New Conservative Party (Japan)

This article is about the political party in Japan. For other uses, see New Conservative Party (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Conservative Party of Japan.

The New Conservative Party (NCP) was the name of two now-defunct political parties in Japan with a common lineage.

The first incarnation of the party (保守党, Hoshutō, lit. 'Conservative Party') was founded on April 3, 2000 by 20 lower house and 6 upper house defectors from the Liberal Party. This party was dissolved briefly and then re-established (as 保守新党, Hoshu Shintō, lit. 'New Conservative Party') on December 25, 2002 in order to accommodate defectors from the Democratic Party of Japan.

The party eventually merged with the Liberal Democratic Party after the 2003 election.

Party		Proportional			Constituency			Total seats	+/–
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Liberal Democratic Party	15,163,458	25.44	55	22,831,327	38.25	128	183	–76
	Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan	15,897,234	26.67	56	22,215,621	37.22	115	171	+75
	Nippon Ishin no Kai	9,692,732	16.26	32	5,902,793	9.89	25	57	+16
	Komeito	5,372,383	9.01	15	702,931	1.18	6	21	-11
	Japanese Communist Party	4,775,437	8.01	13	2,452,630	4.11	2	15	+5
	Reiwa Shinsengumi	2,728,326	4.58	5	298,080	0.50	0	5	+2
	Democratic Party for the People	2,056,723	3.45	0	946,812	1.59	4	4	-7
	Sanseitō	1,796,788	3.01	0	500,542	0.84	0	0	New
	Social Democratic Party	1,152,588	1.93	0	563,193	0.94	2	2	+1
	Conservative Party of Japan	546,970	0.92	0	151,091	0.25	0	0	New
	NHK Party	343,661	0.58	0	89,449	0.15	0	0	New
	Shiji Seitō Nashi	66,142	0.11	0				0	0
	New Party to Strengthen Corona Countermeasures by Change of Government	6,620	0.01	0				0	New
	Kunimori Conservative Party				29,306	0.05	0	0	New
	Love Earth Party				5,350	0.01	0	0	New
	Nippon Spirits Party				4,552	0.01	0	0	0
	Reform Future Party				3,698	0.01	0	0	0
	Renewal Party				2,750	0.00	0	0	0
	Party for a Successful Japan				1,630	0.00	0	0	0
	Independents				2,990,704	5.01	7	7	–5
Total		59,599,062	100.00	176	59,692,459	100.00	289	465	0
Valid votes		59,599,062	97.82		59,692,459	97.74
Invalid/blank votes		1,325,366	2.18		1,383,227	2.26
Total votes		60,924,428	100.00		61,075,686	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		104,727,103	58.17		104,727,103	58.32
Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

Second New Conservative Party

New Conservative Party
Leader	Hiroshi Kumagai
Founded	December 25, 2002
Dissolved	November 10, 2003
Merger of	New Conservative Party (2000) Democratic Party of Japan (defectors)
Merged into	Liberal Democratic Party
Ideology	Conservatism Reformism
Political position	Right-wing
Website
http://www.hoshushintoh.com/
Politics of Japan Political parties Elections

Japan's Public Offices Election Law prohibits lawmakers that were elected to proportional representation seats from switching to a party that they had competed against in the last election without first resigning their seat, so the original incarnation of the New Conservative Party was unable to accept defectors from the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) into its ranks.

The dissolution and re-establishment of the party on December 25, 2002 created a new legal entity, unconstrained by this rule. This allowed Hiroshi Kumagai and four other disgruntled DPJ members (Takao Satō, Yoichiro Esaki, Zenjiro Kaneko and Eriko Yamatani) to form the new party together with nine members from its previous incarnation, with Kumagai becoming the party leader. The new party took over the role of its predecessor in the LDP-led ruling coalition.

The party was a conservative reformist party and was very right-wing. After the November 2003 general election, the New Conservative Party was left with only four members in the House of Representatives, down from nine prior to the election. Among the losers in the election was the party president, Hiroshi Kumagai.

On November 10, 2003, then-Prime Minister Koizumi proposed that the NCP merge with the LDP. The secretary-general of the NCP, Toshihiro Nikai, confirmed the merger, stating "We humbly received the proposal and, after discussion within the party, we agreed to accept the proposal to deliver the policies we promised to voters."

Leaders

No.	Name	Image	Term of office
			Took office	Left office
Preceding party: New Conservative Party (2000)
1	Hiroshi Kumagai		December 25 2002	November 10 2003
Successor party: Liberal Democratic Party

Electoral results

House of Representatives

House of Representatives

Election	Leader	# of seats won	# of Constituency votes	% of Constituency vote	# of PR Block votes	% of PR Block vote
2000	Chikage Oogi	7 / 480	1,230,464	2.02%	247,334	0.41%
2003	Hiroshi Kumagai	4 / 480	791,588	1.33	-	-

House of Councillors

House of Councillors

Election	Leader	No. of seats total	No. of seats won	No. of National votes	% of National vote	Majority/minority
2001	Chikage Oogi	4 / 247	1 / 121	1,275,002	2.33	Minority

See also

• Politics of Japan
• Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
• 2003 Japan general election