Kaoru Yosano was a Japanese politician. He was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Sunrise Party of Japan and former member of the House of Representatives, serving his ninth term in the Lower House representing Tokyo's first electoral district until his defeat in the 2009 Japanese general election. He was Chief Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister Shinzō Abe from August 2007 to September 2007, and Minister of Economic and Fiscal Policy in Tarō Asō's administration from February to September 2009.
Yoshimi Watanabe is a Japanese politician. He was formerly a member of the Liberal Democratic Party and later the founder of Your Party, after which he became a member of Nippon Ishin no Kai until 2019 when he then became an independent politician. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1996 to 2014, and returned to the Diet in 2016 as a member of the House of Councillors.
Tōru Hashimoto is a Japanese TV personality, politician and lawyer. He was the mayor of Osaka city and is a member of Nippon Ishin no Kai and the Osaka Restoration Association. He is one of Japan's leading right-wing Japanese nationalist and conservative-populist politicians.
General elections were held in Japan on 16 December 2012. Voters gave the Liberal Democratic Party a landslide victory, ejecting the Democratic Party from power after three years. It was the fourth worst defeat suffered by a ruling party in Japanese history.
The Osaka Restoration Association, also referred to as One Osaka, is a regional political party in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Founded in 2010 by then-Governor Tōru Hashimoto, its main platform is pursuing the Osaka Metropolis plan of merging the prefecture and some of its cities into "One Osaka" and reducing overlapping bureaucratic organizations of Osaka Prefecture and the city of Osaka.
This article lists events in 2011 in Japan.
The 17th unified local elections in Japan took place in April 2011. In the first phase on April 10, 2011 12 governors, 41 prefectural assemblies as well as five mayors and 15 assemblies in cities designated by government ordinance were elected. In the second phase on April 24, 2011 mayors and/or assemblies in hundreds of cities, cities of Tokyo, towns and villages were up for election. Additionally, a by-election for the National Diet was held in Aichi on April 24.
The Osaka Metropolis Plan or Osaka Metropolis was a plan to transform Osaka Prefecture from a fu, an urban prefecture, into a to, a metropolis. Under the initially envisioned plan, Osaka city, Sakai city, and other surrounding cities in Osaka prefecture, were to be dissolved and – similarly to Tokyo urban wards within Tokyo – subdivided into special wards that have a status as municipalities but leave some municipal tasks and revenues to the prefectural administration. As political resistance grew, notably the opposition to the plan in Sakai city expressed in the 2013 mayoral election, the concrete plan was reduced to, at least as a first step, abolish only Osaka city. As in Tokyo, the metropolis would have continued to include all other municipalities of the prefecture and serve as prefectural government for them.
Politics of Osaka City, as in all municipalities of Japan, takes place in the framework of local autonomy that is guaranteed by chapter 8 of the Constitution and laid out in the Local Autonomy Law. As one of Japan's 20 major cities designated by government ordinance, Osaka City has some administrative responsibilities that are handled by the prefectures in ordinary municipalities and is subdivided into wards.
People's Life First was a short-lived political party in Japan. It had 37 out of the 480 seats in the House of Representatives, and 12 in the 242-member House of Councillors. On 28 November 2012, the party merged into Governor of Shiga Yukiko Kada's Japan Future Party based in Ōtsu.
The Japan Restoration Party, also referred to in English as the Japan Restoration Association, was a Japanese political party. It was launched on 12 September 2012 and gained official recognition on 28 September 2012. The party grew from the regional Osaka Restoration Association, headed by Tōru Hashimoto, Mayor of Osaka, and Ichirō Matsui, Governor of Osaka Prefecture.
The Party for Japanese Kokoro, officially the Party to Cherish the Heart of Japan, was a Japanese political party. It was formed as the Party for Future Generations on 1 August 2014 by a group of Diet members led by Shintarō Ishihara. The party adopted its final name in December 2015, and ended up dissolving in November 2018.
The Japan Innovation Party was a political party in Japan. It was launched on 22 September 2014, following the merger of the Japan Restoration Party headed by Tōru Hashimoto, and the Unity Party, led by Kenji Eda. On 27 March 2016 the party merged with the Democratic Party of Japan and Vision of Reform to form the Democratic Party (Minshintō).
General elections were held in Japan on 22 October 2017. Voting took place in all Representatives constituencies of Japan – 289 single-member districts and eleven proportional blocks – in order to appoint all 465 members of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the then 707-member bicameral National Diet of Japan. Incumbent Prime Minister Shinzō Abe's governing coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Komeito party retained their seats in signs of what was perceived as weak opposition. The PM won his fourth term in office and held on to the two-thirds supermajority in order to implement policies on revising the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.
The first stage of the 18th unified local elections in Japan took place on April 12, 2015. The Liberal Democratic Party under leadership of Shinzo Abe was the overall victor, winning many races including all ten gubernatorial races and 1,153 of the 2,284 assembly seats at stake. Further elections for municipal mayors and assemblies took place on April 26.
House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on Sunday 10 July 2016 to elect 121 of the 242 members of the House of Councillors, the upper house of the National Diet, for a term of six years. As a result of the election, the Liberal Democratic Party–Komeito coalition gained ten seats for a total of 145, the largest coalition achieved since the size of the house was set at 242 seats.
The Japan Innovation Party is a conservative and right-wing populist political party in Japan. Formed as Initiatives from Osaka in October 2015 from a split in the old Japan Innovation Party, the party became the third-biggest opposition party in the National Diet following the July 2016 House of Councillors election.
Hirofumi Yoshimura is a Japanese politician currently serving as the Governor of Osaka Prefecture. He assumed office in April 2019. He has been described as a conservative.
The Democratic Party, abbreviated as DP, was a political party in Japan. It was the largest opposition political party in Japan from 2016 until its marginalization in the House of Representatives in 2017. The party was founded on 27 March 2016 from the merger of the Democratic Party of Japan and the Japan Innovation Party. The majority of the party split on 28 September 2017, before the 2017 general election, with many its members contesting the election as candidates for the Party of Hope, Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan or as party members without nomination. On 7 May 2018 the DP merged with the Party of Hope to form the Democratic Party for the People.
Takayuki Shimizu is a Japanese television announcer and politician of the Initiatives from Osaka party. He is serving his first term as a member of the House of Councillors in the National Diet, representing the Hyogo at-large district.
