The New Party Sakigake (新党さきがけ Shinto Sakigake or The Forerunner) was a Japanese political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 that broke away from the Liberal Democratic Party

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...

 on June 22, 1993. The party was created by Masayoshi Takemura

Masayoshi Takemura

is a Japanese politician. Elected as a representative of the Liberal Democratic Party, in 1993 he broke away to form New Party Sakigake, before joining the newly formed Democratic Party of Japan in 1997...

. The party, was a centrist party, and it had many reformist and even moderate ecological elements. The theoretical reader was Shusei Tanaka. Yukio Hatoyama

Yukio Hatoyama

is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan between 16 September 2009 and 2 June 2010, and was the first ever Prime Minister from the modern Democratic Party of Japan....

 and Naoto Kan

Naoto Kan

is a Japanese politician, and former Prime Minister of Japan. In June 2010, then-Finance Minister Kan was elected as the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan and designated Prime Minister by the Diet to succeed Yukio Hatoyama. On 26 August 2011, Kan announced his resignation...

 also took part but later moved to the Democratic Party of Japan

Democratic Party of Japan

The is a political party in Japan founded in 1998 by the merger of several opposition parties. Its socially liberal platform is generally considered center-left in the Japanese political spectrum...

.

After the general election of 1993, Sakigake joined a Cabinet led by Morihiro Hosokawa

Morihiro Hosokawa

is a Japanese politician who was the 79th Prime Minister of Japan from August 9, 1993 to April 28, 1994. His coalition was the first non-Liberal Democratic Party government since 1955.- Early life :...

. It was the first government without the LDP since 1955. Sakigake's Masayoshi Takemura

Masayoshi Takemura

is a Japanese politician. Elected as a representative of the Liberal Democratic Party, in 1993 he broke away to form New Party Sakigake, before joining the newly formed Democratic Party of Japan in 1997...

 became Minister. Sakigake supported the following Tsutomu Hata

Tsutomu Hata

is a Japanese politician and was the 80th Prime Minister of Japan for 9 weeks in 1994.He was born in Tokyo, a son of the Liberal Democratic Party Member of Parliament Bushiro Hata. Hata graduated from Seijo University and was employed by the Odakyu bus company from 1958 to 1969...

 Cabinet, but didn't join the Cabinet.

In 1994, New Party Sakigake took part in the government of Murayama Tomiichi, a government coalition of the Liberal Democrats and the Japan Socialist Party

Social Democratic Party (Japan)

The Social Democratic Party The Social Democratic Party The Social Democratic Party (社会民主党 Shakai Minshu-tō, often abbreviated to 社民党 Shamin-tō; also known as the Social Democratic Party of Japan (abbreviated to SDPJ or SDP in English) is a political party that advocates for the establishment of a...

, which replaced the liberal coalition headed the previous year by the Japan Renewal Party

Japan Renewal Party

The Japan Renewal Party was a Japanese political party that existed in the early 1990s. It was founded in 1993 by 44 members of the Liberal Democratic Party led by Tsutomu Hata and Ichirō Ozawa...

.

In 1997, the New Party Sakigake had two members in the House of Representatives and three members in the House of Councillors, which was good for them, especially after the LDP became the ruling party again. However, it decided to moderate its stance, and, because of the power of the ecologist and reformist factions, the conservatives decided to reform the party.

Thus, in 1998, the party changed its name to The Sakigake Party. In 2002, the party again changed its name to Midori no kaigi, the Environmental Green Political Assembly, which itself dissolved on June 22, 2004, mainly because of the failure of the party to win any seats in that year's elections – thus spelling the end to the Sakigake movement in Japanese politics.

The party gained its followers mainly from white collar bureaucrats and ecologists. It was a conservative reformist party with ecological elements.

See also

• Japan New Party
  Japan New Party
  The Japan New Party was a Japanese political party that existed briefly from 1992 to 1994. It should not be confused with the New Party Nippon founded in 2005....
  
  
• The Sakigake Party
• Liberal Democratic Party
  Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
  The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...
  
  
• New Komeito Party
  New Komeito Party
  The , New Kōmei Party, or NKP is a centre-right political party in Japan founded by members of the Nichiren Buddhist organization Sōka Gakkai. The leadership and financing of the two groups are currently independent...
  
  
• Japan Socialist Party
• Social Democratic Party (Japan)
  Social Democratic Party (Japan)
  The Social Democratic Party The Social Democratic Party The Social Democratic Party (社会民主党 Shakai Minshu-tō, often abbreviated to 社民党 Shamin-tō; also known as the Social Democratic Party of Japan (abbreviated to SDPJ or SDP in English) is a political party that advocates for the establishment of a...
  
  
• Centrism
  Centrism
  In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...
  
  
• Reformism
  Reformism
  Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...
  
  
• Ecology movement
  Ecology movement
  The global ecology movement is based upon environmental protection, and is one of several new social movements that emerged at the end of the 1960s. As a values-driven social movement, it should be distinguished from the pre-existing science of ecology....
  
  
• Midori no kaigi
• Politics of Japan
  Politics of Japan
  The politics of Japan is conducted in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic monarchy, where Prime Minister of Japan is the head of government. Japanese politics uses a multi-party system. Executive power exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Diet, with...
  
  
• Japan
• List of political parties in Japan
• Timeline of liberal parties in Japan

External links

Archive.org copy of former website