Japan New Party

Not to be confused with New Party Nippon.

The Japan New Party (日本新党, Nihon Shintō) was a Japanese political party that existed briefly from 1992 to 1994.^[10]

Japan New Party 日本新党 Nihon Shintō
Founder	Morihiro Hosokawa
Founded	22 May 1992
Dissolved	9 December 1994
Split from	Liberal Democratic Party
Merged into	New Frontier Party
Ideology	Liberalism[4] Liberal conservatism[5]
Political position	Centre[6] to centre-right[9]
Colors	Green
Politics of Japan Political parties Elections

The party, considered liberal, was founded by Morihiro Hosokawa, a former Diet member and Kumamoto Prefecture governor, who left the Liberal Democratic Party to protest corruption scandals. In 1992, the party elected four members to the House of Councillors, including Hosokawa. Although this was a disappointing result for them, in 1993 they were able to capitalize on voter dissatisfaction with the LDP, electing a total of 35 members (including 3 who joined after the election). Hosokawa became Prime Minister leading a broad coalition, but was soon forced to resign.

The party defended the political reformism,^[11][12] rights of consumers^[12] and supported decentralization.^[12]

By 1994, the Japan New Party dissolved, its members flowing into the New Frontier Party (新進党).

Several Diet members who've become prominent in other parties were first elected for the Japan New Party, including Yoshihiko Noda, Seiji Maehara, Yukio Edano, Toshimitsu Motegi and Yuriko Koike.

List of leaders of JNP

No.	Name (Birth–death)	Portrait	Constituency / title	Term of office		Prime Minister (term)
				Took office	Left office
Split from: Liberal Democratic Party
1	Morihiro Hosokawa (b. 1938)		Rep for Kumamoto 1st	22 May 1992	9 December 1994		Miyazawa 1991–93
							himself 1993–94
							Hata 1994
							Murayama 1994–96
Successor party: New Frontier Party

Election results

House of Representatives

Election	Leader	Votes	%	Seats	Position	Status
1993	Morihiro Hosokawa	5,053,981	8.05	35 / 511	5th	Governing coalition

House of Councillors

Election	Leader	Constituency			Party list			Seats	Position	Status
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
1992	Morihiro Hosokawa	—			3,617,247	7.97	4 / 126	4 / 252	4th	Opposition

See also

• Liberalism in Japan
• Conservative mainstream (in Japanese)
• Yukio Edano, is a Japanese left-liberal politician who claims to be a "Conservative mainstream" because his early political career was in the centre-right liberal Japan New Party.