Politics of Japan are conducted in a framework of a dominant-party bicameral parliamentary constitutional monarchy, in which the Emperor is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government and the head of the Cabinet, which directs the executive branch.
Taxation in Japan is based primarily upon a national income tax (所得税) and a residential tax (住民税) based upon one's area of residence. There are consumption taxes and excise taxes at the national level, an enterprise tax and a vehicle tax at the prefectural level and a property tax at the municipal level.
The Democratic Party of Japan was a centrist to centre-left liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016.
Naoto Kan is a Japanese politician who served as 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 more than one year, with his predecessors Yukio Hatoyama, Tarō Asō, Yasuo Fukuda, and Shinzo Abe either resigning prematurely or losing an election. On 26 August 2011, Kan announced his resignation. Yoshihiko Noda was elected as his successor. On 1 August 2012, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Kan would be one of the members of the UN high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda.
Ichirō Ozawa is a Japanese politician and has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1969, representing the Iwate 3rd district. He is often dubbed the "Shadow Shōgun" due to his back-room influence.
Hirohisa Fujii was a Japanese politician who was a member of the House of Councillors from 1977 to 1986, and of the House of Representatives from 1990 to 2012. He served two terms as Minister of Finance, and as Secretary General of the Liberal Party and the Democratic Party of Japan.
Sadakazu Tanigaki is a Japanese politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from 1983 to 2016, as Minister of Finance from 2003 to 2006, as President of the Liberal Democratic Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2009 to 2012, as Minister of Justice from 2012 to 2014, and as LDP Secretary-General from 2014 to 2016. He was only the second LDP leader who was not simultaneously Prime Minister of Japan. He retired from politics following a spinal cord injury in 2016 that saw him using a wheelchair.
Yukio Hatoyama is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and Leader of the Democratic Party of Japan from 2009 to 2010. He was the first Prime Minister from the modern Democratic Party of Japan. Hatoyama is currently the founder and leader of Kyowa Party, a minor political party established in 2020 after he announced his return to politics.
General elections were held in Japan on 20 October 1996. A coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Party Sakigake and the Social Democratic Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto of the LDP won the most seats.
Yōichi Masuzoe is a Japanese politician who was elected to the position of governor of Tokyo in 2014 and resigned in June 2016 due to the misuse of public funds. He was previously a member of the Japanese House of Councillors and the Japanese Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare. Before entering politics, he became well known in Japan as a television commentator on political issues.
Yoshihiko Noda is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and Leader of the Democratic Party of Japan from 2011 to 2012. He is a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, and a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet. He was named to succeed Naoto Kan as a result of a runoff vote against Banri Kaieda in his party, and was formally appointed by the Emperor Akihito on 2 September 2011.
Goshi Hosono is a Japanese politician and a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet. A native of Ōmihachiman, Shiga and graduate of Kyoto University, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 2000. He was the Minister of Environment and Minister of State for Nuclear Power Policy and Administration in the cabinet of Yoshihiko Noda. He represents the 5th District of Shizuoka prefecture.
Sumio Mabuchi is a Japanese politician and a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet.
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 2011 Democratic Party of Japan leadership election took place on August 29, 2011. The election chose Yoshihiko Noda as the successor to Naoto Kan as president of the Democratic Party (Minshutō) of Japan. The designation of the new party president as prime minister in the Diet took place on August 30; Kan remained as acting prime minister until his successor's formal appointment ceremony with the Emperor. In June 2011, Kan had announced to resign once three conditions have been met: passage of the second extra budget for fiscal 2011, passage of a bill to promote the use renewable energy and passage of a bill to issue new debt covering bonds. The extra budget was passed in July; after an agreement with the opposition was struck on reforming the child allowance introduced by the Democratic Party, the renewable energies bill and the bond ceiling increase passed through the Diet on August 26, 2011.
Banri Kaieda is a Japanese politician who is serving as the Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan since 2021. A member of the House of Representatives of Japan, he also served as the President of the Democratic Party of Japan between 2012 and 2014.
The Kizuna Party was a center-left political party in Japan that was formed in January 2012. The party was created by nine the House of Representatives members who resigned from Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Democratic Party of Japan on December 30, 2011, in protest of the latter's decision to raise to country's consumption tax rate from 5% to 10% in two years.
Events in the year 2012 in Japan.
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 Kan Cabinet was the cabinet governing Japan from June 2010 to September 2011 under the leadership of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who came into power after winning the DPJ leadership election in June 2010. The Kan Cabinet oversaw the response to the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the scaling-down of Japan's nuclear energy dependence following the nuclear disaster at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
