Democratic Liberal Party (Japan)

Not to be confused with Liberal Democratic Party (Japan).

The Democratic Liberal Party (民主自由党, Minshu-jiyūtō) was a political party in Japan.

Democratic Liberal Party 民主自由党 Minshu-jiyūtō
Leader	Shigeru Yoshida
Founded	15 March 1948[1]
Dissolved	1 March 1950[2]
Merger of	Liberal Party[3] Minshu Club[3]
Merged into	Liberal Party[3]
Headquarters	Tokyo
Ideology	Conservatism[3]
Politics of Japan Political parties Elections

History

The party was established in March 1948 as a merger of the Liberal Party, Dōshi Club and a faction of the Democratic Party led by Saitō Takao.^[4] United by their opposition to the coal nationalisation law, the new party had 152 MPs and 46 members of the House of Councillors.^[4]

As a result of the DLP's attempts to block Yamazaki Takeshi from forming a new government after Hitoshi Ashida resigned as Prime Minister, the party's Shigeru Yoshida became Prime Minister in October 1948 and early elections were called in January 1949.^[4] The DLP won a landslide victory, taking 269 of the 466 seats, the first time a party had held a majority of seats since World War II.^[4] Shigeru Yoshida continued as Prime Minister.

In March 1950 the party merged with the Alliance faction of the Democratic Party to form the new Liberal Party.^[5]

Leader

#	Name	Portrait	From	To
1	Shigeru Yoshida		15 March 1948	1 March 1950

Election results

House of Representatives

Election	Leader	Votes	%	Seats	Position	Status
1949	Shigeru Yoshida	13,420,269	43.87	264 / 466	1st	Government