 with the exception of Morihiro Hosokawa , Tsutomu Hata , Tomiichi Murayama , Yukio Hatoyama , Naoto Kan  and Yoshihiko Noda were also LDP chairmen (see also list of Prime Ministers of Japan ).

Between 1955 and 1998 Japan had 19 heads of government (for comparison: Italy had 22 prime ministers in the same period ). The frequent changes in party chairman / head of government and the even more numerous cabinet reshuffles often served in the past, if they were not caused by scandals, to provide the various factions equally with government posts and to prevent one faction from assuming permanent supremacy.

Bodies

Since the party leader of the LDP is usually involved in government affairs as prime minister, the general secretary traditionally plays an important role in the party leadership. He is appointed by the Chairman with the approval of the Executive Board. Nominally the highest decision-making body is the party congress, which meets regularly once a year. The last (85th) party congress took place on March 25, 2018. Important day-to-day political decisions are made by an assembly of representatives from both chambers. In addition to the party chairman, the general secretary and their deputies, to whom the party headquarters and its departments report, there are a number of other influential party positions. The most important internal party bodies are:

  • The Executive Council ( 総 務 会 , Sōmukai , lit. Council for General Affairs), which consists of 31 members and confirms the most important party political decisions,
  • the Political Research Council ( 政務 調査 会 , Seimu Chōsakai , English Policy Affairs Research Council , abbreviated as: PARC ), which is divided into twelve departments according to the division of responsibilities in the cabinet and works on draft laws in cooperation with parliamentary committees and ministries,
  • the Committee for Parliamentary Affairs ( 国会 対 策 委員会 , Kokkai Taisaku Iinkai ), which coordinates appointments and decisions with the factions of other parties in parliament, and
  • the Election Strategy Commission ( 選 挙 対 策 委員会 , Senkyo Taisaku Iinkai ).

Factionalism

The party is divided into several inner-party factions ( 派閥 , habatsu split) between which there are often strong conflicts. However, the delimitation of factions usually has less to do with programmatic content than with intra-party power politics. The political line of the party is negotiated among the leaders of the factions. Important party and government offices (including that of prime minister) are also usually assigned in this way, often on a rotation principle among the factions in order to guarantee the cohesion of the party. When the House of Commons was still elected using the simple, non-transferable vote in multi-member constituencies, LDP candidates from different factions often competed against each other. After the electoral law reform of 1994, only the direct mandates of the House of Lords are awarded in such multi-person constituencies.

The factions are in descending order according to the number of members represented in parliament (as of June 2018):

Official name Chair Unterhaus-
seconded 		House of Lords
MPs 		Important party offices minister
Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai 清和 政策 研究 会 Hiroyuki Hosoda 59 37 Party chairman (= prime minister) 4th
Shikōkai 志 公会 Tarō Asō 45 15th 3
Heisei Kenkyūkai 平 成 研究 会 Wataru Takeshita 34 21st Executive Board Chairman 2
Kōchikai 宏 池 会 Fumio Kishida 32 16 PARC chairman 4th
Shisuikai 志 帥 会 Toshihiro Nikai 36 8th Secretary General 1
Suigetsukai 水月 会 Shigeru Ishiba 18th 2 1
Kinmirai Seiji Kenkyūkai 近 未来 政治 研究 会 Nobuteru Ishihara 11 1 Parliamentary affairs 0
without faction 49 23 4th

The official names of the factions are often made up of government currency (Heisei) or other interpretable terms ( Kinmirai Seiji , German for "politics of the near future") and Research Council ( 研究 会 , kenkyūkai ). This lack of meaning reflects the fact that apart from connections to certain interest groups, the factions pursue political goals that are hardly programmatically tangible. That is why they are usually referred to in media reporting by their current, sometimes also after their former chairman. For example, the faction of Shizuka Kamei, the Shisuikai, was called the Kamei faction ( 亀 井 派 , Kamei-ha ) until he left the party . Then it was called the "former Kamei faction" ( 旧 亀 井 派 , Kyū-Kamei-ha ) until a new faction leader had prevailed. After splits or new foundations, factions are sometimes first referred to as a group (e.g. Nikai group for Atarashii Nami ; Japanese 二階 グ ル ー プ , Nikai-Gurūpu ) before it becomes apparent that the new formation is establishing itself in the faction system of the LDP.

History of the factions

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
Large factions in particular, attempts at reform, distribution of political funds, etc.
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

The factions of the LDP began to form immediately after the party was founded in 1955. By 1957, eight leading politicians had emerged who were competing for the leadership of the party. This eight-faction system lasted until the late 1960s. Thereafter, the factions re-formed in the early 1970s, and five larger factions emerged. During this time, more formal structures developed: the factions had fixed offices and clearly assigned leadership positions, which corresponded to the three most important leadership positions of the party ( tō-san'yaku ). The decision-making processes within the party, i.e. the negotiations among the factions, were also formalized during this period. A seniority system was introduced for filling party posts, which was based on the number of re-elections of a member of parliament. You needed:

  • two re-elections for a committee post in the Shūgiin or the vice-chair of a PARC committee
  • three re-elections for a post of State Secretary ("Vice Minister")
  • four re-elections to chair a PARC committee
  • five re-elections for chairmanship of a Shūgiin committee
  • and six or more re-elections to become minister.

This seniority system was consistently applied until the loss of power in 1993, even if early promotions ( 抜 擢 人事 , batteki jinji ) occurred again and again, especially in the early years. The number of cabinet posts was largely proportional to the numerical strength of the factions, and the party's three leadership positions were almost always divided among three factions. Industry representatives ( zoku-giin ), who specialize in certain political areas and maintain close relationships with the ministerial bureaucracy, also played an important role in filling party and government posts.

Since party president Ikeda Hayato took office , every party leader has promised to break the power of the factions; in fact, the business was always carried on as usual. Prime Minister Junichirō Koizumi had also announced many times that he would push back the Habatsu system. Some measures were successful: In the early election in 2005 Koizumi put up partially non-party candidates against the post-privatization opponents who had left the party. However, this also left the attraction of the existing factions largely unaffected. In 2007, a year after the end of the Koizumi era, only 57 of the LDP's 305 lower house MPs and 19 of the 83 upper house MPs were non-parliamentary.

Since the reforms of the 1990s, the factions no longer play the determining role of earlier decades for the election of the LDP party chairman (and thus mostly: the prime minister), which is illustrated by the fact that since Koizumi only one faction chairman (Tarō Asō 2008, with a relatively small faction of their own) was elected party chairman. In the single-mandate constituency system, LDP nomination for candidates in the general election is inevitably centralized (with only a few exceptions, such as in 2014 in the 1st constituency of Fukuoka Prefecture), and financial support for the election campaign has also been more concentrated in the party headquarters thanks to the reform of party funding. And so the dependence of the faction members has decreased and with it the pressure to behave loyally in internal party power struggles. The allocation of posts in the cabinet, in parliamentary committees or in the party's political research council, however, still depends heavily on party membership. Overall, the institutionalization of factions, as it developed especially from the 1960s in the time of the "five great" factions, has decreased again since the 1990s. At the same time, there are signs of a stronger political unity of the factions: In some political debates on direction, factionalization now reflects more political and substantive differences in the party.

Political groups in the national parliament

The LDP parliamentary groups in the national parliament are (as of October 2019) in the House of Representatives Jiyūminshutō - Mushozoku no Kai ( 自由 民主党 ・ 無 所属 の 会 , "Liberal Democratic Party - Assembly of Independents") and in the Council House Jiyūminshutō - Kokumin no Koe ( 自由 民主党 ・国民 の 声 , "Liberal Democratic Party - Voice of the People").

Election results

National

Election victories as the strongest party underlined , absolute majorities in bold .

year Lower House election results Upper house election results House of Lords Composition
Candidates Direct dial Proportional representation
Total mandates		 Candidates Prefectural constituencies National constituency
(from 1983: proportional representation)
Total mandates
Share of votes Mandates Share of votes Mandates Share of votes Mandates Share of votes Mandates
When a party is founded 299/467 118/250
1956 118 56.0% 42/75 36.5% 19/52 61/127 122/250
1958 413 57.8% 287/467 - 287/467
1959 101 52.0% 49/75 41.2% 22/52 71/127 132/250
1960 399 57.6% 296/467 - 296/467
1962 100 47.1% 48/75 46.4% 21/52 69/127 142/250
1963 359 54.7% 283/467 - 283/467
1965 95 44.2% 46/75 47.2% 25/50 71/125 140/250
1967 342 48.8% 277/467 - 277/467
1968 93 44.9% 46/75 46.7% 25/52 71/127 137/250
1969 328 47.6% 288/486 - 288/486
1971 94 44.0% 41/75 44.5% 21/50 62/125 131/249
1972 339 46.9% 271/491 - 271/491
1974 95 39.5% 43/76 44.3% 19/54 62/130 126/250
1976 320 41.8% 249/511 - 249/511
1977 77 39.5% 45/76 35.8% 18/50 63/126 124/249
1979 322 44.6% 248/511 - 248/511
1980
Shū - San - double choice 		310 47.9% 284/511 - 284/511 77 43.3% 48/76 42.5% 21/50 69/126 135/250
1983 90 43.2% 49/76 35.3% 19/50 68/126 137/252
1983 339 45.8% 250/511 - 250/511
1986
Shū - San - double choice 		322 49.4% 300/512 - 300/512 83 45.1% 50/76 38.6% 22/50 72/126 143/252
1989 78 30.7% 21/76 27.3% 15/50 36/126 109/252
1990 338 46.1% 275/512 - 275/512
1992 82 45.2% 49/76 33.3% 19/50 68/126 107/252
1993 285 36.6% 223/511 - 223/511
1995 66 25.4% 31/76 27.3% 15/50 46/126 111/252
1996 355 38.6% 169/300 32.8% 70/200 239/500
1998 87 30.5% 30/76 25.2% 14/50 44/126 103/252
2000 337 41.0% 177/300 28.3% 56/180 233/480
2001 76 41.0% 44/73 38.6% 20/48 64/121 111/247
2003 336 43.9% 168/300 35.0% 69/180 237/480
2004 83 35.1% 34/73 30.0% 15/48 49/121 115/242
2005 346 47.8% 219/300 38.2% 77/180 296/480
2007 84 31.6% 23/73 28.1% 14/48 37/121 83/242
2009 326 38.6% 64/300 26.7% 55/180 119/480
2010 84 33.4% 39/73 24.1% 12/48 51/121 84/242
2012 337 43.0% 237/300 27.6% 57/180 294/480
2013 78 42.7% 47/73 34.7% 18/48 65/121 115/242
2014 352 48.1% 222/295 33.1% 68/180 290/475
2016 73 39.9% 37/73 35.9% 19/48 56/121 121/242
2017 332 47.8% 215/289 33.3% 66/176 281/465
2019 82 39.8% 38/74 35.4% 19/50 57/124 113/245

Prefecture level

In most of the prefectural parliaments, the LDP is the strongest party, exceptions are the parliaments of Tokyo and Osaka , and in some parliaments non-party members hold majorities. Looking at factions instead of party affiliation, the LDP is not the strongest faction in the parliaments of Iwate and Mie, among others .

Most governors are elected with explicit or implicit support from the LDP, and a majority governs with the support of all national parties except (in some cases including) the CPY - territorial authorities in which this is the case are often given the all yotō ( オ ー ル 与 党 ), that is, for example, "all governing parties", even if there are no governing or opposition parties in presidential systems such as at the prefectural and municipal level in the narrower sense.

Local level

Nationwide, the LDP represented less than 7% of all members of parliament in local parliaments at the end of 2017 (see Municipality (Japan) #Political parties in local politics ). Outside of the big cities, local politics is usually not organized in a party-political way. Even if some of the other parties receive above-average support in urban areas, the LDP is the strongest party in several city councils of the 20 seirei shitei toshi , the “government-designated cities”; it is also the strongest force overall in the 23 parliaments of the special districts of Tokyo.

As at the prefecture level, many mayors rule with explicit or implicit support from the LDP.

literature

  • Fukui, Haruhiro: Political Parties of Asia and the Pacific , 2 vol., Greenwood Press, Westport / Connecticut - London, 1985.
  • Masaru Kohno: Japan's Postwar Party Politics. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1997, ISBN 0-691-01596-1 .
  • Ellis S. Krauss, Robert J. Pekkanen: The Rise and Fall of Japan's LDP. Political Party Organizations as Historical Institutions. Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY et al. a. 2010, ISBN 978-0-8014-7682-2
  • Manfred Pohl : The political parties. In: Manfred Pohl, Hans Jürgen Mayer (Eds.): Country Report Japan. Geography, history, politics, economy, society, culture (= Federal Agency for Political Education. Series 355). 2nd updated and expanded edition. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-89331-337-0 .
  • Jacob M. Schlesinger: Shadow Shoguns. The Rise and Fall of Japan's Postwar Political Machine. Reprint with a revised conclusion. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 1999, ISBN 0-8047-3457-7 .
  • Nathaniel B. Thayer: How the conservatives rule Japan. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1969.
  • Thomas Weyrauch: The party landscape of East Asia , Longtai Verlag, Heuchelheim, 2018, ISBN 978-3-938946-27-5 .

Web links

Commons : Liberal Democratic Party of Japan  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sōmushō: 平 成 28 年分 政治 資金 収支 報告 書 の 要旨 (PDF)
  2. ↑ Sōmushō , April 2, 2018: 平 成 30 年分 政党 交付 金 の 交付 決定 (PDF)
  3. ↑ nytimes.com - Tea Party Politics in Japan , accessed June 12, 2018
  4. ↑ Germis, Carsten: Japan: Abe leads opposition party at faz.net, September 26, 2012 (accessed September 27, 2012).
  5. ^ In move that may benefit Abe, LDP to extend term limit for party presidency. In: The Japan Times . October 20, 2016, accessed February 10, 2017 .
  6. ↑ LDP Policy Groups (Factions) on the official website of the party (English) ( Memento from May 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ 自民党 党内 派閥 別 所属 議員 一 覧 . In: home.a07.itscom.net. Retrieved June 15, 2018 (Japanese).
  8. ↑ Masaru Kohno: Japan's Postwar Politics. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1997, ISBN 0-691-01596-1 , pp. 91-115: The Evolution of the LDP's Intraparty Politics.
  9. ↑ Reiji Yoshida: Factions loom large in Abe reshuffle, with the 'Cabinet post waiting list' coming into play. In: The Japan Times . October 2, 2018, accessed October 12, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Krauss / Pekkanen 2010, pp. 128–153, chap. 5: Factions Today.