New Japan Party

This article describes the party that existed from 1992 to 1994. For the party with a similar name founded in 2005, see New Party Japan .

New Japan Party
Nihon Shinto
Japan New Party
Parteivorsitz (Daihyō)	Morihiro Hosokawa
Deputy Chair	Satsuki Eda & Yuriko Koike (in case of dissolution)
Secretary General	Masuo Matsuoka (upon dissolution)
Group chairmanship in the Sangiin	Yoshio Terasawa
founding	1992
resolution	1994
Headquarters	2-1-2 Nagatachō , Chiyoda , Tokyo Prefecture (if dissolved)
MPs in the Shūgiin	35 of 511 (election 1993)
MPs in the Sangiin	4 of 252 (election 1992)

The New Japan Party ( Japanese 日本 新 党 , Nihon Shintō , abbreviated: 日本 新 , Nihon Shin , or 日新 , Nisshin , English Japan New Party , JNP ) was a political party in Japan from 1992 to 1994 and one of the first Parties of the new party boom ( 新 党 ブ ー ム , Shintō būmu ) in the early 1990s, when a series of political scandals rocked the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

On May 7, 1992, the then governor of Kumamoto , Morihiro Hosokawa (LDP), announced the establishment of a Liberal Social Association ( 自由 社会 連 合 , Jiyū Shakai Rengō ) in the magazine Bungei Shunjū and at the same time wrote a public competition to determine the name of the new party. This was decided in the same month in favor of the "New Japan Party". The official founding of the party took place on May 22nd, Hosokawa became party leader.

In the upper house elections on July 26, 1992 , the Nisshin won four seats with over three million votes (7.73%) and thus the greatest success for a party outside the established party system. With this respectable success began the greatest upheaval in the Japanese political landscape since 1955; because now other politicians felt encouraged to turn their backs on the scandal-ridden LDP. In June 1993 Tsutomu Hata and Ichirō Ozawa left the LDP with their faction and founded the Renewal Party , whereby the LDP lost its absolute majority and new elections were triggered.

In the general election on July 18, 1993 , the Nisshin received 35 of the 511 seats. On August 9, Hosokawa became Prime Minister in a coalition of all previous opposition parties with the exception of the communists. However, the government made up of Nisshin, Renewal Party, Kōmeitō , Socialists , Democratic Socialists , New Sakigake Party and Social Democratic Federation was too politically diverse to remain stable: after a good eight months, on April 15, 1994, Hosokawa announced his resignation. In the subsequent minority government of Tsutomu Hata without the Socialist Party, the New Japan Party participated again and provided a minister. As early as June 1994 this government was history, the LDP returned to the government through an alliance with socialists and the Sakigake party.

The parties, which had now been forced into the opposition again, formed anew as a result. In May 1994, the Social Democratic Union joined the New Japan Party. On December 9, 1994, this officially dissolved and a day later founded the New Progressive Party together with the Renewal Party, Democratic Socialist Party and parts of the Kōmeitō .

Other leading members of the New Japan Party

• Kunitarō Takeda , vice chairman ( daihyō-daikō ) when it was founded, later Satsuki Eda (formerly the Social Democratic Federation ) was sole vice chairman ( fuku-daihyō ), even later together with Yuriko Koike
• Satoshi Arai , daihyō-kanji (corresponds to the general secretary here)
• Sakihito Ozawa , chairman of seisaku-iinkai ("Political Committee")
• Hiroshi Yamada , chairman of the rippō chōsa iinkai ("Legislative Research Committee ")
• Hiroshi Imai , chairman of seisaku-iinkai upon dissolution