The , also known as the New Harbinger Party, was a

political party in Japan In Japan, any organization that supports a candidate needs to register itself as a political party. Each of these parties have some local or national influence. This article lists political parties in Japan with representation in the National ...

that broke away from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on 22 June 1993. The party was created by

Masayoshi Takemura was 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. He served as chief cabinet secretary and ...

. The party was centrist, and had many

reformist Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement. Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can eve ...

and even moderate ecological elements. The theoretical leader was Shusei Tanaka.

Yukio Hatoyama is a former Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 16 September 2009 to 8 June 2010. He was the first Prime Minister from the modern Democratic Party of Japan. First elected to the House of Representatives in 1986, Hatoy ...

and

Naoto Kan is a Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from June 2010 to September 2011. Kan was the first Prime Minister since the resignation of Junichiro Koizumi in 2006 to serve for ...

also took part but later moved to the

Democratic Party of Japan The was a centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to centre-left liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic Part ...

History

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

Morihiro Hosokawa is a Japanese politician and noble who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1993 to 1994, leading a coalition government which was the first non- Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government of Japan since 1955. After a funding scandal in early 1994, h ...

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

became Minister. Sakigake supported the following

Tsutomu Hata was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan for nine weeks in 1994. He took over from Morihiro Hosokawa at the head of a coalition government. Shortly after he had been appointed Prime Minister, the Japanese Socialist Party l ...

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 LDP and 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 ...

, which replaced the coalition government headed the previous year by the

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 ...

. In September 1996, Sakigake and

politicians who did not support their respective parties alliances with the LDP broke away to found the

. The exodus of these liberal members moved the party further to the right. 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. As part of the ruling coalition in 1998, it had 2 seats in the House of Representatives and 3 in the House of Councillors. In October 1998, the party reformed itself with a more conservative image, dropping the 'New' from its title to become simply the ''Sakigake Party''. Its popularity heavily declined after that, and by 2001, the party had no seats in either the Lower or Upper House. In 2002, the ecologists took control, and turned the party into an ecologist party. It changed its name to , the Environmental Green Political Assembly, which, because it won no seats in the 2004 Parliamentary elections, dissolved itself on 22 June 2004. The party gained its followers mainly from white collar bureaucrats and ecologists. It was a conservative reformist party with ecological elements.

List of leaders of NPS

Election results

General election results

Councillors election results

Notes

References

External links

Archive.org copy of former website
{{Authority control Liberal parties in Japan Centrist parties in Japan Centre-left parties in Asia Conservative liberal parties Defunct political parties in Japan Environmentalism in Japan Political parties established in 1993 1993 establishments in Japan