The Japan Renewal Party (also JRP; 新生党, Shinseitō) was a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese political party that existed in the early 1990s. It was founded in 1993 by 44 members of 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...

 led by 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...

 and Ichirō Ozawa

Ichiro Ozawa

is a Japanese politician. Formerly a chief secretary of the Liberal Democratic Party , he later defected from the LDP. He was the president of Japan's main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan , from 2006 until May 2009, when he resigned over a fund scandal, and secretary general of the...

. It was instrumental in ending the LDP's 38 year dominance of Japanese politics.

Both reformers, Hata and Ozawa had been involved in a difficult leadership struggle within the former Takeshita

Noboru Takeshita

was a Japanese politician and the 74th Prime Minister of Japan from November 6, 1987 to June 3, 1989.Takeshita was also the last Prime Minister during the long rule of the Emperor Shōwa.-Early years:...

 faction of the LDP. Their opponents, led by Keizo Obuchi

Keizo Obuchi

was a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives for twelve terms, and ultimately as the 84th Prime Minister of Japan from July 30, 1998 to April 5, 2000. His political career ended when he suffered a serious and ultimately fatal stroke....

 and Ryutaro Hashimoto

Ryutaro Hashimoto

was a Japanese politician who served as the 82nd and 83rd Prime Minister of Japan from January 11, 1996 to July 30, 1998. He was the leader of one of the largest factions within the ruling LDP through most of the 1990s and remained a powerful back-room player in Japanese politics until scandal...

, were using the fallout of the Sagawa Kyubin scandal as a tool to undermine the reformist position. Hata and Ozawa split from the party partly to shift media attention away from the scandal. In doing so, they transformed an internal party dispute to a wide-ranging conflict that led to a decade of shifting allegiances and short-lived parties.

In the elections immediately following the split, the JRP won 55 seats, making it one of the most powerful opposition parties. Most importantly, the party drew off support crucial to the LDP. While several other small parties had split from the LDP, Hata and Ozawa's group was the largest, and was widely considered to have finally broken the back of LDP dominance.

Known for his political organisational skills, Ozawa organised a five-party coalition of the JRP, the Japan Socialist Party, the Democratic Socialist Party

Democratic Socialist Party (Japan)

The was a social democratic party in Japan.- History :The Democratic Socialist Party was established in 1960 by a breakaway group of the Japan Socialist Party. It was made up of many members of the former Rightist Socialist Party of Japan, a moderate social-democratic faction that existed...

, Komeito and the United Social Democratic Party. This coalition held 237 seats in the Diet

Diet of Japan

The is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally...

, and after convincing the 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....

 and the New Party Sakigake

New Party Sakigake

The New Party Sakigake was a Japanese political party that broke away from the Liberal Democratic Party on June 22, 1993. The party was created by Masayoshi Takemura. The party, was a centrist party, and it had many reformist and even moderate ecological elements. The theoretical reader was...

 to join, was able to form a government under 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 :...

.

As the impetus for the collapse of LDP power, the JRP was able to exert great power in the coalition. While some concessions to other parties were made, the JRP was perhaps overly dominant, eventually forcing some other members out of the coalition through its heavyhanded style. In 1994, the JRP merged into the New Frontier Party

New Frontier Party

The was a Japanese political party that existed during the mid-1990s. As a merger of several small parties, the party was ideologically diverse, with its membership ranging from moderate socialists to neoliberals and conservatives...

.