Japan's 1993 Regime Change in Retrospect:
Part Three - Timeline and Background to the Rise and Fall of the Hosokawa Cabinet

J. Sean Curtin (Fellow, GLOCOM)

A full list of articles in this series can be found here.

1971 - Morihiro Hosokawa is elected to the House of Councilors. He is just 33 years old which at the time made him the youngest person ever to be elected to the Diet. He comes from a political family. His grandfather, Prince Fumimaro Konoe, was prime minister during the late thirties and early forties.

1983 - Hosokawa is elected the Governor of Kumamoto as the Liberal Democratic Party candidate.

1987 - Hosokawa is reelected as the Governor of Kumamoto.

9 August 1989 - Toshiki Kaifu becomes Prime Minister

1990 - Hosokawa announces that he will not stand for a third term as Governor of Kumamoto.

6 November 1991 - Kiichi Miyazawa becomes Prime Minister

1992 - Dismayed by political corruption, Hosokawa leaves the LDP and founds the Japan New Party (Nihonshinto) which is dedicated to political reform.

December 1992 - Ozawa Ichiro together with 42 fellow supporters split from the Takeshita faction to start their own group within the LDP.

18 June 1993 - The Miyazawa Cabinet looses a no-confidence motion forcing the dissolution of the government and a lower house election.

June 1993 - Ichiro Ozawa, Tsutomu Hata, and 43 other lawmakers leave the LDP to form the Japan Renewal Party (Shinseito).

June 1993 - Masayoshi Takemura and 9 followers depart the LDP to form the New Harbinger Party (Shinto Sakegaki).

July 1993 - Even though it remains the largest party, the LDP loses the lower house election and is robbed of its majority for the first time since December 1954.

9 August 1993 - Hosokawa becomes Prime Minister after negotiations amongst the eight-party coalition. The diverse parties share little common ground and their coalition is shaky. Ichiro Ozawa of the Japan Renewal Party is seen as a key powerbroker in the new government.

8 April 1994 - Hosokawa resigns from office due to questions arising out of his financial dealings with the Sagawa Kyubin Company.

25 April 1994 - Tsutomu Hata becomes Prime Minister. Socialist Party feels that it is being isolated within the governing coalition and withdraws its support. The coalition begins to disintegrate.

June 1994 - The Socialist Party start negotiations on forming a coalition with their decades-long bitter enemies in the LDP. New Party Sakigake (Shinto Sakigake) is formed.

29 June 1994 - Socialist Party leader Tomiichi Murayama becomes prime minister after his party forms an almost unimaginable alliance with their longstanding arch-rivals in the LDP. This coalition proves that anything is possible in Japanese politics. It also marks the return of the LDP to power after less than a year in opposition.

December 1994 - The New Frontier Party (Shinshinto) is formed by a merger involving the Japan Renewal Party (Shinseito), the Democratic Socialist Party (Minshu Shakaito), the Japan New Party (Nihonshinto), the Clean Government Party (Komeito) as well as five other parties and groupings. Ichiro Ozawa wins the election to become the new party president.

11 January 1996 - Ryutaro Hashimoto becomes prime minister and the LDP regains the premiership.

May 1998 - Hosokawa retires from politics.

30 July 1998 - Keizo Obuchi becomes prime minister (LDP).

5 April 2000 - Yoshiro Mori becomes prime minister (LDP).

26 April 2001 - Junichiro Koizumi becomes prime minister (LDP).