Democratic Party (Japan, 1996-2016)

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Democratic Party
Minshutō
Democratic Party of Japan
Parteivorsitz (Daihyō) Katsuya Okada
Deputy Chair daihyō-daikō: Akira Nagatsuma , Renhō
Secretary General Yukio Edano
PARC Chair Goshi Hosono
Parliamentary affairs Yoshiaki Takaki
Group chairmanship in the Sangiin Akira Gunji
founding 1996/1998
resolution March 27, 2016
Headquarters 1-11-1 Nagatachō , Chiyoda , Tokyo Prefecture
Members 263,700 (2010)
Government grants 6.7 billion yen (2014)
Number of members 263,700 (2010)
Minimum age 18 years
International connections Alliance of Democrats (2005–2012)
Website www.dpj.or.jp
The party headquarters of the DPJ in Tokyo's government district Nagatacho

The Democratic Party ( Japanese 民主党 Minshutō , English The Democratic Party of Japan , short DPJ , occasionally also DP ) was a political party in Japan . For a long time it was the second strongest force in Japanese politics behind the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), but was able to win an absolute majority in the 2009 general election for the first time. It was founded in 1996 and has since pooled large parts of the opposition , one of its goals was the transformation of Japan into a two-party system . According to the annual report on party funding, the party had around 42,000 members in fiscal 2006 and received government party funding of 10.48 billion yen (around 60 million euros).

In March 2016, the Democratic Party joined forces with the Ishin no Tō to form the “Democratic Progressive Party” (English “Democratic Innovation Party”). Both parties have formed a parliamentary group in the lower house since 2015 .

Since the DPJ had grown into a people 's party and Japanese politics is strongly people-oriented, the political direction cannot be precisely defined. However, it represented liberal positions to a greater extent than the LDP and was described as a “center-left” party. It received the strongest support in elections in the metropolitan areas. Like the LDP, the DPJ was divided into factions ; However, these were less clearly delineated and were based on party affiliations and loyalties from the time before the party was founded.

Origin and history

The initiative to found the Democratic Party came from Naoto Kan and Yukio Hatoyama from the New Sakigake Party in 1996 , which ruled together with the LDP and the ailing Social Democratic Party (SDP). After the resignation of Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama , the SDP found itself in an existential crisis and the largest opposition party, the New Progressive Party (NFP), was chaired by the dominant ex-LDP politician Ichiro Ozawa . With the aim of building a third force, Kan and Hatoyama together with Kunio Hatoyama (NFP) and Tomiko Okazaki (formerly SDP) formed a founding committee for the Democratic Party.

In September 1996, the DPJ was formally founded with 50 lower house and 5 upper house members, chaired by Naoto Kan and Yukio Hatoyama. Despite this unclear leadership structure, the lack of a party base and an unclear party program, the party received 52 seats in the general election in October 1996 and slightly expanded its position as the third largest party. Initially, the future of the DPJ remained uncertain in the internal dispute between the more conservative former Sakigake members and former Social Democrats. In September 1997 the dual leadership was abolished: Kan became party chairman and Hatoyama general secretary.

Ozawa's NFP lost a number of members from 1996 onwards, which formed new groups. At the end of 1997, the NFP finally dissolved completely. The resulting groups in parliament, the Taiyōtō ("Sun Party") by Tsutomu Hata , the Kokumin no Koe ("Voice of the People") by Michihiko Kano and Katsuya Okada , the Shintō Yūai ("New Brotherhood Party") by Kawabata Tatsuo , the From Five by Morihiro Hosokawa and the Minshū Kaikaku Rengō ("Democratic Reform Alliance") joined the DPJ faction in parliament in January 1998, and the party suddenly took over the leadership role in the opposition.

Established in 1998

On April 27, 1998, the "new DPJ" was founded, which united the member parties of the common parliamentary group - three of them had now merged to form the Minseitō . Under Naoto Kan's chairmanship, the DPJ was able to improve its weak position in the second chamber in the 1998 upper house election. However, Kan failed in 1999 in the election of party chairman, Yukio Hatoyama was his successor.

"Koizumi Era" and the 2005 election defeat

From the general election in 2000 , the party emerged stronger by 34 seats. A common electoral strategy with the now reduced to a splinter party Social Democrats and the Liberal Party of Ichirō Ozawa was initially successful against the popular Prime Minister Jun'ichirō Koizumi . In 2002 Kan took over the party chairmanship again. In September 2003 the Liberal Party joined the DPJ. In the 2003 general election , for which it ran for the first time with a shadow cabinet and a clearly formulated manifesto , the party won 177 out of 194 seats for the opposition: even if it was unable to decisively attack the LDP majority, the DPJ had succeeded to grow into the dominant opposition party.

In 2004, Kan had to resign after a scandal over failed payments into the pension system, and Katsuya Okada took over the party chairmanship . Prime Minister Koizumi's reform course led to internal disputes in the LDP. When the planned post-privatization threatened to fail in 2005 due to internal party resistance, the time for the DPJ seemed to have come. Koizumi had the opponents of post-privatization, the so-called "rebels", expelled from the LDP and called new elections. However, the DPJ failed to capitalize on the situation. The high popularity of Koizumi, the fact that the political program of the DPJ called for even more radical reforms than Koizumi in many areas, and the reluctance to address the unpopular use of Iraq by the self-defense forces led to a heavy defeat in the general election on September 11, 2005 . The DPJ lost 64 seats and Chairman Okada resigned.

Seiji Maehara and the Livedoor Scandal

In September 2005, Seiji Maehara took over the leadership of the party. He narrowly won against Naoto Kan, who had run again. In doing so, the party opted for a younger, fresh face in order to be able to renew itself from within. Maehara himself said: "I will work to rebuild the party and make democracy work in Japan as well." In terms of party politics, the ultimate goal, and this statement has also been heard from the ranks of the DPJ, is that Japan is closer to the two-party system bring to. For example, on October 22, 2003 (as part of the merger of the DPJ and LP) Kan said: "The LDP should hand over power to the DPJ at least once, so that a two-party system emerges that enables changes of government."

At the beginning of 2006, the DPJ tried to extract political capital from the Livedoor scandal: after falsification of accounts, insider trading and aggressive takeover policies had led to the collapse of the Internet company Livedoor, allegations were raised against the ruling LDP of being involved in livedoor's illegal activities. However, an email presented as evidence in this regard turned out to be a forgery launched by the DPJ, whereupon Maehara resigned as party chairman on March 31.

On April 7, the experienced Ichirō Ozawa was elected party leader by 119 votes to 72 for Naoto Kan. Ozawa, who knows the political opponent LDP as a longtime MP, former Secretary General and Minister of the Interior, said after the election: "I feel great responsibility in view of the tasks ahead of us - the renewal of the party and the path to power."

Win the upper house majority in 2007 and reject the grand coalition

From the elections for the upper house on July 29, 2007 , the DPJ emerged as the strongest party. The election campaign was dominated by a scandal in the state pension system, several ministerial resignations and related doubts about the leadership of Prime Minister Abe . The Ozawa Manifesto , the DPJ's election manifesto , made three key election pledges:

  • Introduction of a "pension savings book" to document pension entitlements
  • Introduction of a 26,000 yen child benefit and efforts to make society more child-friendly
  • Revitalization of rural regions by promoting agriculture through an "individual income subsidy system"

Although the LDP-led coalition's ability to govern was only slightly impaired by the loss of the majority in the second chamber, since it had a two-thirds majority in the lower house. However, the LDP chairman and Prime Minister Shinzō Abe resigned soon after the election and was replaced by Yasuo Fukuda .

Fukuda negotiated with Ichirō Ozawa in autumn 2007 in view of the new majority situation ( Nejire Kokkai ) and the political dispute over the extension of the anti-terrorism law to form a grand coalition, although it is unclear from which side the initiative for the talks came. The party declined a possible collaboration with the LDP as well as the subsequent resignation offer from Ozawa. After the failure of the initiative, the DPJ intensified its opposition work and pushed for early elections. She blocked the work of the government by blocking it: particularly affected were the extension of the anti-terrorism law, mineral oil taxes and the appointment of the governor of the Bank of Japan . The use of refueling ships in the Indian Ocean had to be interrupted, gasoline prices fell for a month and Toshirō Mutō , the government candidate for the management of the central bank, was rejected.

2009 election campaign and change of government

Ozawa resigned as party chairman two months later following a donation scandal involving the construction company Nishimatsu Kensetsu in March 2009. On May 16, 2009, the Democratic MPs from both chambers elected Yukio Hatoyama as his successor. Hatoyama led the Democratic Party in view of the poor poll results for the LDP chairman and Prime Minister Tarō Asō optimistically in the election campaign for the parliament of the Tokyo prefecture in July 2009. The party won a historic victory and after more than 40 years the LDP was the strongest party in Tokyo peel off. Asō, under pressure from its own party, dissolved the lower house.

The central catchphrase of the DPJ in the 2009 general election campaign was the demand for a change of government ( seiken kōtai ). In the election manifesto ( Manifesto ), the DPJ made several costly election promises, including, as in 2007, demands for child benefits and higher agricultural subsidies , as well as the abolition of the motorway toll and the "temporary tax rate" ( zantei zeiritsu ) on petrol. In return, she promised to reduce the “waste” ( mudazukai ) of public funds in infrastructure projects and authorities and to reduce the influence of the ministerial bureaucracy on political decisions. In nominating constituency candidates, the party cooperated with allies in the opposition, including the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the New People's Party (NVP). The general election gave the DPJ a landslide victory and the largest single party majority in post-war history. After coalition negotiations with the SDP and NVP, Yukio Hatoyama was elected Prime Minister. In the Hatoyama cabinet , the DPJ provided 16 of 18 state ministers.

The party had to accept losses in its polls just a few months after taking over government: Yukio Hatoyama had been affected by a donation scandal since summer 2009, like Ichiro Ozawa; and after taking over the government, the party had to abandon or weaken several of its election promises due to cost reasons, including lowering the mineral oil tax and abolishing the motorway toll.

On June 2, 2010 Hatoyama announced his resignation as party chairman and prime minister. Naoto Kan was re-elected party chairman on June 4, 2010, and was subsequently elected as the new prime minister by the DPJ majority in parliament. In the elections in July 2010 , the party again received the most votes, but lost several constituency mandates and thus the upper house majority. In the resulting "twisted parliament" she was dependent on cooperation with parts of the opposition, as she did not have a two-thirds majority in the lower house. After Kan's resignation in August 2011, Yoshihiko Noda was elected party chairman and prime minister.

Electoral defeat in 2012 and renaming

In the 2012 general election , the DPJ government was voted out of office and Noda subsequently resigned as party chairman and prime minister. His successor was Banri Kaieda , under whose leadership the DPJ also lost the upper house election in 2013 and the lower house election in 2014 against the LDP under Shinzō Abe . Since Kaieda lost his parliamentary seat in 2014, Katsuya Okada was re-elected party chairman. From 2015 onwards, he entered into a cooperation with the Communist Party of Japan for a common electoral strategy , which increasingly led to party resignations by conservative DPJ members such as Takeaki Matsumoto . In the same year, the DPJ formed a joint faction with the Ishin no Tō in the lower house and finally merged with it in March 2016 to form the Democratic Progressive Party . Legally, this was done by renaming the DPJ and the Ishin members joining it.

Parliamentary groups

The DPJ faction ( 民主党 ・ 無 所属 ク ラ ブ , Minshutō - Mushozoku Kurabu ; Democratic Party / Independent Club) in the lower house had 291 members in January 2012. In the upper house there was a common faction ( 民主党 ・ 新 緑 風 会 , Minshutō - Shinryokufūkai ; Democratic Party / Shinryokufūkai ) with 106 members, the faction chairman was Azuma Koshiishi .

Factions

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
The factions that have been newly established since the takeover of government are incomplete, cf. yes: 民主党 の 派閥 .
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Even if factionalism in the DPJ was not as firmly established as in the LDP, the members of the DPJ were also organized in factions, which often resulted from common political origins before the party was founded. Compared to the LDP, the boundaries between the factions fluctuated more and a member of parliament could be a member of several groups at the same time. Accordingly, the factions behaved less often as closed blocks when making political decisions and voting. In the media and in public they were usually named after their leaders, as with the LDP, but in contrast to the LDP not with the addition -ha ( 派 , “-Faction”), but -gurūpu ( グ ル ー プ , “group” from English group ). The factions of the DPJ were:

The official names of the factions were as meaningless as those of the competing LDP; however, because of the broad political spectrum of the DPJ, membership in the factions expressed more common political positions than the LDP. The membership of the DPJ ranged from former socialists and social democrats like Naoto Kan or Takahiro Yokomichi to conservative and liberal former members of the LDP like Seiji Maehara or Ichirō Ozawa.

Management structure

Party leader

Main article: Election of the chairman of the Japanese Democratic Party

Similar to the LDP, the chairman was formally elected by MPs, party members and supporters, but in most cases only determined by the national MPs.

"Old" DPJ (1996-1998)

"New" DPJ (1998-2016)

  • Naoto Kan: Apr. 1998-Sep. 1999
  • Yukio Hatoyama: Sep. 1999 – Dec. 2002
  • Naoto Kan: Dec. 2002 – May 2004
  • Katsuya Okada : May 2004 – Sep. 2005
  • Seiji Maehara : Sep. 2005 – Apr. 2006
  • Ichirō Ozawa : Apr. 2006 – May 2009
  • Yukio Hatoyama: May 2009 – June 2010
  • Naoto Kan: June 2010 – August 2011
  • Yoshihiko Noda: August 2011 – December 2012
  • Banri Kaieda : December 2012 – December 2014
  • Katsuya Okada: December 2014 – October 2016

Party executive

Important positions on the party executive committee in addition to the party chairman were (as of August 31, 2011):

The board also included the “highest advisers” ( saikō komon ) Tsutomu Hata , Yukio Hatoyama , Naoto Kan , Kōzō Watanabe , Satsuki Eda , Hirohisa Fujii and Katsuya Okada , the vice - chairpersons ( fuku-daihyō ), the chairman of the election campaign committee Yoshiaki , the deputy general secretary ( kanjichō daikō ) Shinji Tarutoko , the deputy general secretary ( kanjichō dairi ) Kōriki Jōjima , the chairmen of various committees and eleven regional officials organized according to the proportional voting blocks in the lower house .

The traditionally influential office of chairman of the political research committee ( 政策 調査 会 , seisaku chōsakai ) was abolished like the whole body in 2009 in order to reduce the influence of the ministerial bureaucracy on political decisions and to transfer these more to the elected officials in parliament and government. In June 2010 the position was reintroduced by the new party chairman Naoto Kan .

Election results

National

Election victories as the strongest party in bold .

year Lower House election results Upper house election results House of Lords
composition
Candidates Direct dial Proportional representation
Total mandates		 Candidates Direct dial Proportional representation
Total mandates
Share of votes Mandates Share of votes Mandates Share of votes Mandates Share of votes Mandates
1996 161 10.6% 17/300 16.1% 35/200 52/500
1998 48 16.2% 15/76 21.8% 12/50 27/126 47/252
2000 262 27.6% 80/300 25.2% 47/180 127/480
2001 63 18.5% 18/73 16.4% 8/48 26/121 59/247
2003 277 36.7% 105/300 37.4% 72/180 177/480
2004 74 39.1% 31/73 37.8% 19/48 50/121 82/242
2005 299 36.4% 52/300 31.0% 61/180 113/480
2007 80 40.5% 40/73 39.5% 20/48 60/121 109/242
2009 330 47.4% 221/300 42.4% 87/180 308/480
2010 106 39.0% 28/73 31.6% 16/48 44/121 106/242
2012 267 22.8% 27/300 15.9% 30/180 57/480
2013 55 16.3% 10/73 13.4% 7/48 17/121 59/242
2014 198 22.5% 38/295 18.3% 35/180 73/475

Prefecture level

The position of the Democratic Party in the prefectures was weak compared to its position in national politics. Until 2012, it had only managed to become the strongest party in two prefecture parliaments nationwide: Iwate and Tokyo . In total, it provides around 500 of the approximately 2500 members of the prefectural parliament nationwide. In the 41 prefectural parliamentary elections held in the 2011 unified regional elections , their candidates received 16.4% of the vote versus 37.6% for LDP candidates.

Only a few DPJ-supported gubernatorial candidates were able to prevail against an LDP-supported candidate, including Takuya Tasso in Iwate, Heita Kawakatsu in Shizuoka , Yukiko Kada in Shiga and Shuichi Abe in Nagano . In many prefectures, however, the major parties explicitly or implicitly supported a common candidate for governor.

Local level

Despite its reputation as an urban party, the Democratic Party only succeeded in defeating the LDP in individual cases in the major cities designated by the government (since 2012: 20) ; in the 15 council elections in major cities, which will be held in the unified regional elections in 2011, their candidates received a total of 17.2% of the vote compared to 24.1% for LDP candidates. Only in Sapporo ( Hokkaidō ) she won a relative majority of the mandates. She had recently lost her strong position in the Nagoya City Council ( Aichi ), which was considered a Democratic stronghold, in the recall elections.

Metropolitan mayors elected with democratic support included Fumio Ueda in Sapporo (Hokkaidō) and Fumiko Hayashi in Yokohama ( Kanagawa ), with support for candidates crossing party lines in many places or all-party candidates (excluding communists) being set up. Beyond the larger cities, Tokyo districts and a few exceptions, local politics is not very party-politically organized.

literature

  • Patrick Koellner: The Democratic Party of Japan. Development, organization and programmatic profile. in: Alisa Gaunder (Ed.): The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Politics. Routledge 2011. ISBN 978-0-415-55137-3
  • Felix Spremberg: Social Democracy in Japan: An Analysis of Relevant Actors. LIT Verlag 2019. ISBN 978-3-643-14449-2

Web links

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

swell

  1. ↑ Sōmu-shō 収支 報告 書 ( Memento of the original from January 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , DPJ November 30, 2010 ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.5 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.soumu.go.jp @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.soumu.go.jp
  2. ↑ Sōmushō , April 1, 2014: 平 成 ２６ 年分 政党 交付 金 の 交付 決定
  3. ↑ 政党 交付 金 使 途 等 報告 書, 平 成 １９ 年 ９ 月 １４ 日 公 表 (平 成 １８ 年分 定期 公 表): 民主党  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.seijishikin.soumu.go.jp  
  4. ↑ Financial Times, February 16, 2006: New twist in Livedoor scandal touches Koizumi  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.ft.com  
  5. ↑ BBC News, March 31, 2006: Japan opposition leader resigns (Engl.)
  6. ↑ bpb. Fischer World Almanac 2007. Country profile Japan.
  7. ↑ BBC News, April 7, 2005: Japanese opposition picks leader .
  8. ↑ Spiegel Online : Naoto Kan elected as the new head of government , June 4, 2010.
  9. ↑ 「小 沢 グ ル ー プ」 １２０ 人 に 最大 派閥 に 強 ま る 警戒 感 . (No longer available online.) In: msn / Sankei News. August 31, 2009, archived from the original on September 3, 2009 ; Retrieved January 5, 2010 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sankei.jp.msn.com
  10. ↑ 旧 田中 派 の 再現？ 小 沢 グ ル ー プ １２０ 人 超 も . (No longer available online.) In: msn / Sankei News. August 27, 2009, archived from the original on August 30, 2009 ; Retrieved January 5, 2010 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sankei.jp.msn.com
  11. ↑ 「玄 葉 グ ル ー プ」 が 発 足 代表 世 話 人 に 山口 壮 氏 . (No longer available online.) In: MSN / Sankei News. March 9, 2011, formerly in the original ; Retrieved June 24, 2011 (Japanese).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / sankei.jp.msn.com  
  12. ↑ Kan's DPJ picks dim Ozawa role. Edano, Genba, Tarutoko land key exec posts. In: The Japan Times . June 7, 2010, accessed June 7, 2010 .