LIBERAL-DEMOCRATIC PARTY

(LDP) , Japanese Jiyuminshuto Japan's largest political party, which has held power almost continuously since its formation in November 1955. The party generally has worked closely with business interests and followed a pro-American foreign policy. During more than four decades of almost uninterrupted power, the LDP oversaw Japan's remarkable recovery from World War II and its development into an economic superpower. The LDP is descended from parties that existed in the 19th century. In 1880 the Liberal Party (Jiyuto), itself descended from an older protest group, campaigned for a Japanese constitutional government with a national assembly. A more moderate group, the Progressive Party (Kaishinto), advocated government along British lines. Under the Meiji Constitution of 1889, the parties became active in parliamentary government. From 1918 to 1931 they wielded substantial power under the respective names of Friends of Constitutional Government (Rikken Seiyukai) and Democratic Party (Minseito), but all political parties lost influence with the rise of militarism in Japan; in 1940 they disbanded. The Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945 was followed by four years of political confusion. New parties were formed from the remnants of the old ones: the Liberal Party built on the old Seiyukai, whereas the Progressive Party drew on factions of both the Seiyukai and the Minseito. Alliances wavered. From 1945 to 1954, the Progressives changed their name four times, successively from Progressive Party to Democratic Party to National Democratic Party to Reform Party. In 1947 and 1948 the Progressives, who had received 19 percent of the vote in the 1946 elections, participated in a coalition government with left-wing parties. In the 1949 elections, however, they received only 16 percent of the vote and moved rightward. In November 1954 they joined with a faction of the Liberal Party to form the Japanese Democratic Party (Nippon Minshuto)which in turn united with the remaining Liberals in 1955 to form the Liberal-Democratic Party. In the 1950s and early '60s the LDP consistently won about 60 percent of the vote. After the mid-1960s the LDP's popularity wavered considerably, but it maintained control of the government. In the mid-1970s and again in the late '80s and early '90s, the party was shaken by a number of major financial and other scandals. The party weathered the 1970s scandal; but the second series forced the consecutive resignations of two LDP prime ministers, and in elections held in July 1993, the party lost its majority in parliament and, for the first time in its history, control of the government. Nonetheless, the LDP regained power the following June by joining and forming coalition governments.