The Kōmeitō ( ja, 公明党), also known as the Kōmei Party and Clean Government Party (CGP), was a political party in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, initiated by

Daisaku Ikeda is a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, author, and nuclear disarmament advocate. He served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan's new religious movements. Ikeda is the founding pres ...

, and described by various authors as the "political arm" of

Soka Gakkai is a Japanese Buddhist religious movement based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese priest Nichiren as taught by its first three presidents Tsunesaburō Makiguchi, Jōsei Toda, and Daisaku Ikeda. It is the largest of the Japanese ...

. Kōmeitō was considered a

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

centre-left Centre-left politics lean to the left on the left–right political spectrum but are closer to the centre than other left-wing politics. Those on the centre-left believe in working within the established systems to improve social justice. The c ...

political party of the progressive camp until the 1990s. However, since the 1990s, Kōmeitō has become politically closer to the right-wing LDP and has become a centre to

centre-right Centre-right politics lean to the Right-wing politics, right of the Left–right politics, political spectrum, but are closer to the Centrism, centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure a ...

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

party.

History

The party was established in January 1962 as the Kōmei Seiji Renmei (''Clean Government League'') by the

Sōka Gakkai is a Japanese Buddhist religious movement based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese priest Nichiren as taught by its first three presidents Tsunesaburō Makiguchi, Jōsei Toda, and Daisaku Ikeda. It is the largest of the Japanes ...

, an organization that promoted

Nichiren Buddhism Nichiren Buddhism ( ja, 日蓮仏教), also known as Hokkeshū ( ja, 法華宗, meaning ''Lotus Sect'') is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren (1222–1282) and is one of ...

. Running as independents, three members of the Sōka Gakkai had been elected to the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, ...

in the 1956 elections, with the 1959 elections seeing nine members elected. It also had several members elected to local assemblies. In 1957, a group of Young Men's Division members campaigning for a Gakkai candidate in an Osaka House of Councillors by-election were arrested for distributing money, cigarettes, and caramels at supporters' residences, in violation of elections law, and on July 3 of that year, at the beginning of an event memorialized as the "Osaka Incident," Daisaku Ikeda was arrested in Osaka. He was taken into custody in his capacity as Sōka Gakkai's Youth Division Chief of Staff for overseeing activities that constituted violations of elections law. He spent two weeks in jail and appeared in court forty-eight times before he was cleared of all charges in January 1962. Amongst its policies, the new party supported the 1947 constitution and opposed nuclear weapons. Headed by

Harashima Kōji Harashima (stylised in all capital letters) (born July 6, 1974) is a Japanese professional wrestler. He is best known for his work in DDT Pro-Wrestling (formally Dramatic Dream Team), where he is a ten-time KO-D Openweight Champion and a curren ...

. In the July 1962 elections the new party won nine seats in the House of Councillors.Haruhiro Fukui (1985) ''Political parties of Asia and the Pacific'', Greenwood Press, pp459–460 On 17 November 1964 the party was renamed Kōmeitō. In 1968, fourteen of its members were convicted of forging absentee ballots in Shinjuku, and eight were sentenced to prison for

electoral fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...

. In the 1960s it was widely criticized for violating the

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...

, and in February 1970 all three major Japanese newspapers printed editorials demanding that the party reorganize. It eventually broke apart based on promises to segregate from Soka Gakkai. In 1969, the Kōmeitō became the third political party in Japan. In the 1980s ''

Akahata is the daily organ of the Japanese Communist Party in the form of a national newspaper. It was founded in 1928 and currently has both daily and weekly editions.

'' discovered that many Soka Gakkai members were rewarding acquaintances with presents in return for Komeito votes, and that

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

residents had changed their addresses to elect Komeito politicians. It was also revealed that while the party was technically separate from the Soka Gakkai, monetary donations made that were tax exempt were being funneled into funding for the Kōmeitō party as revealed by an expelled Kōmeitō member of the Tokyo municipal assembly. It was usually supportive of the

Japan Socialist Party The was a socialist and progressive political party in Japan that existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was founded as the Social Democratic Party of Japan by members of several proletarian parties that existed before World War II, including ...

, and opposed the LDP ( Liberal Democratic Party), the major ruling party at that time. Kōmeitō did quite well, and in 1993, when the LDP was for the first time declared an opposition party, the Kōmeitō became one of the ruling parties, headed by the

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

Japan New Party The was a Japanese political party that existed briefly from 1992 to 1994. 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 ...

, but which also included the Democratic Socialist Party,

Japan Renewal Party The 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. It was instrumental in ending the LDP's 38-year dominance of Japanese ...

, the

New Party Sakigake The , also known as the New Harbinger Party, was a political party in Japan that broke away from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on 22 June 1993. The party was created by Masayoshi Takemura. The party was centrist, and had many reformist an ...

, and the

. In 1994, the latter two parties left the coalition, and in July they took over the rule, making another coalition with the LDP. The Kōmeitō was again thrown into opposition. On December 5, 1994, The Kōmeitō split into two parties. The Lower House chairs and some of Upper House chairs formed Kōmeitō New Party, and five days later, they joined into the New Frontier Party. The others, i.e. local assembly members and the rest of the Upper House chairs, formed Kōmei and independent friend of the New Frontier Party. In 1998, however, the New Frontier Party dissolved, and former Kōmeitō members formed

New Peace Party New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz (South Korean band), The Boyz Albums and EPs * New (album), ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartn ...

and

Reform Club The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was one of the first all-male cl ...

. They merged with Kōmei in the same year and then became known as the NKP ( New Kōmeitō Party). The NKP adopted a more conservative agenda than the former Kōmeitō and in 1999 they supported the ruling party, the LDP.Hiroshi Aruga, "Sōka Gakkai and Japanese politics", in ''Global citizens, the Sōka Gakkai Buddhist Movement in the world''
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Komeito Soka Gakkai Buddhism in Japan Buddhist democratic parties Centrist parties in Japan Conservative parties in Japan Defunct political parties in Japan Economic progressivism Political parties established in 1962 Political parties disestablished in 1998 Progressive parties in Japan 1962 establishments in Japan 1998 disestablishments in Japan ja:公明党

History

See also

References