Social Democratic Party (Japan)

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Social Democratic Party
Shakai Minshutō
Social Democratic Party
Party presidency ( tōshu) Mizuho Fukushima
Deputy Chair Hajime Yoshikawa
Secretary General Tadatomo Yoshida
PARC Chair Hajime Yoshikawa
Parliamentary affairs Hajime Yoshikawa
Honorary Chair Tomiichi Murayama
founding 1996
Headquarters 3-18-17 Minato , Chūō , Tokyo Prefecture
Members 15,105 (2016)
MPs in the Shūgiin
2/465
(December 2019)
MPs in the Sangiin
2/245
(December 2019)
Government grants 0.40 billion yen (2017)
Number of members 15,105 (2016)
Minimum age 18 years
International connections Socialist International
Website sdp.or.jp

The Japanese Social Democratic Party (SDP; 社会 民主党 , Shakai Minshutō , short: 社民党 , Shamintō ) is a political party . It has MPs in both houses of the Japanese parliament , but is classified as a small party after much of the party was absorbed into the Democratic Party of Japan . According to the 2016 party funding report, the SDP had around 15,100 members this year.

history

Party headquarters in Tokyo's Chūō Special District
Campaign event of the SDP in the general election campaign 2005 with Takako Doi

founding

The SDP is the successor to the Socialist Party of Japan (SPJ) founded in 1945, which was Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama from 1994 to 1996 . While the SPJ / SDP lost numerous members to the forerunners of the Democratic Party, the party changed its name in 1996 - the English name had already been changed to Social Democratic Party of Japan in 1991 - to Social Democratic Party and at the same time lost some members to the New Socialist Party .

Since the party was renamed, the party has tried to take more moderate positions. The main foreign policy demands of the SDP are the preservation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and the refusal to send soldiers on missions abroad under the anti-terrorism law (which expired in autumn 2007). The interpretation of Article 9 as a ban on any armed forces, according to which the self-defense forces would be unconstitutional, was gradually abandoned by the Socialist Party in the 1980s.

Long disputed the attitude of the SDP was against North Korea , the Japanese over its nuclear program and the kidnapping citizens in the 1970s on the one hand and inadequate processing of the Japanese colonial period there on the other hand is in constant conflict with Japan. The party is now trying to relativize its uncritical stance from earlier years.

Government participation

In 2003 Mizuho Fukushima took over the SDP party chairmanship from Takako Doi , who resigned after the poor performance in the 2003 general election in November of the same year. From 2009 to 2010 she was involved with the New People's Party in the coalition government led by the Democratic Party (DPJ) of Yukio Hatoyama . Fukushima named Minister of State for Consumers and Food Safety, Combating the Decline of Births and Gender Equality ; Kiyomi Tsujimoto was Vice Minister in the Ministry of Transportation . Because of Fukushima's opposition to the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within Okinawa Prefecture , Hatoyama dismissed her in May 2010. Tsujimoto also submitted her resignation shortly afterwards and the SDP left the coalition government completely. In August of that year, Tsujimoto resigned from the SDP and joined the DPJ; in May 2012 Tomoko Abe took the same step.

reduction

Fukushima resigned after the parliamentary elections in 2012 and 2013 , after which the SDP only had five MPs at the national level. After several weeks, the party agreed on a new selection process for the party chairmanship. When the campaign kicked off on September 27, 2013, there were two candidates for the party chairmanship: Taiga Ishikawa, a member of the Toshima district parliament , and Tadatomo Yoshida , a member of the upper house of the national parliament. The vote among the 17,410 voting party members took place on October 12th and 13th, 2013, and the result was counted on October 14th. Yoshida prevailed by a clear margin. In the 2016 upper house election , the SDP only won one seat in the proportional representation (one was not up for election), and Yoshida received only 153,197 preferential votes and lost his seat in the nationwide proportional representation - Mizuho Fukushima won the SDP seat with over 250,000 votes. A few days later, Yoshida announced his resignation from the party leadership, but initially remained in office. After the election, the SDP formed a joint upper house parliamentary group with the Liberal Party , the Kibō no Kai ( 希望 の 会 , about "Hope Assembly").

In the 2017 general election, the SDP cooperated with the newly founded Constitutional Democratic Party (KDP) of Yukio Edano and the Communist Party (KPJ), so that Social Democrats opposed the KDP or the KPJ in less than 20 constituencies. The SDP was able to maintain its number of MPs, but not increase it. In February 2018, the previous General Secretary Seiji Mataichi took over the chairmanship of the party and was elected unanimously without opposing candidates. The new General Secretary was Hajime Yoshikawa, Member of the House of Commons . In January 2019, the SDP agreed with the KDP to form a joint parliamentary group in the upper house after the Liberal Party left the joint parliamentary group with the SDP and joined the Democratic People's Party (DVP). Since September 2019 she has been a member of the joint parliamentary groups of KDP, DVP and independents in both chambers.

In December 2019, KDP chairman Edano proposed to the SDP and DVP that the parties be incorporated into the KDP. After the relevant negotiations between the KDP and DVP were interrupted without result in January 2020 due to the start of the regular session of parliament, the SDP also decided to postpone the decision on a possible merger with the KDP. On February 22, 2020, Mizuho Fukushima was unanimously elected as the successor to party chairman Seiji Mataichi and thus holds this post for the second time after seven years; General Secretary Yoshikawa was replaced by former chairman Tadatomo Yoshida.

Election results

National

After the elections in 2016, 2017 and 2019, the SDP still has four members in the national parliament. It only fulfills the legal party criterion through the number of votes in national elections (at least one member of parliament and> 2% of the votes nationwide in at least one electoral segment with at least one election of current members of parliament).

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
When the SDP was founded / the SPJ was renamed 63/511 ← (dropped to 30 by the 1996 election) (dropped to 20 by the 1998 election) → 39/252
1996 48 2.2% 4/300 6.4% 11/200 15/500
1998 37 4.3% 1/76 7.8% 4/50 5/126 13/252
2000 76 3.8% 4/300 9.4% 15/180 19/480
2001 24 3.5% 0/73 6.6% 3/48 3/121 8/247
2003 65 2.9% 1/300 5.1% 5/180 6/480
2004 15th 1.8% 0/73 5.6% 2/48 2/121 5/242
2005 45 1.5% 1/300 5.5% 6/180 7/480
2007 23 2.3% 0/73 4.5% 2/48 2/121 5/242
2009 37 1.9% 3/300 4.2% 4/180 7/480
2010 14th 1.0% 0/73 3.8% 2/48 2/121 4/242
2012 33 0.7% 1/300 2.3% 1/180 2/480
2013 9 0.5% 0/73 2.4% 1/48 1/121 3/242
2014 25th 0.8% 1/295 2.5% 1/180 2/475
2016 11 0.5% 0/73 2.7% 1/48 1/121 2/242
2017 21st 1.2% 1/289 1.7% 1/176 2/465
2019 7th 0.4% 0/74 2.1% 1/50 1/124 2/245

Prefectures

In the 41 (of 47) prefectural parliaments that stood for election in the 2019 unified elections , the SDP won a total of 25 out of 2,277 seats.

Communities

In the 17 (of 20) major city parliaments that stood for election in the 2019 unified elections, the SDP won four out of 1,012 seats.

Government holdings

  • 1996 82nd Cabinet ( LDP , SDP, Sakigake ) Ryūtarō Hashimoto : six SDP ministers
  • (1996–1998 cooperation outside the cabinet ( 閣 外 協力 , kakugai kyōryoku ) with the 83rd cabinet (LDP) Ryūtarō Hashimoto [initially numerically without its own absolute lower house majority, so the cooperation was at least technically the "tolerance" of a minority government by SDP and Sakigake ; but a government majority against the LDP would only have existed hypothetically in 1996 with the cooperation of all other parties.])
  • 2009 – May 2010 (end of coalition) 93rd Cabinet ( DPJ , SDP, NVP ) Yukio Hatoyama : an SDP minister

Current member of the National Parliament

Status: December 2019

  • in the lower house in the community group Rikken Minshu / Kokumin / Shaho / Mushozoku Forum (~ "KDP / DVP / Soz. Sicherheit / Independent Forum")
  • in the upper house in the community group Rikken / Kokumin.Shinryokufūkai / Shamin (~ "KDP / DVP.Shinryokufūkai / SDP")

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e twitter.com - 社会 民主党 全国 連 合 役 員 一 覧 (Japanese), accessed February 23, 2020
  2. ↑ sdp.or.jp - 社会 民主党 全国 連 合 役 員 一 覧 (Japanese), accessed February 23, 2020
  3. ↑ Sōmushō , November 30, 2017: 平 成 28 年分 政治 資金 収支 報告 書 の 要旨 (PDF)
  4. ↑ Sōmushō , April 3, 2017: 平 成 29 年分 政党 交付 金 の 交付 決定 (PDF)
  5. ↑ sdp.or.jp - 社会 民主党 党 則 , accessed on February 17, 2019
  6. ↑ SDP position on Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution ( Memento of the original from January 26, 2008 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www5.sdp.or.jp
  7. ^ Q&A of the SDP on Japanese-Korean relations , especially Q2 on the question of official contacts between the party and the DPRK
  8. ↑ SDP: [1] 社民党 党 首選 挙
  9. ^ Social Democratic Party picks policy chief as new leader. In: The Japan Times . October 14, 2013, accessed October 14, 2013 .
  10. ↑ 社 民 ・ 吉田 党 首 が 辞 意 参 院 選 落選 、 議席 減 で 引 責 . (No longer available online.) In: Tōkyō Shimbun . July 14, 2016, archived from the original on August 10, 2016 ; Retrieved August 10, 2016 (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 / www.tokyo-np.co.jp
  11. ↑ 共産 、 立憲 民主 、 社 民 ２４９ 選 挙 区 で 候補 者 一 本 化 . In: Sankei News . October 3, 2017, Retrieved February 17, 2019 (Japanese).
  12. ↑ 社民党 大会 始 ま る 幹事 長 に 吉川 元氏 選出 の 見 通 し . In: Asahi Shimbun . February 24, 2018. Retrieved February 25, 2018 (Japanese).
  13. ↑ 野 党 で 相 次 ぐ 統一 会 派 国民 幹部 「衝 撃 だ」 立憲 へ 恨 み 節 . In: Asahi Shimbun . May 8, 2019, Retrieved February 17, 2019 (Japanese).
  14. ↑ 社 民 、 衆院 で も 統一 会 派 に 参加 へ 野 党 結束 へ 方針 転 換 . In: Mainichi Shimbun . September 27, 2019. Retrieved December 30, 2019 (Japanese).
  15. ↑ 立憲 と の 合流 、 慎重 判断 党 勢 拡 大 に 意欲 - 福島 社民党 首 . In: Jiji Tsūshinsha . February 23, 2020, accessed February 23, 2020 (Japanese).