Democratic Party of Japan

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), centrist Japanese political party that was founded in 1996 to challenge the long-dominant Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP). The DPJ made strong electoral showings from its earliest days, and within little more than a year of its establishment it became the country’s largest opposition party. It subsequently ruled Japan for more than three years (2009–12) before being replaced by the LDP.

History

The DPJ was formed in September 1996 by members of the New Party Harbinger (Shintō Sakigake); among the party’s early leaders were many established politicians, including former Japanese prime minister Hata Tsutomu, its first secretary-general (1998–2000); another prime minister (2009–10), Hatoyama Yukio, DPJ president from 1999 to 2002 and again from 2009 to 2010; and Kan Naoto, who succeeded Hatoyama as prime minister in 2010 and served as party president in 1998–99, 2002–04, and 2010–11. The nascent DPJ stood in the country’s legislative elections in October 1996, winning 52 seats in the House of Representatives (the lower house of the Diet). The party built on this success, winning 27 seats in the House of Councillors (the upper house) in July 1998. The DPJ’s growth was aided by its mergers with a number of smaller parties over the years, including, in March 1998, four allies in a coalition known as Minyuren (an abbreviation derived from the names of three of its constituent parties) and, in September 2003, the Liberal Party (Jiyūtō), which had been formed in 1998 by Ozawa Ichirō and had previously (1999–2000) been part of a coalition government with the LDP.

In the June 2000 elections to the House of Representatives, the DPJ gained 32 seats, for a total of 127 of the chamber’s 480 seats. After its merger with Ozawa’s Liberal Party in September 2003 and success in elections two months later, the party had increased that number to 177 seats. Under Ozawa’s de facto leadership the party made another strong showing in the July 2004 House of Councillors elections. However, it suffered a major electoral setback in September 2005, losing one-third of its lower-house seats as the LDP achieved its biggest-ever single-election gain.

Ozawa was formally elected president of the DPJ in April 2006, and the party’s fortunes began to turn around after the LDP’s Koizumi Junichiro stepped down as prime minister that September. Voters subsequently became increasingly dissatisfied with Koizumi’s successors and with the LDP in general. The DPJ regrouped for the 2007 upper-house elections, increasing their total seats to 120 in the 242-member body. With the addition of support from its allied parties, the DPJ became the dominant force in that chamber, marking the first time since World War II that a party other than the LDP controlled a house of the Diet. The DPJ’s success and its subsequent ability in the upper house to thwart LDP-proposed legislation were cited as major reasons why Koizumi’s first two successors as prime minister, Abe Shinzo and Fukuda Yasuo, each lasted less than a year in office. Ozawa’s resignation from the party presidency in May 2009 was precipitated by a fund-raising scandal involving one of his aides, and Hatoyama was elected to the post.

Asō Tarō, Fukuda’s successor as prime minister, fared no better at restoring the LDP’s fortunes with Japanese voters. In landmark lower-house elections in August 2009, DPJ candidates won an overwhelming victory—308 of the 480 seats—essentially reversing the outcome of the 2005 elections. The party subsequently entered into a ruling coalition with two smaller parties, and on September 16 Hatoyama succeeded Asō as prime minister.

Hatoyama’s tenure as prime minister was less than nine months. His initial popularity soon declined, and he was ultimately undone after he reversed himself on a 2009 campaign promise to close a U.S. military base on Okinawa, instead announcing that the base would be moved to another part of the island. Faced with widespread and strong opposition to that decision, Hatoyama stepped down as prime minister and party president on June 4, 2010, with Kan (who had been serving as finance minister since January 2010) succeeding him in both offices.

Kan’s term of office lasted only about a half year longer than that of Hatoyama. He was reelected party president in September 2010, overcoming a strong challenge by Ozawa. However, Kan came under increasing criticism for his administration’s handling of the relief and recovery effort following the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Honshu in March 2011, particularly as a major nuclear accident unfolded in Fukushima prefecture. Although he survived a no-confidence vote in the lower house in June 2011, Kan resigned from the party presidency and the office of prime minister on August 26. He was succeeded in both capacities—on August 29 and 30, respectively—by Noda Yoshihiko, who had served as finance minister in Kan’s cabinet.

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Noda faced the dual task of working with a divided Diet (the DPJ had only a slim plurality in the upper house, and legislation could be blocked there by the LDP and its allies) and challenges to his leadership of the DPJ by Ozawa—all the while attempting to manage the post-tsunami crisis in the country. He was able to pass supplemental spending bills aimed at addressing the cleanup and rebuilding in stricken areas, though there were complaints about how that money was spent. However, his effort to increase the rate on the national consumption (sales) tax in mid-2012, although successful, completely alienated Ozawa, who resigned from the DPJ and, with other members of his faction, formed a new political party. Noda nonetheless won reelection as party president in September 2012.

Pressure in the lower house from the opposition LDP, however, forced him in mid-November to dissolve that body and call for parliamentary elections. The LDP candidates won overwhelmingly in the December 16 polling; the DPJ—its numbers already down after the departure of Ozawa’s faction and other disgruntled members—was reduced to only 57 seats. Noda promptly announced his resignation as party president, and Kaieda Banri was chosen to replace him in the post. Noda formally resigned as prime minister on December 26 and was succeeded by the LDP’s Abe Shinzo, who had served in that post in 2006–07.

Kaieda, the new party president, was first elected to the lower house in 1993 and was among those who formed the DPJ in 1996. He served briefly as trade minister (2011) in Kan’s cabinet. His most immediate task was preparing the DPJ for the July 2013 upper-house elections. The party had lost its majority in that chamber during the 2010 elections but maintained a plurality of seats over the LDP. The DPJ fared poorly during the July 21 polling, however, and its overall seat total dropped to 59, while the LDP made substantial gains. The party was caught off guard by Abe’s November 2014 early dissolution of the lower house and his call for snap elections, which were held on December 14. The party fielded candidates in fewer than half of the contested constituencies, but it increased its total to 73 seats. Kaieda, however, was defeated in his bid for reelection and announced his resignation as party president.

Kaieda was succeeded by Okada Katsuya in January 2015, but Okada proved unable to capitalize on a sluggish economy that had failed to respond to Abe’s “Abenomics” fiscal policy. In March 2016 the DPJ merged with the centre-right Japan Innovation Party and rebranded itself as the Democratic Party (DP). In September of that year, the party elected Renho Murata as its first female leader. Renho fared little better than her predecessors, and she stepped down in July 2017 after the DP posted an abysmal performance in local elections in Tokyo. By that point the DP had largely ceded its role as main opposition party to a new group coalescing around popular Tokyo governor and former LDP member Koike Yuriko. The struggling party then elected its new leader Maehara Seiji, a DP veteran who had served as foreign minister in Kan’s cabinet before resigning over an illegal-payments scandal.

On September 28, 2017, Abe called for a snap parliamentary election to be held the following month, and Koike launched the centre-right Party of Hope (Kibō no Tō). Seeing no clear path to a return to political relevance, Maehara proposed to effectively disband the DP, a plan that met unanimous approval from DP lawmakers. All DP candidates in the October parliamentary election were instructed to abandon their party affiliation and apply for membership with the Party of Hope.

Policy and structure

The party platform emphasized streamlining and decentralizing government. Among its goals were the devolution of power away from bureaucracies and vested interests and toward citizens and local governments; a reduction of economic regulations; and an increase in governmental transparency and freedom of information. The DPJ sought to allow free-market principles to dominate the economy while providing security and equal opportunity for individuals.